The National Pension and Social Welfare Fund (CNRPS) manages Tunisia’s statutory social security schemes for public-sector employees, including staff working for the State, local authorities, public institutions, and certain public-sector companies.

The modernization project addresses several key challenges:

• An information system in need of modernization: A rigid architecture limiting scalability, adaptability to evolving requirements, and large-scale security.
• Complex and sensitive processes: Risk of calculation errors and inconsistencies that could directly affect pensions and beneficiaries’ entitlements.
• Critical data volumes: More than 1.2 million affiliates, with highly sensitive personal and career-related data to manage and secure.

Launched in June 2020 with financial support from the World Bank, the GovTech Tunisia program aims to improve the accessibility, quality, and accountability of public services, particularly in education, social protection, and administrative reform.

Within this framework, the PNPA project aims to establish and operate the National Register of Administrative Procedures, a reference platform providing citizens and businesses with centralized access to information on administrative procedures.

The project addresses several key challenges:

• Fragmented information: Administrative procedures were dispersed across different sources, heterogeneous, sometimes undocumented, and occasionally outdated.
• Complex administrative procedures: Citizens and businesses faced difficulties identifying and understanding the procedures applicable to them.
• Large-scale harmonization: Aligning +25 ministries and public institutions around a common, regularly updated reference framework.

As part of Tunisia’s policies promoting social and economic inclusion, the country introduced the auto-entrepreneur status through Decree-Law No. 2020-33 of June 10, 2020. The status aims to simplify the creation and management of individual businesses through streamlined administrative, tax, and social security procedures.

The initiative seeks to facilitate the formalization of the informal economy and enable nearly 300,000 people to access auto-entrepreneur status across 560 economic activities.

The implementation addresses several key challenges:

• Formalization of the informal economy: Facilitating the integration of informal economic actors into the legal framework and improving their access to social services.
• Lack of reliable data: Improving visibility into the size, nature, and geographical distribution of informal activities.
• Digital accessibility: Designing simple and accessible services for users with limited digital literacy.

As part of the REMO program, which focuses on strengthening local governance and modernizing public services in Tunisia, GRB 2.0 (Budgetary Resources Management) aims to modernize the financial management of local authorities and accelerate their digital transformation.

The new version builds on GRB 1.0, whose architecture and operating model presented several limitations:

• Fragmented data: A separate database for each local authority.
• Outdated architecture: Client-server architecture and decentralized on-premise infrastructure.
• Limited interoperability: Restricted data exchanges with other financial systems, resulting in duplicate data entry and reprocessing.
• Need for a modern and scalable foundation: To support the digitalization of local authorities and the integration of new services.

As part of the “Support for Decentralization and Strengthening of Local Finances in Tunisia (ADEC II)” project, the initiative aims to strengthen municipalities’ capacity to provide more efficient, transparent, and accessible local administrative services to citizens.

Covering 7 governorates and 21 municipalities across northwestern and west-central Tunisia, the project introduces a new model for Municipal Administrative Service Centers (MSAs), directly managed by municipalities.

The main challenges include:

• Public service integration: Connecting multiple service providers and national information systems despite technical, compatibility, and synchronization challenges.
• Adoption of the new model: Supporting municipalities in adopting the solution and managing organizational change.
• Harmonization of practices: Ensuring a consistent service experience and standardized quality levels across municipalities.
• Territorial & financial inclusion: Bringing administrative services closer to rural populations and facilitating access to payment services for unbanked citizens.

Public debt management is a major challenge for Tunisia’s economic and financial stability. In a constantly evolving economic environment, public decision-makers need a reliable, consolidated view of debt to support informed decisions, anticipate developments, and optimize debt management.

Against this backdrop, FAST (Fiscal and Accounting System of Tunisia) launched a project to develop a decision-support platform for public debt management, providing decision-makers with the tools needed to analyze, anticipate, and effectively manage debt.

The project addressed several key challenges:

• Limited process digitalization: Manual processing of certain requests and agreements.
• Long processing times: Lengthy and inefficient loan request management processes.
• Fragmented systems: Coexistence of heterogeneous systems with limited interoperability.
• Scattered data: Lack of a centralized and consolidated view of debt-related information.

As part of the national “Towards Industry 4.0 in Tunisia” initiative, led by the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy, with the support of the European Union and the Invest for Jobs initiative, and implemented by GIZ Tunisia, the project aims to accelerate the modernization of Tunisian industry through innovation, technology adoption, and the transition to Industry 4.0.

However, the transformation of the industrial sector remains characterized by varying levels of maturity and technology adoption, making it challenging to assess progress at national level.

The key challenges included:

• Uneven maturity levels: Significant differences in Industry 4.0 adoption across companies and sectors.
• Limited visibility: Lack of a consolidated view of the digital maturity of Tunisia’s industrial sector and ongoing Industry 4.0 initiatives.
• Limited awareness: Uneven understanding of Industry 4.0 technologies, benefits, and challenges, particularly among SMEs.
• Limited decision-making data: Lack of reliable indicators to guide public policies, target investments, and monitor progress.

On behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and co-financed by the European Union, GIZ implements a support program for the African Union (AU) to facilitate trade negotiations and support the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

The program also operates at national level in 10 partner countries, including Tunisia, to support AfCFTA implementation and strengthen the involvement of SMEs and civil society through information sharing and awareness-raising.

A key challenge is to make the progress, opportunities, and potential impact of AfCFTA more visible and accessible, helping stakeholders better understand the process and encouraging their active participation.

Since the 2000s, Tunisia has faced a growing energy deficit. In response, the Tunisian government has adopted an energy transition strategy aimed, among other objectives, at reducing primary energy demand by 30%.

As part of the “Support for an Accelerated Tunisian Energy Transition (TETA)” project, the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (MIME), the National Agency for Energy Management (ANME), and the Tunisian Company of Electricity and Gas (STEG), in cooperation with GIZ, sought to develop a technology intelligence platform to support Tunisia’s energy transition.