Tunisia: Understanding Conflict 2012 - Johns Hopkins School of ...

Recommendations Moving Forward
To International Donors
• The main problem that will derail Tunisia’s transition in the medium term is
unemployment and economic underdevelopment in the interior of the country.
International donors should ensure that a large portion of their civil society
capacity-building activities have clear impacts for job creation or economic
linkages. Support to local trade associations or entrepreneurship training are
among the activities that could bolster local capacity to improve the economic
realities from a grass-roots level.
• With a huge surge in the number of NGOs and civil society organizations, greater
coordination is needed on issues of common concern. Currently, coalitions are
being built through personal networks and through Facebook. The U.S. government
or another donor should seek Tunisian partners to build a centralized web
portal to coordinate the activities of Tunisian associations, with a focus on
coalition building and solutions to work across geographic divides.
To International and Local NGOs
• A major aspect of Tunisian civil society that is currently opaque is how local civil
society groups are associated with political parties and are being used to build local
support, particularly for Ennahdha. Organizations with transparency-related
missions should investigate how political parties are using local civil society
organizations, specifically whether party resources are being used to effectively buy
local support.
To the UGTT
• Strikes and sit-ins around the country are harming Tunisia’s economic prospects and
deterring international investment in the country, while the UGTT seems to support
strikes de facto with relatively minimal central coordination. The UGTT should,
with the input of local syndicates, generate a set of recommendations to political
leadership to protect workers’ rights while promoting medium- and long-term
124