President’s Solidarity Fund Brings Development to Remotest Areas

by Richard H. Curtiss

Tunisians were pleased when they learned this year that their country would be the site of the first concert in both Africa and the Arab world by America’s top pop performer, Michael Jackson. They were touched when he added that “the people of both regions have always held a special place in my heart.” But then they were shocked when they learned that tickets to the Oct 7. concert were priced at $25 to $200.

The shock for parents of teenagers was somewhat ameliorated, however, when they learned that proceeds from the concert would be going to the country’s favorite charity - the National Solidarity Fund. Tunisian companies, civic groups, individuals, boy scouts and even school classes have been volunteering their services and donating generously to the fund since it was founded in 1992.

Popularly known as “2626,” for the postal account into which such voluntary contributions are paid, the fund already has a great deal to show for its four years of work in Tunisia’s remotest communities. Also contributors know that every cent they donate will go directly into the Fund’s projects to bring roads, electricity, potable water, medical services, and, where required, adequate housing and primary and secondary schools to tiny pockets of the rural poor in every governate in the country.

The reason the funds stretch so far is that there are no administrative costs. Personnel engaged in “2626” are volunteers or are on loan from other government departments, as are the offices, vehicles and supplies needed to carry out the projects.

The director, Kamel Haj Sassi, secretary of state in charge of the National Solidarity Fund, is seconded from the office of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Prior to this assignment, he was governor first of Ariana governorate near Tunis, then of Kairouan governorate in the center of the country midway between the Mediterranean and the Atlas mountains, and then secretary of state for social affairs. He holds a B.A. in law and is a graduate of Tunisia’s national institute of administration.

A vigorous administrator, Sassi enthusiastically describes how the NSF grew out of the president’s practice of making unannounced visits to the various government projects which have been completed under Tunisia’s succession of five-year plans. By the end of the eighth plan in 1996, the government had brought electrification to 85.9 percent of the country’s rural inhabitants, potable water systems to 83.4 percent, and sewerage systems to 62 percent.

Nevertheless, Sassi said, these visits turned up in areas so remote and undeveloped that there was little hope of reaching them through routine government programs before the inhabitants gave up their lives of rural poverty and joined the influx of unskilled agricultural labor into Tunisia’s cities. President Ben Ali decided, therefore, to focus concentrated remedial efforts on any such areas that contained 26 or more families.

To meet the needs for roads to such isolated communities, followed by electrification and potable water systems, President Ben Ali sought contributions from domestic businesses, Gulf Arab and other foreign donors, and non-governmental organizations. He also sought proceeds from cultural performances, such as the Michael Jackson concert, and major sports events. The results, to date, have benefitted some 100,000 families, bringing not only the amenities mentioned above for starters, but also providing basic housing where it is needed and medical clinics to be served by rotating physicians and other specialists. To date some 10,000 housing units have been completed by the NSF using, where possible, labor from the communities being served. In addition, 72 new health clinics have been built.

The new roads generally provide access to existing schools for residents of the benefitting communities, but if new schools are required, these, too, are provided by the Ministry of Education. To date 77 such schools have been built in conjunction with the NSF, whose activities have increased the national school enrollment by an estimated 5.5 percent.

“A major objective of the program is to keep the beneficiaries in place by giving them jobs there,” Sassi explains. “Some 21,000 sources of income have been created, mostly in the field of agriculture. Some of the projects involve beekeeping and carpet weaving.

“The president has recommended creation of committees for self-development in order to avoid creating the spirit of dependence in the communities being helped,” he continued. “Already there is an element of self-confidence in many of the families who have benefitted, and a willingness to take charge of their own affairs.”

Sassi cited the example of a woman who had been provided a loom in her new home and who had embarked on a career of carpet weaving. After recouping from the sale of her first carpets her own expenses for wool and dyes, she told Sassi on his next visit to her community that she was prepared to donate the proceeds from her next carpet back to the Solidarity Fund in appreciation for the start it provided her.

Sassi estimates that with an average of five persons per family helped by the NSF, a half-million Tunisians have been given a new start to date. Contributions for the NSF, he says, have been provided by at least a million Tunisians.

“National activities are held to involve citizens of the entire country in the 2626 movement,” Sassi explains. “Dec. 8 is the national day of solidarity in which children from all different sections of the population participate. Children collect school uniforms for pupils in areas where such uniforms are needed. There also are tree-planting activities by boy scouts.

“On school opening days, women volunteer their services in helping children get to and enroll in their new schools. And there is a national day for elderly people that includes galas and concerts to raise funds for the NSF. The Michael Jackson performance is an example. Others are sports competitions. One of the reasons for the spontaneous and generous participation of Tunisian people is the transparency of the fund, and the success of its projects. Contributions are deducted from gross income for tax purposes.”

Sassi adds that “when the president began the program, Tunisians could not believe that such areas existed. President Ben Ali used the media to make citizens aware of the needs, and to follow up the development projects and make people aware of the results.”

Because Tunisian television programs can be seen in North African emigrant communities in France, many Tunisians working in Europe have seen the changes in their former communities for the first time on television, Sassi says. In some cases emigrés who left villages without electricity or water now can telephone their relatives to confirm that the improvements depicted actually exist.

Sassi described the case of a Tunisian married to a foreign woman who returned to his former village when he learned that his mother was ill. Upon arriving he discovered that the poverty-stricken community he had left as a young man had electricity and potable water and that his sister was earning a living making carpets on a loom provided by the NSF. He asked that his brother, who had come from Tunis to visit their mother, telephone upon his return to Tunis to ask the visitor’s wife to bring their children for their first visit to the community he previously had been ashamed for them to see.

“You can telephone her yourself,” the brother answered. “There is a telephone right here in the village.”

It is stories like this, Sassi explains, that keep the donations flowing for Tunisians who have been left behind economically from Tunisians already enjoying the good life. And, thanks to Michael Jackson’s first performance before his many admirers in Tunisia, still more rural Tunisians will receive the means to provide a better life for their children without having to move to the country’s already overcrowded cities.