Year: 2017

PM’s working visit to Washington seeking support for Tunisia to combat terrorism and corruption

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Prime Minister Youssef Chahed completed his working and friendship visit to Washington from 10 to 12 July. “Mainly of a political nature,” said a Prime Ministry statement, the visit was an opportunity for the Prime Minister to meet senior officials of the new Trump administration. On the first day of his visit to Washington, the Prime Minister met with US Vice President Michael Richard Pence, who reaffirmed the United States’ support for Tunisia, as “it works to strengthen its security capacity, implement essential economic reforms and continue developing its democratic…

Brits are returning to Tunisia on cheap holidays despite Foreign Office advice to avoid the country

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A state of emergency operates in the country due to the high risk of terror attacks, but UK holidaymakers are ignoring the risks and getting cheap flights from France and Germany – where travel bans are not in place. Flights to the capital Tunis are also still running from Heathrow for essential travel and rooms in four and five-star hotels can be booked online for as little as £35-a-night. Holidaymakers who have made the trip are leaving glowing reviews of their Tunisian hotels on TripAdvisor. A traveller from Gainsborough in…

Charter of the North African network for food sovereignty

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Activists from anti-capitalist militant organizations in North Africa have met in Tunis on July 4-5, 2017 to set up the North African Network for Food Sovereignty. The North African Network for Food Sovereignty is a unifying structure for struggles in the region and will be involved in local, continental and international mobilisations. On the 5th of July 2017, in Tunis, the network has agreed on and adopted the following chart: Food sovereignty is the human right of peoples as individuals and communities to define their own food systems. It means,…

Actis launches first pan-African private higher education network

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Actis announced on 11 July 2017, a major pan-African higher education initiative – Honoris United Universities (www.Honoris.net). Honoris United Universities is the first African private higher education network bringing together the leading tertiary education institutions in North and Southern Africa for the first time. Honoris United Universities will harness the collaborative intelligence and the pioneering efforts of these institutions to educate Africa’s next generations of leaders and professionals. Actis began with beacon markets in Francophone Africa. In December 2014, it made an investment in Université Centrale Group, the leading post-secondary education group in Tunisia. In 2016,…

Italy uses imams in prisons to deter extremism among inmates

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Italy’s plan to reduce the risk of a jihadi-inspired attack is pinned in small part on El Hacmi Mimoun, an imam who bikes to the prison here every week and exhorts Muslim inmates not to stray from life’s “right path” or hate people who aren’t Muslim. Seven inmates, three Moroccans, three Tunisians and a Somali, left their cells at Terni Penitentiary on an early summer day to listen as the Moroccan-born imam led prayers and delivered a sermon. Sunlight from a high barred window streamed through Mimoun’s gauzy, off-white robe.…

HRW report on EU-Turkey migrant deal may raise red flags for Africa

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he European Union’s dicey migration deal with Turkey is causing untold misery among migrants and refugees trapped on Greek islands, according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released Wednesday. The HRW organization conducted research in May and June on the island of Lesbos that “documented the deteriorating mental health of asylum seekers and migrants” who cannot stay in Greece or move on to other European countries. In March 2016, the EU agreed to a €6 billion package for Turkey, among other concessions, provided that Ankara sealed off its migration…

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals requires investments in innovation, says new UNDP report

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Innovation and emerging technologies increasingly change how international organizations invest in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, according to a new report launched today by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Innovation Facility. At today’s launch of the report, Spark, Scale, Sustain: Innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals, the Innovation Facility shared examples of how emerging technologies and new approaches can help to make development more impactful, citing more than 40 case studies including examples from Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, China, Lebanon and Serbia. “When we design innovation experiments we focus on the…

news African states silently mark the continent’s inaugural Anti-Corruption Day

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The African Union marked the first African Anti-Corruption Day on Tuesday July 11, 2017 to commemorate the adoption of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (AUCPCC). The day was somewhat marked silently in the continent as no African country released a statement in recognition of the day set aside to express commitment towards the fight against corruption. But for a statement from the African Union Commission Chairperson, Moussa Faki Mahamat, the day would have been forgotten. “We need to wage an aggressive fight against those who practice…

McCain vows to restore federal aid to Tunisia

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Sen. John McCain vowed Tuesday that Congress will restore Tunisian aid cuts that were proposed by President Trump as a top official said U.S. support is critical to keep reforms alive and spur new economic growth. The fight over new funding in the Trump administration’s proposed fiscal 2018 budget comes as the small North African nation deals with the continuing threat of terrorism and the prospect of thousands of Tunisian recruits to Islamic State potentially returning home as the terror group loses its territorial base in Iraq and Syria. “Haven’t we learned…

Tunisia: Tourism and phosphate to bring growth to 2.3% (IMF)

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The International Monetary Fund (Fund) forecast a 2.3% growth for the Tunisian economy this year after a relatively sluggish year in 2016. The new forecast will be mainly driven by the tourism and phosphate sectors. Yet, the Bretton Woods institution stresses on the fragility of the economy of this country which is currently experiencing a particularly complex socio-political situation. The Fund also highlights structural drawbacks and an overvalued exchange rate which do not favor investment, in a context where trust in the country is still weak, two years after the…