Day: March 9, 2024

Following the success of the two previous editions, with over 5,000 people attending each evening during the first edition, Medina of Lights is back for a 3rd season to bring to life, during the month of Ramadan, this not-to-be-missed destination rich in monuments and memorials steeped in history. With a programme of sound and light attractions, presented online in a promotional video, it's a multi-faceted and exciting journey that offers a Ramadan night of illuminations of several buildings in the Medina of Tunis, starting with a video-mapping of the Bab Bhar gateway, visitors can follow a variety of routes through the cultural and historical monuments of the Medina, enjoying a variety of artistic performances, exhibitions of handicrafts, workshops with artisans and tastings of culinary delights specially prepared for this unique occasion. The event will be organised by the Ministry of Tourism and the National Office of Tunisian Tourism (ONTT) in partnership with the municipality of Tunis and GIZ, as part of the Promotion of Sustainable Tourism project and the Tounes Wijhetouna programme, jointly funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the European Union (EU). Medina of Lights seeks to showcase the medina of Tunis and promote this historic heart of the capital, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979, as a tourist destination, thereby enabling the general public to discover its little-known or unknown cultural treasures during Ramadan. By bringing together players from the private, public and voluntary sectors, this initiative aims to show the synergies that can be achieved by involving all the stakeholders who are keen to bring the Medina of Tunis back to life. It also aims to boost the economy by increasing the number of visitors and consumers of the products and services offered in the Medina. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse

The governor of Kasserine, Ridha Rokbani, deplored the large-scale acts of vandalism carried out recently on the railway line 6 linking Talabat to Feriana. Speaking to TAP on Friday, he said that «the perpetrators of these crimes will be be soon identified and will be prosecuted.» He indicated that a project to rehabilitate railways in the governorate of Kasserine is being carried out, the first stage of which concerns the reactivation of lines 6 and 11 linking Kasserine and Sousse, as well as line 15 ensuring the connection between Kasserine, Majel Bel Abbès and Gafsa. The local governor went to the scene of the the scene of the events, at the section linking KalaSt Khasba and Kasserine, which extends over a distance of 85 km. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse

Fallouts from cyberviolence are more serious than those of real-world violence as it is more difficult to identify perpetrators, researcher in sociology Sami Nasr Saturday told TAP on the sidelines of an awareness raising day in Tunis. The event was organised by the Tunis Science City, in partnership with the Specialised Arab Women Association, on the theme: " the Protection of Women and Girls against Digital Violence." Attackers use the digital space to escape prosecution considering the difficulty of establishing their identity. Cyber attacks on women are an extension of real world violence, Nasr said. "In Tunisia, there is a culture of violence internalised by most of individuals in the society in all age brackets and social strata. This can be seen in the use of specific and violent vocabulary." There is need to share responsbility in handling violence by means of enhancing the role of local institutions (family, schools, cultural centres, youth centres, clubs), fostering an utter rejection of violen ce and devising a national strategy to fight violence. lawyer at the court of cassation Nadia Chaouachi said there is already a substantial body of legislation in Tunisia which supports women's rights. Reducing violence, though, requires mainly accepting women as active partners, seeking new mechanisms of prevention and raising the number of judges. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse

The Working Women's Committee of the Tunisian General Confederation of Labour (CGTT), in partnership with the "Mouwatina" mutual insurance company, on Saturday, held a cultural and entertainment event attended by a large number of CGTT members and trade union and feminist personalities. Held at the Confederation's headquarters in Tunis on International Women's Day, which is celebrated every year on 8 March, the day's programme included musical performances and poetry in honour of women in Tunisia and the Arab world for their fight for their legitimate rights. The meeting was an opportunity to recall the reality of Palestinian women in Gaza and the hardships they face. The event was marked by the launch of a campaign to collect medicines for a number of needy people in Tunisia. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse

Gourcy: The NGO Educo launched on Tuesday March 5, 2024 in Gourcy, the project to Strengthen access to resilient, safe and inclusive education for children affected by the security crisis in the region of Northern Burkina Faso (READ). The launching ceremony was chaired by the Governor of the Northern Region Issouf Ouédraogo. According to data from the Technical Secretariat for Education in Emergency Situations (ST-ESU) of the ministry in charge of education, the security crisis has led to the closure of 844 establishments, affecting 163,805 students in the region. North. In response to the need for schooling for all these children, the NGO Educo initiated the project 'Strengthening access to resilient, safe and inclusive education for children affected by the security crisis in the northern region of Burkina Faso ( READ) » whose official launch took place this Tuesday March 5, 2024 in Gourcy under the presidency of the Governor of the Northern Region Issouf Ouédraogo. For the head of the RELIRE project, Ra phaël Noungou, the objective is to 'contribute to improving access and maintenance of inclusive, safe and quality education for girls, boys and adolescents affected by the security crisis in the northern region''. For him, it will specifically be a question of working to strengthen access and quality of education through activities such as the creation of educational infrastructures, the granting of scholarships, the provision of specific supplies and materials, training education stakeholders, raising awareness of the importance of schooling, food support, the organization of support courses. Carrying out protection and social cohesion activities within establishments are also planned. Speaking on behalf of the Country Director of Educo, Program Coordinator Lucie Gounabou invited all stakeholders to take ownership of the project in order to achieve the vision of its structure which is to "contribute to the construction of a world where all children fully enjoy their rights and live in complete dignity. I n total, 14,980 children and adolescents including 7,790 internally displaced persons will benefit from the project which will concern 25 primary and post-primary establishments in the communes of Ouahigouya, Gourcy and Yako. After the presentation of the project, the Governor of the Northern Region Issouf Ouédraogo invited the stakeholders, in particular the implementation partners who are the Tabital Lobal Association and the Network for Social Promotion (REPROSO) to work in a good manner. coordination for the success of the project which he finds relevant and in phase with the educational policy of the State. The ''RELIRE'' project, lasting 24 months, benefits from financial support from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) to the tune of 524,765,603 FCFA and co-financing from Educo d' an amount of 27,619,240 FCFA. Present in 14 countries around the world, the NGO Educo has been working in Burkina for 20 years in favor of children in vulnerable situations. Source: Burkin a Information Agency The legal framework of the statistical system in Tunisia needs to be revised to make it more efficient and in line with international standards and modern technological changes," said the Director General of the National Institute of Statistics (INS), Adnan Lassoued. In an exclusive interview with TAP news agency, he revealed that the general population and housing census will be carried out by the end of 2024. The national survey on violence against women, published for the first time by the institute last Thursday, showed that violence against women is rampant in Tunisian society, as it revealed that 85 per cent of the women interviewed had been subjected to violence in their lifetime. Interview: The National Institute of Statistics has published the first national survey on violence against women. What was the motivation? We noticed a great thirst among users of statistical information, whether from public institutions, civil society or international organisations, to know the extent of the growing ph enomenon of violence against women in Tunisia. The National Office of the Family and Population published a survey on this phenomenon in 2010, followed by another survey conducted by the Centre for Research, Studies, Documentation and Information on Women (CREDIF) in 2016.There was therefore a vacuum, which led us to conduct the first national survey on violence against women between November and December 2022. We hope that the results of this survey will guide policies and programmes aimed at combating violence against women, especially after the enactment of Law No. 58 of 2017 on combating violence against women. According to the results of this survey, how widespread is the phenomenon of violence against women in Tunisia? The figures show that the phenomenon of violence against women is widespread in Tunisian society. Nearly 85 per cent of women aged 15-74 surveyed throughout the country had been subjected to various forms of violence at least once since the age of 15, while 57 per cent of women, or mo re than half of the respondents, said they had been subjected to violence in the year prior to the survey. The figures also showed that 43 per cent of women, whether married, widowed or divorced, had been subjected to spousal violence by their current or former husbands in the year prior to the survey. Are you considering making the survey on violence against women a regular feature in the future? Certainly, we believe that it is necessary to conduct this survey on a regular basis in order to monitor the development of the phenomenon of violence against women, and we hope that the periodicity of such a survey will be every five years. Who funded this survey? The survey was funded by public money, i.e. the budget allocated to the National Institute of Statistics. Some people criticise the Institute for limiting its work to publishing statistics on inflation, unemployment and foreign trade, without looking at social phenomena such as violence or school drop-outs. Don't you think there is a lack of statist ical information? The statistical information of the National Institute of Statistics covers many areas and is not limited to inflation, unemployment and foreign trade, but touches on several phenomena such as the national survey on migration or the national multiple indicator cluster survey on the status of mothers and children in Tunisia, poverty and others. However, we do not deny that there are some shortcomings, which we are working to avoid at the level of regular publication of some statistics. Does the National Institute of Statistics lack the human or material resources to provide the statistical information required? There is a shortage of human resources in particular, but the State has agreed to launch an external staffing competition to recruit 10 engineers this year to strengthen the working team and give the Institute a new lease of life, as for financial resources, the State provides important financial resources to produce statistical information according to the Institute's programme. Ho w do you assess the statistical system in Tunisia and how can it be developed in the future? The statistical system in Tunisia includes many actors such as the National Institute of Statistics, the Central Bank of Tunisia, ministries and national observatories that publish statistics in various fields. Law No. 32 of 1999 regulates the national statistical system, which is a proactive law for its time and advanced compared to the legislation of other countries in the region, but today this law is 25 years old and needs to be reviewed and revised in order to give more efficiency to the statistical system and for statistical information to meet international standards, especially in light of the use of modern technologies to analyse big data, which requires new national legislation in this direction. Is the National Institute of Statistics fully independent in its work? Of course, the National Institute of Statistics produces statistical information according to its own working methods and without any interf erence, and is therefore independent in the way it produces statistics. However, it is not free to choose the statistics it produces, as this is at the request of the users of statistical information, including public structures, international organisations and civil society, all of which have an important role in the choice of topics. Some experts believe that the inflation rate is higher than what is announced, claiming that the Institute has not updated the basket used as a basis for calculating the inflation rate. What do you think? The Institute calculates the inflation rate according to an international scientific methodology, which uses the consumer basket calculated by the National Household Consumption Survey conducted by the Institute every five years. Currently, the Institute relies on the results of the National Household Consumption Survey conducted in 2015 to calculate the inflation rate, and a new survey will be conducted in 2021, but due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic at the time, i t was decided to conduct a special survey to update the consumer basket in 2023, the results of which will be published within a month from now, and the consumer basket for 2023 will be adopted to calculate the inflation rate according to the new changes. The inflation rate is currently at 7.5 per cent, not in double digits, unlike the situation in 2023, when the inflation rate will exceed 10 per cent in April 2023. Has the Institute started preparing for the population and housing census to be completed this year? Yes, the actual counting of the general population and housing census (relating to the number of inhabitants by sex, dwellings, households, states, provinces, municipalities, districts and the centre) will start at the end of 2024, within the framework of the chronological sequence of this operation, which is carried out every ten years, the last one being in 2014. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse

Nearly 25 villages in the Dahar mountains, covering three governorates - Tataouine, Mednine and Gabes - form a new tourist circuit in southern Tunisia, which has just been officially launched as part of the "Zitoun Zarrazi culinary route to the Dahar mountains." This route is part of the Culinary Route of Tunisia programme part of the Promotion of Sustainable Tourism project, implemented by the Ministry of Tourism and Handicrafts with the support of GIZ and jointly funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the European Union as part of its Tounes Wijhetouna programme. According to the GIZ, this new route is an immersion in the history of the civilisations that have succeeded one another in Tunisia, and a journey to discover the jewels of southern Tunisia's heritage. Implemented by the Association for the Protection of Ksours and the Conservation of the Heritage of Béni Khedache, this route showcases the historical, human, cultural, tangible and intangible heri tage of southern Tunisia, through creative and culinary tourism experiences jointly designed with local farmers, craftsmen and tourism entrepreneurs, as well as with villagers from the Dahar mountains: Taoujout, Matmata, Zmerten, Toujen, Beni Khedech, Gomrassen, Douiret, Ksar Hadeda. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse