Tunisia Economic Resilience & Inclusion (TERI)

To ensure efficient monitoring of structuring reforms program, the World Bank is supporting the Government in designing, developing, and deploying an integrated IT platform for the management of reform projects. This platform predominantly monitors the progress of the CwA matrix of reforms as well as the associated budget support matrices. The developed IT platform will integrate the appropriate monitoring, evaluation, and reporting tools necessary to efficiently monitor the progress of relevant reforms and will link ministries, partners, and donors on a single platform.

In response to growing socio-economic challenges, the Government of Tunisia is developing and implementing a series of structural reforms as part of the national reform program published in June 2022 to restart the economy, avert a fiscal crisis, and restore citizens’ trust in institutions. To enable this reform agenda, a structured and cross-cutting process for the identification, selection, and implementation of priority reforms involving relevant ministries and public enterprises is critical. Through the establishment of a Delivery Unit (DU) anchored at the Presidency of the Government, the World Bank offers technical assistance which aims to: (i) support the strategic planning process towards achieving the expected reform outcomes; (ii) help coordinate the reforms and support their implementation through proactive dialogue with both public decision-makers and those responsible for day-to-day implementation; and (iii) monitor the whole process to identify and address issues when progress falls short of commitments.

Non-performing loans are a burden to the health of a country’s banking system and considerably restrict access to credit. In Tunisia, where the ratio of NPLs has been historically and structurally high, NPLs represent a barrier to economic growth. The objective of this project is to support the Central Bank and the Government in developing and implementing a national program for Non-Performing Loans resolution and prevention, which addresses the emergence and persistence of a high volume of NPLs. Accelerating NPL resolution in Tunisia and improving NPL prevention will allow greater financial sector stability and higher profitability for banks in the long term, therefore contributing to improved access to credit for SMEs, increased investments, and  job creation.

Creating economic opportunities throughout Tunisia, and more specifically in lagging regions, is an important development objective of the TERI Umbrella program. The technical assistance provided through CwA MDTF is supporting the government in developing a master plan along the Sfax – Sidi Bouzid - Kasserine road corridor that will promote greater inclusion by strategically connecting the highly productive coastal city of Sfax to lesser productive inland regions near Kasserine and Sidi Bouzid via a strategic territorial development approach and a reinforced institutional framework to establish a long-term territorial development plan. This newly defined regional approach (i) aims at boosting economic activity in the project area; (ii) facilitate trade and transport logistics along the defined corridor; (iii) support access to markets; and (iv) promote greater economic and social inclusion. The regional investment climate is also expected to improve through the project’s facilitation of private sector investments and business.

Despite significant reforms implemented over the past decade, the Tunisian private sector’s development trajectory remains hampered by bureaucratic complexity and financial constraints. While access to financial services has improved, it remains low compared to similar countries. Against this background, the World Bank is supporting the modernization and digitization of compliance management for the Registre National des Entreprises (RNE) to (i) improve access to necessary information for economic actors; (ii) promote the transparency of legal, financial, and economic transactions of companies; and (iii) promote the duration of litigation through more reliable information for both the financial and judicial sectors. The project aims to ensure the automated processing of compliance files, detect companies not registered in the RNE, and have a data dictionary and reference systems in line with other public databases to ensure data reliability.

Deteriorating logistics represents a major bottleneck for Tunisia’s trade and economy, as confirmed by the doubling of days needed to clear exports through customs between 2013 and 2019. Therefore, the digitalization of the administration and the implementation of customs reforms represents a critical priority to bolster Tunisian firms’ competitiveness and increase the attractiveness of Tunisia for private investments. To offer solutions against this context, the World Bank is providing technical assistance to support customs modernization in Tunisia. The aim is to support both the implementation of a new customs IT system as well as promoting the process of customs regulations reform.

The World Bank is currently supporting the Tunisian Central Bank (CBT) in improving its understanding of value chains, collection and management of credit and financial data, risk supervision capability, as well as policy formulation and advocacy capability in relation to value chains. In Tunisia, two pilot value chains in cereal and olive oil production were chosen, as they offer significantly positive prospects with regards respectively to better food security and higher revenue in agriculture. These two value chains were selected jointly with the CBT for the size of their employment capacity, contrasting financing modes, and impact on foreign exchange generation and the national budget.

In December 2021, the Government of Tunisia launched a project development facility (PDF) to accelerate the development of a pipeline of public-private partnerships (PPP) projects in the country. Created as a special fund under national law, the structuring and preparation of the mechanism greatly benefitted from the World Bank’s technical assistance. In close collaboration with Tunisia's National PPP Unit (IGPPP), the World Bank is helping design the fund's governance, business plan, and operating procedures. The PDF is set to operate for five years, and it is forecasted to support the government in delivering an ambitious PPP program of more than US$4.5 billion in investments targeting strategic sectors such as renewable energies, sustainable transport, water desalination, and wastewater treatment.

Partnerships for entrepreneurship (PPEs) aim to foster innovative forms of private-sector initiatives and public-private collaborations to strengthen the delivery of basic services at the local level. This project will enable municipalities, or government entities providing local services, to crowd-in private sector initiative through the design and launch of a project accelerator. The setting up of this mechanism intends to support entrepreneurs to develop and submit proposals of impactful projects and complements existing work on strengthening the PPP framework in Tunisia. Successful delivery of pilot programs will serve as examples and promote the scale-up and/or emergence of innovative public-private projects, diffusing a culture of quality management in the local administration.

The main purpose of the CwA initiative is to support Compact Countries in attracting more investment through the implementation of relevant reforms and the improvement of communication and marketing of investment opportunities. In June 2022, the CwA MDTF supported the government in organizing the 20^th edition of the Tunisia Investment Forum, which gathered more than 1,000 participants including officials, stakeholders, foreign and domestic investors in Tunisia, as well as a foreign delegation of potential investors in Tunisia. The support will also include the creation of a prospectus of investment opportunities in Tunisia to promote higher levels of domestic and international investments in Tunisia. Facilitating the ability to invest in Tunisia is essential to boost the country’s private sector and promote job-creating growth.