Tunisia improves planning of its social protection system

SOCIEUX, the social protection initiative of the European Union, in which the FIIAPP is a partner, is providing support to Tunisia’s Centre for Social Research and Studies (CRES in its French acronym) to strengthen its decision-support system (DSS) in the area of social protection. This measure will enable the North African country to improve its action plans in this area, and promote learning and innovation to benefit development of the Tunisian social protection system.

This cooperation activity started with an assessment of the DSS and of the capacities of the CRES technical team for managing it. The mission, which took place this May, made it possible to establish preliminary recommendations regarding the measures that need to be adopted.

According to expert Michel Vigneul, an actuarial consultant and project manager in COOPAMI-INAMI (Belgium), the CRES has various assets: a young and motivated team, unquestionable experience with the DSS and its pensions branch in particular, and an excellent base of documentation. In addition, possible improvements were identified, such as increasing knowledge of data analysis and management in the sickness insurance branch, and improving the research structure and use of data. Adequate training of the staff should overcome these difficulties.

Based on this first diagnosis, future measures, within the SOCIEUX programme, might include a study visit on the use and management of the decision-support system in an EU member country, as well as organisation of a specialised training workshop on statistical modelling and analysis methods applied to the social sciences.