Project Case Study
Supporting Public Administration Reform in Tunisia
Technical Assistance to Overcome Challenges and Enhance Public Service Delivery
By 2015 it was clear that Tunisia was the sole remaining success story of the Arab Spring. But it faced significant challenges, including rising extremism, economic decline, and major labour disputes. The country was grappling with very high youth unemployment, and persistent social divisions between neglected interior regions and affluent coastal areas. A number of tragic terrorism incidents had undermined tourism and threatened to dampen economic recovery.
This project provided technical assistance to the Tunisian Presidency of Government to support its reform agenda for public administration, based on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between the Government of Tunisia and Government of the United Kingdom to help facilitate public administration reform. This MOU had three overarching aims:
- To increase the friendship and partnership between the two countries
- To provide the UK’s expertise on public administration reform for the benefit of the Tunisian Presidency of Government in its restructuring and reform agenda
- To build cooperation in the area of improving access to, quality and delivery of public services in Tunisia
The overall objective was to strengthen capacity of Tunisia’s centre of government institutions to undertake strategic planning, coordinate between key public entities, and to design and implement strategies and regulations to improve public service delivery.
The project can point to a number of key achievements, including:
- Supporting the restructuring of the Presidency of Government to improve its focus on core tasks
- Supporting the Tunisian Government to identify options for tackling an out-of-control public service wage bill
- Developing a methodology and tools for ISO 37001 (anti-bribery standard) implementation by Tunisian SOEs and other agencies
- Helping centre of government institutions identify options for low-cost innovations to improve the quality of service delivery and reduce corruption risks within the health sector
- Completing three influential studies for the British Embassy Tunis: (1) analysing the potential for trade deals between the EU and Tunisia; (2) assessing options for UK economic development programming in Tunisia; and (3) assessing options for UK education programming in Tunisia
