Tunisia's Public Expenditure: A Long Way to Go for Gender Equality
In 2021, less than 1% of Tunisia's public expenditure directly benefited women, while only 1.3% indirectly benefited them through children or family. The remaining 98% of budget lines were constructed without considering the different realities of women and men. These figures, documented in the Tunisia Gender Profile 2025 published by UN Women, paint a straightforward picture. However, the same report highlights a nuance that is often overlooked: public expenditure in favor of women has increased by 138% over the studied period. This is a significant improvement, albeit from a very low base, and its absolute value remains limited.
A Tool for Change: Gender-Sensitive Budgeting
Since 2019, Tunisia has had a concrete tool to correct this trajectory: the Organic Budget Law. This law requires each ministry to integrate the gender dimension into its budget preparation, known as gender-sensitive budgeting. The principle is simple: ensuring that public expenditure does not unintentionally reproduce existing inequalities between women and men. Ministries now produce gender fact sheets annexed to their annual performance projects, and the Ministry of Finance has published guidelines to frame the exercise, with the support of UN Women. While progress has been documented, the Tunisia Gender Profile 2025 notes that the quality of these fact sheets remains uneven and that coordination between ministries is still insufficient to produce a coherent and measurable impact.
Limitations and Challenges
A concrete indicator highlights these limitations: within the Ministry of Family, the program that concentrates the most expenditure oriented towards women is the Childhood program, not an economic empowerment program. This shift, noted in the report, illustrates a broader trend: women are still too often perceived through their family role rather than as independent economic actors.
Institutional Audits: A Notable Delay
In terms of institutional audits, the delay is also notable. According to the Tunisia Gender Profile 2025, only two ministries have conducted a gender diagnosis: the Ministry of Equipment and Housing in 2024 and the Ministry of Social Affairs in 2021. In both cases, the finding is similar: fragmented gender integration, insufficient data, and sporadic training. A start, but only a start.
The Importance of Data
The issue of data runs throughout the report like a red thread. The National Institute of Statistics produces sex-disaggregated data on employment, health, and education. However, these data do not always capture the deep-seated dynamics that hinder women's economic participation. The last national survey on time use, which measures the share of unpaid domestic work assumed by women, dates back to 2005. Twenty years without updating a variable that directly affects their professional integration. A national action plan for the production of gender-sensitive statistics has just been adopted in 2025, in partnership between the National Institute of Statistics and UN Women. This is a step in the right direction.
