E-Government Development in Tunisia

In 2018, the government of Tunisia established the National Strategic Council for the Digital Economy (Conseil national stratégique de l'économie numérique CNCEM) to supervise the ambitious Tunisie Digitale 2018 program, drafted in 2014 and aimed at developing an enabling digital environment in the country. Tunisie Digitale 2018 was extended till 2020 («Tunisie Digitale 2020») to align it with the five-year plan for 2016 - 2020. The initiative received funding in the equivalent of 867 million dollars with the target to create 100,000 jobs.

By 2020, the Tunisian Minister of Communications and Digital Transformation acknowledged that nearly half of the projects of the Digital Tunisia 2020 strategic plan have not been implemented yet, the deadline was pushed to 2025. As the main project implementation challenge the authorities mention the resistance of the bureaucracy, alongside with the brain drain and lack of trust among the population. 

An important role in the development of public platforms in Tunisia is played by private Tunisian companies. There are also foreign and international organizations involved such as the UN, the World Bank, the European Commission, French Development Agency (AFD); French Agency for International Technical Expertise (AFETI), SAA Italy (Scuola in Amministrazione Aziendale e d'amministrazione pubblica).

The government websites are available in Arabic and French, for most of them translation into English is also provided. There is no unified identification authorization, it is also impossible to file a complaint or proposal on most websites of government departments.

Many government websites have not been updated for a long time, and most of them are outdated in terms of usability. Аccording to government data about a third of the population do not use any of the e-government platforms.

Rankings

As of 2022, Tunisia ranked 88th in the UN e-Government Development Survey (up from 91st in 2020) with an EGDI score of 0.653. This places Tunisia in 4th place among the countries in Africa with the highest EGDI values. According to the 2022 World Bank’s GovTech Maturity report, Tunisia is in Group B (a group of countries, which invest significantly in GovTech development but still have some room for improvement). 

Integration of Public Services

A single portal of public services is not yet available. On the government portal (بوابة الحكومة التونسية) the services available online are listed with the links redirecting to the websites of the ministries providing respective services. Only few services are available in the healthcare, law, and education sectors.  A new single portal of public services “e-bawaba.tn” portal, that allows to manage official electronic documents and access digital public services, is in the process of being implemented. As of June 2023, the platform is not accessible.

Unified Authorisation

As for unified identification authorisation, in August 2022, the Tunisian Ministry of Communication Technologies launched the “Mobile ID” (“e-houwiya”) program intended to ensure secure access to digital public services. A two-factor identification is required to log in the personal account. According to the description of the functionalities of this service, The Mobile ID is used for accessing platforms like the “e-bawaba.tn” portal and the “e-barid.tn” platform, providing citizens with an official email address for communicating with authorities and public institutions. However, as of June 2023 these portals were not accessible.

Healthcare

In the field of healthcare the health insurance portal (CHAM) is developed, where it is possible to submit applications, as well as to track the execution of the request in real time. As for other services, most of them are declared (for example, electronic medical card orelectronic record to the doctor). As of June 2023 these services were not available.

Education

Progress is being achieved in developing Platform for Schools (BVE) by the National Center for Technology in Education (CNT). The digital educational content was prepared, but there is little of it on the portal, there is no video or interactive content available. The portal itself has not been updated since 2020.

e-Taxes

As for tax services, they are well developed, although there is no single portal for paying fines and taxes. For paying traffic fines, the portal of the Ministry of Finance is available. The e-Tasrih portal provides information about taxes, but paying taxes online is not yet fully available, and the site is also outdated in terms of usability.

Tunisian postal service offers an electronic payment system called e-dinar. Many government services in Tunisia are payable with electronic dinars. By 2021, the number of smart e-dinar cards reached 2.5 million.

Identification and Biometrics

The project of biometric passports and IDs in Tunisia is being developed by the Tunisian Ministry of Interior, with reference to Tunisians international commitments, as the International Civil Aviation Organization (Doc 9303). In 2016 the Ministry of Interior presented a draft law on the biometric passports and IDs, the draft law was withdrawn in 2018 under public pressure related to lack of firm confidentiality and digital security guarantees. Despite a political crisis in July 2021. In January 2022, the resumption of the draft law was officially announced. However, implementation of biometric passports and IDs may trigger further discussions and debates in Tunisian society.

e-Elections

Tunisia has not implemented an electronic voting system, voting is offline. However, a platform has been introduced for processing election results.

Data Infrastructure and G2G Service

Data centers are governed by the National Informatics Centre (Centre National de l’Informatique, CNI). This center is also involved in the development of major national, sectoral and public applications and the implementation of master plans for a number of ministries, and participates also in the development of the interagency platform Republique Tunisienne Intranet de l’Administration).

Author:
Egor Astrakhantsev