African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
Politics
Home›African Arguments›Politics›Tunisian Civil Society needs transparent, efficient help from Europe – By Mourad Teyeb

Tunisian Civil Society needs transparent, efficient help from Europe – By Mourad Teyeb

By Uncategorised
July 19, 2013
1950
0

The European support to Tunisia should not turn into empowering the very people and groups against whom Tunisians revolted in 2011.

The European Union (EU) is Tunisia’s largest trading partner, buying €9.9bn out of Tunisia’s total €11.8bn exports in 2011; two thirds of Tunisia’s direct foreign investment comes from the EU and Tunisia was the first Mediterranean country to sign an Association Agreement with the EU, in July 1995.

Europe generates nearly two thirds of the number of tourists visiting the country every year.

With the political and financial support of the EU, the project “EU-Tunisia Migration Cooperation Agenda” (ETMA) is being implemented in partnership with the Tunisian government.

The EU has welcomed the 2011 Revolution in Tunisia very early in 2011 and announced support to the country’s political transition. Through its Embassy in Tunis, the EU’s contribution to the democratic process has been remarkable. It covered the economic, the political, the cultural and the social sectors.

Besides the economy and the pure political process, funding the Civil Society in countries moving towards democracy is of extreme importance. To everybody.

Civil society development engages people, organizations, and government bodies to improve their communities and foster good governance.

This is why pan-European donors (governments, foundations, institutes, NGOs…) need to support Tunisia’s ambitious democratic projects and serious initiatives mainly in the fields of Human Rights, Culture, Media and job creation. Direct funding, training and partnership, Tunisian start-ups and young activists can learn about advocacy and leadership and contribute to the implementation of Human Rights and democracy.

Tunisian Civil Society can also play a role in the job creation effort and the eradication of poverty and regional discrepancies.

Combating poverty and developing democracy are vital for the sustainability of Tunisia’s economy and the success of the democratic process. They constitute a key element in achieving security and stability and thus a means to limit, if not stop, organized crime and trans-country terrorism.

In fact, tackling poverty, Human Rights issues and Freedom of Information through advocacy and the Civil Society are vital in facing all sorts of extremism.

A lot of support, mainly financial, has also been provided by the private sector and the Civil Society in Europe.

It is today important that all this money, and other sorts of funding, goes to the right people and into the right programs and activities.

Recent events in Egypt showed how dangerous financial and logistic assistance could be if it is misused or if it goes to un-identified, sometimes suspicious, entities and persons.

Yet, the biggest threat to the democratic experience in Tunisia, and elsewhere, are the corrupt business and political lobbies that survived the pre-2011 dictatorship era. Most of these lobbies are still very influential and continue to defend their interests by all means possible. They still control the country’s media and most of them are very active in the Civil Society. And they continue to receive huge funding, from Europe and from other countries.

This means that they are still benefiting from the European money which is theoretically aimed at empowering the Civil Society, the media and the political parties.

Political and ideological orientations are often taken into consideration when funding NGOs and other initiatives, often despite their (corrupt) background and despite their past and present failure.

It is high time to understand that financing these corrupt and suspicious people and organizations by any means and under any platform can be very dangerous. Not only for the young, fragile democracy in Tunisia but also for its historic partners and neighbors.

Good intentions are not enough when dealing with security and the future of young generations in the Mediterranean region. When funding the Civil society and lay down partnership policies, it is today important to identify who’s who and to determine everybody’s real agendas.

Past and recent experiences have shown that wrong calculations often finish by restoring dictatorships. The same dictatorships that gave birth to different kinds of extremism in the region.

Prior to 2011, only a handful of Tunisian civil society organizations (CSOs) were active and independent. Today, the number of CSOs reached 15.000, according to government sources. Very few of these are active and even less report their funding sources and information about their budget.

Articles 35 to 44 of the Law 88-2011 organizing Associations in Tunisia offer an exhaustive accounting procedure and require from CSOs to present a strict financial plan.

Very few associations respond to these rules and many Civil Society actions and activities are today seen as suspicious in Tunisia.

Their funding policies are criticized for lacking transparency and many NGOs receive a lot of funding but they have no activities on the ground.

Mourad Teyeb is a Tunisian journalist.

 

 

TagsAfricaTunisia
Previous Article

Kenya, Zimbabwe, and South Africa: Violence and ...

Next Article

DRC/ North Kivu: Waiting for the intervention ...

Uncategorised

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Nairobi evictions 2020
    KenyaSociety

    Nairobi evicts 8,000 people amidst a pandemic and curfew

  • Africa InsidersSudan

    Insiders Insight: Change continues – incrementally – in Sudan

  • Politics

    Introducing The Nigeria Forum

Subscribe to our newsletter

Click here to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and never miss a thing!

  • 81.7K+
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Recent Posts

  • The unaccountability of Liberia’s polluting miners
  • Africa Elections 2023: All the upcoming votes
  • “Poking the Leopard’s Anus”: Legal Spectacle and Queer Feminist Politics
  • Introducing Parselelo and a new climate focus
  • The ‘Hustler’ Fund: Kenya’s Approach to National Transformation

Editor’s Picks

Editor's PicksSocietySudan

Charlie Chaplin and the reclaiming of Sudan

Khartoum’s locally-organised open air film screenings epitomise much about Sudan’s ongoing revolution. This article was made possible by the generous “supporter” subscribers of the Africa Insiders Newsletter. The little bit ...
  • The climate crisis has made weather patterns more extreme and unpredictable in northern Cameroon. Credit: Carsten ten Brink.

    The climate crisis tinderbox in northern Cameroon

    By Nalova Akua
    May 12, 2022
  • Mauritians protesting on the streets in August 2020. Credit: Matt Savi.

    Mauritius: A picture perfect democracy’s fall from grace

    By Roukaya Kasenally
    May 12, 2021
  • Refugees from Ukraine at the Polish border on 27 February 2022. Credit: Alexander Somto (Nze) Orah.

    “Only Ukrainians, not Blacks”: Fleeing African students face racism

    By Ope Adetayo
    March 3, 2022
  • Aderonke Ige at COP26 in Glasgow.

    We need a people-centred COP26. Instead, we have an elite marketplace

    By Aderonke Ige
    November 9, 2021

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • en English
    am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
By continuing to browse this site, you agree to our use of cookies.
en English
am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu