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afrol News, 8 October - Poverty is endemic in the arid, south-eastern part of Tunisia. Therefore, a new government project is to enhance sustainable agropastoral development in this underdeveloped region. Today, a US$ 44.3 million project in Tunisia, the 'Agropastoral Development and Local Initiatives Promotion Programme for the South-East', will receive a US$ 18.7 million loan from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The loan agreement was signed today at the Fund's headquarters in Rome. The proposed programme comprises the Tataouine governorate and part of the Douz delegation in the Kebili governorate; it is located in the 'lower arid' and 'Saharan' areas. In Tunisia, poverty is essentially a rural phenomenon; poverty levels in rural areas can be as high as 13 percent, almost twice the national average. In the south-east of the country, poverty is endemic as a result of the harsh natural conditions and climatic hazards. Small and medium scale agropastoralists, who are the most vulnerable to recurrent droughts, are among the poorest people, along with women and youth in particular, as they have no economic autonomy. According to an IFAD release, the programme is to benefit about 66,000 people in Tataouine and 7,000 people in Douz, through its income-generating and diversification activities. It is further to address the needs of about 17,000 young rural men and women who have little access to land and other productive assets. The government programme mainly aims at "initiating a process of sustainable development by tackling the main sources of economic vulnerability." To this end, it is supposed to establish institutional instruments and provide complementary resources and means to support the rehabilitation and sustainable management of natural pastures and improvement of the most viable part of agriculture. This further is thought to support microenterprise promotion by "financing access to information, training and assistance services to support the creation of 350 microenterprises." Such enterprises are to "involve a large range of agricultural and non-agricultural initiatives from weaving, leather working, jewellery, bread baking and spice milling to ecotourism and commercially oriented rehabilitation of regional architectural assets," IFAD reports.
Sources: Based on IFAD.
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