Tunisia
الجمهورية التونسية
Overall NDC Equity Score
Average
Emissions Reductions
Insufficient
The NDC has significant gaps in setting ambitious emissions reduction goals and implementation efforts.
Gender Justice
Exemplary
The NDC includes gender as a cross-cutting principle, recognizing vulnerabilities, acknowledging efforts to collect gender disaggregated data, and addressing long-term empowerment.
Youth Inclusion
Average
NDC meets basic expectations in youth inclusion, but is still not impactful enough to ensure youth are recognized as agents of change.
Summary
Tunisia’s 2021 NDC was created under the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and eclipsed by subsequently turbulent political times. Despite this, Tunisia committed to a 45% reduction in carbon intensity by 2030 compared to the base year of 2010. In addition to a focus on mitigation, Tunisia’s NDC makes strong adaptation commitments under the ‘Resilience Star’ approach that provides a framework for systemic, cross-sector actions to ensure a renewed and shared economic growth that can lead to progress, and create jobs for all, while responding to climate impacts in a way that supports the functionality of its natural and human systems. Uniquely, Tunisia’s NDC makes a strong case for increasing food security and links actions to the advancement of the SDGs – showcasing strong alignment of intersectional issues. To be fully implemented, the updated Tunisian NDC would need the mobilization of 19.3 billion US$ for the period 2021-2030, of which only 4.3 billion US$ will go for adaptation.
On gender mainstreaming, Tunisia’s NDC makes a strong effort, including an entire chapter on gender in mitigation and adaptation with an Annex dedicated to over a dozen gender-transformative climate action efforts. The NDC recognizes the important role women play in the “fight against the climate crisis,” endorses the development of a national policy on gender mainstreaming and climate change, makes a call to action for collecting gender disaggregated data, and acknowledges that more effort is needed to ensure gender-responsive decision-making. Moreso, it commits to strengthening women’s economic empowerment under climate change threats, transcends knowledge boundaries by calling increasing training of all parliamentarians on gender equality, and initiates the formation of a gender equality committee within Parliament that can help prioritize integration of women’s perspectives, particularly in rural areas. These are just a few of the critical gender-mainstreaming efforts Tunisia committed to under its NDC.
On youth inclusion, Tunisia’s NDC highlights numerous efforts. The NDC includes the importance of the Action for Climate Empowerment agenda as a framework for mobilizing young people, acknowledges ongoing efforts to collect age disaggregated data, commits to link youth with training and opportunities in the green job sector, particularly in ecotourism, and recognizes young peoples vulnerability to the climate crisis.
As it relates to both gender mainstreaming and youth inclusion, the government acknowledges more work to include these communities is needed, and commits to increasing the “participation of women and youth, with a view to achieving parity, in all consultation and governance bodies set up in relation to climate”.
Highlights
- Makes a clear commitment to reducing emissions.
- Addresses synergies and co-benefits between adaptation and mitigation.
- Integrates tourism and food security, the country's primary economic drivers, as key pillars of the NDC.
- Provides 25 gender-responsive measures for ensuring gender mainstreaming and equality in all climate action and adaptation efforts.
- Acknowledges ongoing efforts to collect gender and age disaggregated data.
- Commits to implementing the Action for Climate Empowerment agenda, with an emphasis on increasing training and green job creation for young people.
Lowlights
- It's unclear how women and young people were included in consultative processes for the NDC.
- Consultation processes appear to have only included civil society at the end of the NDC development process.
- Focus on youth centers around their role as future employees, lacking inclusion of young people as leaders that can implement climate action efforts.
Key Recommendations
Tunisia’s NDC reaffirms Tunisia’s commitment to climate action and gender equality. The NDC’s strong measures on gender inclusion serves as a model for meaningful NDC implementation in the region and the world. However, the use of the term “young people” is most often associated in the text with women, leading the authors to believe that Tunisia sees youth inclusion as a mere target rather than ad actors of change.
The next NDC could benefit from transparently providing progress on efforts to mainstream gender and increased measures on long-term youth inclusion in decision-making spaces as agents of change. The following are key recommendations for the improvement of future NDCs and other national climate plans:
For Gender Mainstreaming
- Provide transparency in how women inform gender-responsive actions.
- Indicate progress on efforts to increase gender equality in the context of climate change.
- Include gender disaggregated data on vulnerability and climate action.
For Youth Inclusion
- Train and encourage young people to engage in climate-related decision-making spaces.
- Center young people at the forefront of NDC development consultations.
- Take into account the specific risks and vulnerabilities of children through specific sectoral interventions.
- Measures on how young people will be included in NDC implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.
- Explicit and meaningful references to children and young people, considering them as rights holders and important stakeholders.
NDC Ambassador - Author
NDC Ambassador - Author
