The wave of spontaneous youth-led revolutions, revolts and civic protest movements that have spread across the Arab region, demanding transformative change, testify to a process of emergence and renewal of civil society after decades of control that have profoundly weakened or shaped manifestations of societal organization.
The success of the transition process from a system marked by the political economy of exclusion towards a developmental state is predicated on the capacity of civil society to organize itself in order to constitute a strong constituency for accountable governance, social justice and inclusive development. The spontaneous youth-led revolts and civic protest movements in the Arab region will not result in genuine
Even after the initial revolution in Tunisia, there still many challenges summarized as following:
- Illegal Immigration:
Over the past few weeks Tunisia has attracted increasing attention for the revival of its migration route toward Italy. 4,500 people from Tunisia reached Italy in 2017 – a fourfold increase on last year, with more than 3,000 arriving between September and mid-October.
- Brain Drain:
Not only in Tunisia, an estimated 300,000 active, highly skilled Maghrebi migrants aged 25 and over are working in France only. The reason is simple: They’re getting 5 times more salaries than what they get at home countries.
- Currency depreciation:
Tunisia’s domestic path is full of obstacles and difficulties, which are the real cause of the latest spike in emigration. The already critical socio-economic situation deteriorated sharply over recent months. The dinar has devalued by more than 25% during the last year.
- Education:
The current system in Tunisian primary schools, which is based upon certificates rather than grading each child individually, was failing to allow children’s talents to develop fully. Then, when it comes to university, the educational system in Tunisia is one of the main causes of unemployability since it’s not responding to the offer and demand rule.
- Unemployment:
Unemployment in Tunisia has continued to increase throughout the year, despite government assurances that steps would be taken to curb its spread following the countrywide protests in January of this year.
- Centralisation:
Centralised fortune, opportunities and power in few regions in Tunisia mainly the coast, is one of the reasons that strengthen the regionalism.
- Corruption:
Even after the Tunisian prime minister has embarked on a sweeping crackdown against organized crime, arresting nearly a dozen mafia bosses and smuggling barons in recent weeks in an effort to stamp out what has become a nearly existential threat to the young democracy, fighting corruption in Tunisia is not as simple as arresting particular persons, it’s about a whole system involving corruption from the top of the pyramid to its bottom.
Corruption is a destabilizing force in Tunisia, infecting all levels of its economy, security, and political system. Once tightly controlled under former president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, corruption has now become endemic, with everyday citizens engaging in and benefiting from corrupt practices.
- Economic instability: Sustainable Terrorist threats are blocking the economic growth in Tunisia, for a simple reason: Economy hates instability.
- Currency depreciation : The BCT governors are trying in vain to redress the dangerous situation and support the TND
And Finally,If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact – not to be solved, but to be coped with over time.
So it’s very important to emphasize that these, are problems not facts.
I figured out that there is a very thick relationship between the following entities: Civil society & Civic engagement, Political governance and local development.
In fact, Civic engagement in local governance is seen to be one of the tools of articulating citizens voices in development, it highlights their direct contribution in local development through being involved in decision making positions, or indirectly by participating public policy rules,service delivery improvement, legislative processes, electoral reforms and gender concerns.
However, including the political part in this relationship, any governance crisis expresses a fundamental contradiction between the citizenship and the state. The fact that the power exercised by the state through law, coercion and the administration of public resources is the result of the delegation, or takeover, of citizens’ sovereignty permeates the entire range of tensions that characterizes this relationship.
As a conclusion, Civic engagement is the layer between the governance and the citizens: It’s main objective is to insure national development through a collaboration between social activism entities in all the regions aiming to achieve local development in each of these regions.
For a better Tunisia.
Ahmed Ghamgui.
