Youth unemployment is one of the main challenges currently facing Tunisia. At the same time, however, it is precisely young women and men who have a crucial role to play in securing the future of agricultural value chains by making them more productive and sustainable. To bridge this gap, FAO, the National Agricultural Research Institute of Tunisia (INRAT) and the Agricultural Investment Promotion Agency (APIA) co-developed a roadmap in concert with youth to promote investments by young agri-entrepreneurs.

Agriculture and agribusiness (which account for 10.4% of GDP) remain essential to Tunisia’s overall economic and social development. Nevertheless, in recent years, the volume and number of agricultural investment projects in the agricultural sector has decreased. Set against the backdrop of ageing farm managers, this scenario could further accelerate unemployment and the decline of investments in the agricultural sector. Moreover, the agribusiness sector only represents a very small share of total employment, despite significant business opportunities in processing and other value-adding activities.

At another level, young women and men face serious challenges in securing employment or launching economically viable businesses, despite considerable efforts undertaken by the different Tunisian governmental agencies in this regard. In fact, the unemployment rates of 15 to 35-year-olds remain very high, reaching up to 35%, particularly among university graduates living in the country’s “interior” regions. Unemployment is a key driver of rural-urban and international migration. The socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 health crisis could also further aggravate the lack of opportunity for youth.

However, to ensure the food security of future generations, Tunisia needs to encourage sustainable and economically viable investments by youth in the agriculture and agribusiness sectors. Such investments would need to help close the generation gap, facilitate innovations that enhance the sector’s resilience to climate change, and increase the profitability of agricultural value chains.

In order to tackle all of these challenges, it is essential to identify the main investment opportunities for Tunisia’s youth, as well as the principal factors that limit their capacities to invest and jeopardize the economic viability of their projects.
For these reasons, FAO supported a strategic planning process with Tunisian youth in order to elaborate a roadmap to promote their investments in agriculture and food systems and ensure the economic viability of their projects. This strategic planning process focused both on the overall national context and enabling environment, as well as on specific value chains (sheep dairy and olive oil) and regions (North-West) that have substantial investment opportunities.

This initiative responded to a request submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Hydraulic Resources. It was carried out jointly by the Rural Economy Laboratory of INRAT, APIA and FAO, with technical support from the Bern University of Applied Sciences, and funding from Switzerland.

The analyses carried out by INRAT, as well as at a multi-stakeholder workshop organized in October 2019, resulted in the identification of the following main challenges for youth: limited access to financial services and information on existing finance opportunities; limited investment incentives with a specific youth focus; inadequate  coordination between different agents and organizations to ensure a coherence between different interventions; limited access to markets; and limited economic viability of investment projects due in part to a lack of labelling and traceability schemes that could add value to products.

Following this assessment, a set of solutions was proposed and subsequently refined and validated in the context of a second multi-stakeholder workshop organized in February 2020. These solutions aim to:

• Increase access to finance through the set-up of a guarantee fund, the creation of youth-specific incentives in the investment code, the set-up of a crowdfunding platform and through strengthened regulation of commercial credits;
• Enhance extension, training and coaching services to contribute to the economic and financial viability of youth’s investment projects;
• Improve communication and strengthen access to information, including through the creation of physical and online one-stop shops;
• Enhance coordination between different actors, both within and among the different stakeholder groups (government, donors, youth, research institutes, farmers’ organizations and financial institutions); and
• Strengthen the competitiveness and attractiveness of agricultural value chains, including through traceability and labelling schemes (such as geographic indicators), increased visibility of products, responsible contract farming arrangements and the creation of territorial baskets of goods (an offer of a coherent set of specific products and services).

Finally, and in line with recommendations from participants in the validation workshop, it is necessary to continue reflection and multi-stakeholder dialogue on young agri-entrepreneurial investments through the creation of a think tank. The set-up of such a think tank, hosted by INRAT in partnership with APIA and FAO, is currently in development. The think tank should aim to propose clear, achievable policy recommendations that could subsequently be piloted by APIA with a group of selected youth.

Photo by Zied Ben Youssef, Borj Lella.