Interview with President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali by the Oxford Business Group
19 June 2009
Read by 2657 persons
The Oxford Business Group published an interview with President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in its annual report on Tunisia, "The Report, Tunisia 2009."
The Head of State discussed the country's main achievements over the past five years and national priorities in economic development, investment, youth, and employment, in the context of performance over the past two decades.
Question: In your opinion, what are the main achievements of Tunisia over the past five years?
Oxford Business Group Response: I would first like to point out that in recent years, we have made significant achievements in all areas, political, economic, social, and cultural, by opting for a global reformist approach that makes Tunisia's accession to the rank of a developed country an essential objective.
The indicators are there, highlighting the scale of what has been accomplished in this area. The growth rate averaged 5.3% at constant prices over the past five years. Per capita income has increased by half to reach 4800 dinars in 2008.
This positive assessment has been accompanied by increased diversification of the production base, strengthening the contribution of the service sector, and increasing the share of high-knowledge sectors. The increasingly rapid pace of investment has also continued.
The contribution of the private sector to investment efforts has strengthened. Foreign direct investment has increased as a result of our efforts to improve the business environment and ensure the ongoing support foreign investors receive in our country.
These achievements have also extended to the financial sector, thanks to the reform of the banking system to consolidate its financial base and improve the quality of its services, in addition to the revitalization of the financial market, the development of the insurance sector through the revision of the legislative and regulatory framework governing the sector, and the upgrading of institutions operating in this field.
The performance achieved in terms of growth and investment has had a positive impact on employment, which is a top national priority. The additional demand has indeed been met by 90%, which has reduced the unemployment rate to 14% in 2008.
Furthermore, and as part of our ongoing commitment to ensuring the balance between economic and social dimensions, Tunisia has made significant social achievements, illustrated by the continuous improvement of all indicators related to education, training, health, the environment, and living conditions in general. This has earned Tunisia the first rank in the Arab world in terms of quality of life, according to the global ranking established by the "International Living" foundation.
This honorable ranking is justified by the expansion of the middle class, which represents two-thirds of Tunisian society, the increase in life expectancy at birth to 74.8 years, the improvement of social coverage, which reached 93.3% in 2008, the reduction of the poverty rate to 3.8%, and the achievement of a school enrollment rate of over 99% of school-age children.
Our country has achieved such results while preserving internal and external financial balances. We have managed to control the budget deficit and improve indicators of external debt, with the reduction of debt service to 7.7% in 2008, compared to 13.3% in 2003. We have also been able to control price increases and keep them within acceptable limits.
In light of this data, it can be said that our country now has a diversified economy capable of interacting with and adapting to the changes in the global economy.
We continue to work to strengthen and develop our national economy, in the context of the current international situation, which the financial and economic crisis has made even more difficult and complex.
We will strive to increase the capacity of its structures and mechanisms and its competitiveness, to better integrate it into its external environment, and to consolidate its positions internationally.
Question: What are Tunisia's priorities in terms of economic development, given the successes achieved during the first phase of the privatization and economic liberalization plan?
Answer: Tunisia has indeed made significant progress towards economic liberalization and strengthening the role of the private sector.
Today, we aim to give new impetus to economic development work by deepening and accelerating the pace of reforms, the goal being to further increase competitiveness, to continue anchoring ourselves in the global economy, and to improve the business environment in order to make Tunisia a regional hub for business and services.
One of our main objectives in the coming period is to achieve a faster growth rate in order to contribute to expanding job prospects, particularly for university graduates, reducing the severity of unemployment, and improving living standards.
This requires mobilizing new sources of growth and further developing export activities by leveraging available assets and strengthening our country's position in foreign markets through better adaptation to the growth of global demand and promotion of partnership and foreign investment mechanisms.
One of the priorities of the coming period will also be to develop sectoral policies compatible with the requirements of strengthening the structure of our economy, diversifying its base, increasing the contribution of high-value-added sectors and employment providers of skills, modernizing the industrial fabric, promoting intangible investment niches, and developing the service sector.
Infrastructure development will also continue, given its impact in terms of supporting development efforts, strengthening complementarity between regions, and stimulating private investment in inland regions, in addition to supporting regional development programs, improving living conditions in all regions, and promoting sustainable and balanced development.
The next period requires inducing a comprehensive qualitative transformation of our economy, now that we have achieved the best possible achievements and performance despite the limited national resources we have and the many upheavals that have occurred on the international scene.
This will be the stage of concretizing the foundations of the knowledge economy and achieving the society of production, innovation, and initiative, a society capable of interacting with global upheavals and anticipating the unpredictable with the required speed and ability.
Our asset in this is our qualified human resources and adequate planning.
Question: The global economic crisis has caused a collapse in the rate of economic growth in Europe, which is Tunisia's largest trading partner. What could Tunisia do to maintain its competitiveness in the region, given this situation?
Answer: I share your view regarding the consequences of the global economic crisis and its negative impact on the economic and financial situation of many countries.
This crisis has indeed affected most of the economies of industrialized countries, including the member countries of the European Union, despite the rapid and unprecedented intervention aimed at curbing the effects of the crisis.
Current economic data indicate that industrialized countries have entered a phase of acute economic recession, the main manifestations of which are the decline in growth and the slowdown in economic activity, with the persistence of volatility in financial markets, which has negatively affected the rate of external demand and the flow of capital to emerging countries.
Given the degree of openness of the Tunisian economy to the outside world, it risks, like other emerging economies, suffering the effects of this crisis.
Tunisia took early measures regarding the seriousness of this crisis since the appearance of its first warning signs. At the beginning of 2008, we ordered the implementation of precautionary measures to protect our financial structures from its consequences.
To this end, we created a high-level committee responsible for monitoring and analyzing the developments of the global economic situation and taking appropriate and effective measures to curb its potential impact on the national economy.
We have taken a set of economic and financial measures aimed at protecting and improving the various attributes of competitiveness, as well as strengthening economic activity.
Among these measures, we have provided the necessary assistance to companies that have suffered from the crisis, significantly increased development budget credits for 2009, which will be allocated to the implementation of a set of structural projects in the areas of infrastructure, technology, and collective equipment, and opened a credit line of 100 million euros to encourage non-resident companies to carry out their investments in Tunisia, in addition to strengthening citizens' purchasing power through salary increases.
In order to improve the support for exports, precisely in the context of the current economic situation, we have put in place a program for the development of this sector and support for exporting companies.
This program is mainly based on strengthening the role of the Foreign Market Access Fund (FAMEX) to help 1000 companies and 80 professional organizations access new markets, as well as strengthening the financial guarantee fund to support the export of services.
We have also encouraged Tunisian companies to establish themselves abroad, to diversify and expand their markets, by raising the annual ceiling of the business travel bonus for exporters and the annual ceilings of authorized transfers for non-exporting resident companies for investment abroad.
In order to help businesses increase their competitiveness to ensure their sustainability and allow them to maintain jobs, the key interest rate has been lowered, which reduces the cost of financing and encourages investment.
If, thanks to the measures we ordered to be put in place as soon as the first signs of the crisis appeared, we have been able to prevent its direct effects on the banking system and the financial sector in general, we nevertheless continue to carefully monitor the fluctuations of the global economic situation and its potential consequences in order to spare our country its threats and its negative impacts on the national economy.
Question: How can Tunisia ensure that university graduates have the best possible place in the knowledge society?
Answer: You undoubtedly know how eager we are to encourage our country's adherence to the information society and to lay the foundations of the knowledge economy, within the framework of our national choices. We have ensured that the best possible use is made of the promising opportunities and broad prospects offered by modern technologies.
Insofar as the knowledge society relies essentially on the competence, knowledge, and know-how of human resources, Tunisia has continuously striven to reform the education and training system in order to adapt it to the requirements of the new economy based on the intelligence industry, in addition to the development and modernization of infrastructure in this area and the establishment of the appropriate legislative and regulatory framework to adapt to technological changes and establish the knowledge society.
Thanks to these policies, we have been able to promote the landscape of high-potential sectors and achieve excellent performance that has earned our country the first rank in Africa and the Maghreb in terms of ability to assimilate information and communication technologies, according to the ranking established by the World Economic Forum in its 2007-2008 report. The employability of graduates is among the main axes of the university reform that we have initiated.
This is why we have ensured that universities are encouraged to open up more to their socio-economic environment, to develop training programs that are more adapted to national needs, and to focus on training in high-potential areas such as computer science, telecommunications, science, and engineering.
We note with satisfaction the increase in the number of students opting for high-potential fields such as computer science, telecommunications, multimedia, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and others, in order to meet the needs of innovative companies and strengthen the country's ability to attract foreign investment.
The number of students in fields related to information and communication technologies amounts to nearly 50,000 students during the 2008-2009 academic year.
We also note with pride the position Tunisia occupies in this area. It has indeed become the favorite destination for large international firms that choose our country as an advanced site for the intelligence industry and the production of digital content for foreign markets, relying on the availability of well-trained and highly qualified human resources.
We continue to work to further improve the employability of graduates by increasing the number of students oriented towards technological fields by doubling the number of engineering graduates over the next three years (2009-2011) to reach the level of indicators of developed countries.
Question: Since the majority of the Tunisian population consists of young people, what measures have you taken to increase youth participation in political life?
Answer: Because we are convinced that youth is the pillar of the future, we have ensured the best possible conditions for their activity and participation in public life.
We have taken many initiatives to strengthen their role so that they are experienced in exercising responsibility and are stakeholders in the country's development.
This is how we lowered the age of eligibility for Parliament and municipal councils to 23 years and reduced the voting age from 20 to 18 years, which will allow more than half a million additional young people, boys and girls, to exercise their right to vote in the upcoming elections.
Given the importance of the role of parties in mentoring youth and meeting the conditions for political participation, the recent congress of the Constitutional Democratic Rally, the majority party, broadened the composition of its Central Committee to include more than 60 young men and women under the age of 30, bringing the proportion of young people in this governing body to 25%.
The dialogue with youth that we ordered to be organized from the first year of the Change constitutes an important confluence to associate this social category with public life and allow it to contribute to the definition of major national goals and choices.
The aim is also to take into account its expectations in terms of setting orientations and programs when developing development plans, in various fields.
The year 2008 was the year of global dialogue with youth, with the participation of hundreds of thousands of young Tunisians from within and outside the country. This dialogue led, for the first time in the country's history, to the development of a "Tunisian Youth Pact."
In concretization of the proposals that this dialogue had given rise to, we ordered the establishment of a national commission comprising representatives of all components of society, governmental organizations, political parties, and youth organizations, which will be responsible for developing a national strategy for our youth policy for the next five years (2009-2014). Political participation will be one of the main axes of this strategy.
In the same context and because of our commitment to the permanence of dialogue with youth, we ordered the creation of a permanent forum intended to be an open space for discussion and study of all topics related to the political and social life of youth.
Such reforms undoubtedly offer civil society institutions and structures broad latitude today to strengthen the adherence of young people, stimulate their participation, and energize their role in political and social life.
We are convinced that the participation of young people in the definition of future policies and their active involvement in the decision-making process and the clarification of choices can only strengthen their sense of responsibility.
Our slogan "Tunisia first, youth always" summarizes and expresses this orientation well, in the sense that mentoring youth and our commitment to constantly listening to their concerns and meeting their expectations are a daily action that knows no respite and that we do everything to realize and consolidate.
Question: How can Tunisia strengthen the role of civil society?
Answer: Based on our deep conviction that the complementarity between the role of the state and that of the associative fabric is part of the consecration of the value of participation and the concretization of the self-construction operation that is specific to any modern society that develops its own mechanisms, we have worked, since the Change in 1987, to restore vitality to civil society.
The rehabilitation of associative life has been one of the strategic choices of our country's pluralist democratic project. In this regard, we note with satisfaction the increase in the number of associations in Tunisia, the diversification of their activities and areas of intervention, and the expansion of their presence and audience. They now number 9000, compared to about 2000 in 1987, which has given civil society a remarkable vitality whose positive effects on public life we are beginning to perceive.
We have ensured that this sector is supported in terms of legislation and financing, so that associations are a space for the consecration of the values of democracy, dialogue, participation, volunteering, solidarity, and cooperation, and one of the mechanisms dedicated to the dissemination of the values of tolerance, moderation, the rooting of the concept of citizenship, and the strengthening of a deep awareness of rights and duties.
The openness that distinguishes Tunisian society, as well as the level of awareness, maturity, knowledge, and culture, and the achievements generated by our pluralist democratic path undoubtedly find their expression in the dynamic and pluralist life of the parties, which is the rule within the various elected councils and bodies, in addition to the transparency of the Administration, the frameworks of social dialogue, the right to information and communication, freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to difference, all factors favorable to the revitalization of the role of civil society in raising awareness and rooting civic values, without ever deviating from the nobility of associative action and its objectives.
We are moving forward on the path of respecting the right of associations and non-governmental organizations to exercise their activities freely and independently, while engaging them to develop their programs and increase their role within a civil society that reflects the specificities of Tunisian society and its aspirations for more progress and growth.
Posted on June 19, 2009
Businessnews
The Head of State discussed the country's main achievements over the past five years and national priorities in economic development, investment, youth, and employment, in the context of performance over the past two decades.
Question: In your opinion, what are the main achievements of Tunisia over the past five years?
Oxford Business Group Response: I would first like to point out that in recent years, we have made significant achievements in all areas, political, economic, social, and cultural, by opting for a global reformist approach that makes Tunisia's accession to the rank of a developed country an essential objective.
The indicators are there, highlighting the scale of what has been accomplished in this area. The growth rate averaged 5.3% at constant prices over the past five years. Per capita income has increased by half to reach 4800 dinars in 2008.
This positive assessment has been accompanied by increased diversification of the production base, strengthening the contribution of the service sector, and increasing the share of high-knowledge sectors. The increasingly rapid pace of investment has also continued.
The contribution of the private sector to investment efforts has strengthened. Foreign direct investment has increased as a result of our efforts to improve the business environment and ensure the ongoing support foreign investors receive in our country.
These achievements have also extended to the financial sector, thanks to the reform of the banking system to consolidate its financial base and improve the quality of its services, in addition to the revitalization of the financial market, the development of the insurance sector through the revision of the legislative and regulatory framework governing the sector, and the upgrading of institutions operating in this field.
The performance achieved in terms of growth and investment has had a positive impact on employment, which is a top national priority. The additional demand has indeed been met by 90%, which has reduced the unemployment rate to 14% in 2008.
Furthermore, and as part of our ongoing commitment to ensuring the balance between economic and social dimensions, Tunisia has made significant social achievements, illustrated by the continuous improvement of all indicators related to education, training, health, the environment, and living conditions in general. This has earned Tunisia the first rank in the Arab world in terms of quality of life, according to the global ranking established by the "International Living" foundation.
This honorable ranking is justified by the expansion of the middle class, which represents two-thirds of Tunisian society, the increase in life expectancy at birth to 74.8 years, the improvement of social coverage, which reached 93.3% in 2008, the reduction of the poverty rate to 3.8%, and the achievement of a school enrollment rate of over 99% of school-age children.
Our country has achieved such results while preserving internal and external financial balances. We have managed to control the budget deficit and improve indicators of external debt, with the reduction of debt service to 7.7% in 2008, compared to 13.3% in 2003. We have also been able to control price increases and keep them within acceptable limits.
In light of this data, it can be said that our country now has a diversified economy capable of interacting with and adapting to the changes in the global economy.
We continue to work to strengthen and develop our national economy, in the context of the current international situation, which the financial and economic crisis has made even more difficult and complex.
We will strive to increase the capacity of its structures and mechanisms and its competitiveness, to better integrate it into its external environment, and to consolidate its positions internationally.
Question: What are Tunisia's priorities in terms of economic development, given the successes achieved during the first phase of the privatization and economic liberalization plan?
Answer: Tunisia has indeed made significant progress towards economic liberalization and strengthening the role of the private sector.
Today, we aim to give new impetus to economic development work by deepening and accelerating the pace of reforms, the goal being to further increase competitiveness, to continue anchoring ourselves in the global economy, and to improve the business environment in order to make Tunisia a regional hub for business and services.
One of our main objectives in the coming period is to achieve a faster growth rate in order to contribute to expanding job prospects, particularly for university graduates, reducing the severity of unemployment, and improving living standards.
This requires mobilizing new sources of growth and further developing export activities by leveraging available assets and strengthening our country's position in foreign markets through better adaptation to the growth of global demand and promotion of partnership and foreign investment mechanisms.
One of the priorities of the coming period will also be to develop sectoral policies compatible with the requirements of strengthening the structure of our economy, diversifying its base, increasing the contribution of high-value-added sectors and employment providers of skills, modernizing the industrial fabric, promoting intangible investment niches, and developing the service sector.
Infrastructure development will also continue, given its impact in terms of supporting development efforts, strengthening complementarity between regions, and stimulating private investment in inland regions, in addition to supporting regional development programs, improving living conditions in all regions, and promoting sustainable and balanced development.
The next period requires inducing a comprehensive qualitative transformation of our economy, now that we have achieved the best possible achievements and performance despite the limited national resources we have and the many upheavals that have occurred on the international scene.
This will be the stage of concretizing the foundations of the knowledge economy and achieving the society of production, innovation, and initiative, a society capable of interacting with global upheavals and anticipating the unpredictable with the required speed and ability.
Our asset in this is our qualified human resources and adequate planning.
Question: The global economic crisis has caused a collapse in the rate of economic growth in Europe, which is Tunisia's largest trading partner. What could Tunisia do to maintain its competitiveness in the region, given this situation?
Answer: I share your view regarding the consequences of the global economic crisis and its negative impact on the economic and financial situation of many countries.
This crisis has indeed affected most of the economies of industrialized countries, including the member countries of the European Union, despite the rapid and unprecedented intervention aimed at curbing the effects of the crisis.
Current economic data indicate that industrialized countries have entered a phase of acute economic recession, the main manifestations of which are the decline in growth and the slowdown in economic activity, with the persistence of volatility in financial markets, which has negatively affected the rate of external demand and the flow of capital to emerging countries.
Given the degree of openness of the Tunisian economy to the outside world, it risks, like other emerging economies, suffering the effects of this crisis.
Tunisia took early measures regarding the seriousness of this crisis since the appearance of its first warning signs. At the beginning of 2008, we ordered the implementation of precautionary measures to protect our financial structures from its consequences.
To this end, we created a high-level committee responsible for monitoring and analyzing the developments of the global economic situation and taking appropriate and effective measures to curb its potential impact on the national economy.
We have taken a set of economic and financial measures aimed at protecting and improving the various attributes of competitiveness, as well as strengthening economic activity.
Among these measures, we have provided the necessary assistance to companies that have suffered from the crisis, significantly increased development budget credits for 2009, which will be allocated to the implementation of a set of structural projects in the areas of infrastructure, technology, and collective equipment, and opened a credit line of 100 million euros to encourage non-resident companies to carry out their investments in Tunisia, in addition to strengthening citizens' purchasing power through salary increases.
In order to improve the support for exports, precisely in the context of the current economic situation, we have put in place a program for the development of this sector and support for exporting companies.
This program is mainly based on strengthening the role of the Foreign Market Access Fund (FAMEX) to help 1000 companies and 80 professional organizations access new markets, as well as strengthening the financial guarantee fund to support the export of services.
We have also encouraged Tunisian companies to establish themselves abroad, to diversify and expand their markets, by raising the annual ceiling of the business travel bonus for exporters and the annual ceilings of authorized transfers for non-exporting resident companies for investment abroad.
In order to help businesses increase their competitiveness to ensure their sustainability and allow them to maintain jobs, the key interest rate has been lowered, which reduces the cost of financing and encourages investment.
If, thanks to the measures we ordered to be put in place as soon as the first signs of the crisis appeared, we have been able to prevent its direct effects on the banking system and the financial sector in general, we nevertheless continue to carefully monitor the fluctuations of the global economic situation and its potential consequences in order to spare our country its threats and its negative impacts on the national economy.
Question: How can Tunisia ensure that university graduates have the best possible place in the knowledge society?
Answer: You undoubtedly know how eager we are to encourage our country's adherence to the information society and to lay the foundations of the knowledge economy, within the framework of our national choices. We have ensured that the best possible use is made of the promising opportunities and broad prospects offered by modern technologies.
Insofar as the knowledge society relies essentially on the competence, knowledge, and know-how of human resources, Tunisia has continuously striven to reform the education and training system in order to adapt it to the requirements of the new economy based on the intelligence industry, in addition to the development and modernization of infrastructure in this area and the establishment of the appropriate legislative and regulatory framework to adapt to technological changes and establish the knowledge society.
Thanks to these policies, we have been able to promote the landscape of high-potential sectors and achieve excellent performance that has earned our country the first rank in Africa and the Maghreb in terms of ability to assimilate information and communication technologies, according to the ranking established by the World Economic Forum in its 2007-2008 report. The employability of graduates is among the main axes of the university reform that we have initiated.
This is why we have ensured that universities are encouraged to open up more to their socio-economic environment, to develop training programs that are more adapted to national needs, and to focus on training in high-potential areas such as computer science, telecommunications, science, and engineering.
We note with satisfaction the increase in the number of students opting for high-potential fields such as computer science, telecommunications, multimedia, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and others, in order to meet the needs of innovative companies and strengthen the country's ability to attract foreign investment.
The number of students in fields related to information and communication technologies amounts to nearly 50,000 students during the 2008-2009 academic year.
We also note with pride the position Tunisia occupies in this area. It has indeed become the favorite destination for large international firms that choose our country as an advanced site for the intelligence industry and the production of digital content for foreign markets, relying on the availability of well-trained and highly qualified human resources.
We continue to work to further improve the employability of graduates by increasing the number of students oriented towards technological fields by doubling the number of engineering graduates over the next three years (2009-2011) to reach the level of indicators of developed countries.
Question: Since the majority of the Tunisian population consists of young people, what measures have you taken to increase youth participation in political life?
Answer: Because we are convinced that youth is the pillar of the future, we have ensured the best possible conditions for their activity and participation in public life.
We have taken many initiatives to strengthen their role so that they are experienced in exercising responsibility and are stakeholders in the country's development.
This is how we lowered the age of eligibility for Parliament and municipal councils to 23 years and reduced the voting age from 20 to 18 years, which will allow more than half a million additional young people, boys and girls, to exercise their right to vote in the upcoming elections.
Given the importance of the role of parties in mentoring youth and meeting the conditions for political participation, the recent congress of the Constitutional Democratic Rally, the majority party, broadened the composition of its Central Committee to include more than 60 young men and women under the age of 30, bringing the proportion of young people in this governing body to 25%.
The dialogue with youth that we ordered to be organized from the first year of the Change constitutes an important confluence to associate this social category with public life and allow it to contribute to the definition of major national goals and choices.
The aim is also to take into account its expectations in terms of setting orientations and programs when developing development plans, in various fields.
The year 2008 was the year of global dialogue with youth, with the participation of hundreds of thousands of young Tunisians from within and outside the country. This dialogue led, for the first time in the country's history, to the development of a "Tunisian Youth Pact."
In concretization of the proposals that this dialogue had given rise to, we ordered the establishment of a national commission comprising representatives of all components of society, governmental organizations, political parties, and youth organizations, which will be responsible for developing a national strategy for our youth policy for the next five years (2009-2014). Political participation will be one of the main axes of this strategy.
In the same context and because of our commitment to the permanence of dialogue with youth, we ordered the creation of a permanent forum intended to be an open space for discussion and study of all topics related to the political and social life of youth.
Such reforms undoubtedly offer civil society institutions and structures broad latitude today to strengthen the adherence of young people, stimulate their participation, and energize their role in political and social life.
We are convinced that the participation of young people in the definition of future policies and their active involvement in the decision-making process and the clarification of choices can only strengthen their sense of responsibility.
Our slogan "Tunisia first, youth always" summarizes and expresses this orientation well, in the sense that mentoring youth and our commitment to constantly listening to their concerns and meeting their expectations are a daily action that knows no respite and that we do everything to realize and consolidate.
Question: How can Tunisia strengthen the role of civil society?
Answer: Based on our deep conviction that the complementarity between the role of the state and that of the associative fabric is part of the consecration of the value of participation and the concretization of the self-construction operation that is specific to any modern society that develops its own mechanisms, we have worked, since the Change in 1987, to restore vitality to civil society.
The rehabilitation of associative life has been one of the strategic choices of our country's pluralist democratic project. In this regard, we note with satisfaction the increase in the number of associations in Tunisia, the diversification of their activities and areas of intervention, and the expansion of their presence and audience. They now number 9000, compared to about 2000 in 1987, which has given civil society a remarkable vitality whose positive effects on public life we are beginning to perceive.
We have ensured that this sector is supported in terms of legislation and financing, so that associations are a space for the consecration of the values of democracy, dialogue, participation, volunteering, solidarity, and cooperation, and one of the mechanisms dedicated to the dissemination of the values of tolerance, moderation, the rooting of the concept of citizenship, and the strengthening of a deep awareness of rights and duties.
The openness that distinguishes Tunisian society, as well as the level of awareness, maturity, knowledge, and culture, and the achievements generated by our pluralist democratic path undoubtedly find their expression in the dynamic and pluralist life of the parties, which is the rule within the various elected councils and bodies, in addition to the transparency of the Administration, the frameworks of social dialogue, the right to information and communication, freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to difference, all factors favorable to the revitalization of the role of civil society in raising awareness and rooting civic values, without ever deviating from the nobility of associative action and its objectives.
We are moving forward on the path of respecting the right of associations and non-governmental organizations to exercise their activities freely and independently, while engaging them to develop their programs and increase their role within a civil society that reflects the specificities of Tunisian society and its aspirations for more progress and growth.
Posted on June 19, 2009
Businessnews
