Tunisia Deploys Scientific Research In Battle for Self-Sufficiency

by Richard H. Curtiss

In Tunisia, unlike the United States, scientific research is not in competition for funding with other government programs such as defense, transportation, education, or social security. On the contrary, since 1991, one percent of the entire national budget has been earmarked for scientific research of all kinds, ranging from improving agricultural production to environmental concerns, quality control in manufacturing, and improved vaccines for public health programs.

How the money is spent is determined by a National Research Council convened by the prime minister. But at the center of the effort to coordinate research proposals for submission to the council, and then to administer and follow up the research grants that are approved, is Dr. Mongi Safra, a 46-year-old American-educated economist.

Dr. Safra holds two master’s degrees in economics and statistics and a Ph.D. in economics, all from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, along with another M.A. from the University of Tunis and a diploma from Tunisia’s National School of Administration, which is patterned along the lines of France’s famed institutes for civil administrators. Unlike the stereotype of a formal, European bureaucrat, however, Dr. Safra’s smiling, open manner and easy command of English in a country where French is the second language after Arabic reflect the six years he spent in America’s Midwest.

Since his American degrees were obtained on U.S. government grants, Dr. Safra is a living testimonial to the foresight of those who established U.S. foreign aid programs in the wake of World War II in the name of “enlightened self-interest.” Although Tunisia obtained its independence from the French in 1956, it remains closely tied to France both culturally and economically. But the man who coordinates Tunisian government grants for 24 government and two private institutes, for private companies undertaking projects in Tunisia, and for some 600 full-time researchers and an additional 5,000 academics engaged in part-time research contracts, is U.S.-trained, and therefore far more cognizant of parallel U.S. efforts in the fields with which he deals than a non-English speaker would be.

The institution he heads is the Secretariat of State for Scientific Research and Technology. Established in 1991, it reports directly to the prime minister, as would a full ministry. Dr. Safra works closely with Tunisia’s ministers of higher education, agriculture, health and others to ensure that the country’s research funds are used to support the national development priorities of all of these institutions.

In doing so, Dr. Safra is building on a long tradition of scientific research in Tunisia that began more than half a century before the country obtained its independence. An institute for agricultural research was established in Tunisia late in the 19th century. Strains of wheat developed there for use in arid climates were imported to the United States as early as 1944 by scientists who accompanied the American armed forces into North Africa to expel the German and Italian armies during World War II. More recently, Tunisian researchers have developed improved varieties of oranges, dates and a number of hybrid seeds for vegetable strains.

In 1936 a French scientist, Charles Nicolle, won a Nobel Prize for his work at the Pasteur Institute of Tunis on developing a vaccine for rabies. Continuing the work of these pre-independence institutes today are seven Tunisian government institutes in the field of agriculture, three institutes in the field of health, including the venerable Pasteur Institute, five institutes in science and technology, and eight in the fields of humanities and social sciences. There also is a private institution for historical research and documentation and the National University’s Center for Scientific and Technical Documentation. Further, Tunisia’s six universities have some 85 research institutions and 208 research laboratories among them.

Government-funded studies presently being conducted by these institutions concern alternate energy sources including solar power, desertification studies, use of computers for quality control of auto parts manufactured in Tunisia, development of computer software for translation into Arabic of scientific articles, safe use of radioactive materials in medicine and other fields, and women’s studies.

Dr. Safra’s department also is deeply involved in providing government research funds to match the first 20 percent of research funding provided by contractors for major projects in Tunisia. Among such completed major projects are the two desalinization plants in the south of Tunisia to turn brackish water into freshwater in areas where tourism has increased the demand for water beyond the region’s capacity to provide it. So far 10 such subsidies for privately funded research have been awarded, and Dr. Safra is seeking to turn the government subsidies he administers into matching grants, providing 50 percent of the research costs specified in any government contract, with the contractor to provide the rest.

Some of the results of scientific research are reflected in the statistics of everyday life in Tunisia. On a World Bank scale that measures the quality of life in 194 nations, Tunisia has moved up from 84th to 78th from the top in the past three years.

To take one example of the tangible results of such improvements, Tunisia now attracts people for medical treatment and to its dialysis center not only from other countries of North Africa, but from as far away as Saudi Arabia and the Arab states of the Gulf.

With its currency now fully convertible for visitors, Tunisia is the first southern Mediterranean country to sign an agreement of association with the European Union. The agreement now must be approved by the parliaments of all European Union members.

When that happens, Tunisian goods will be allowed immediately into European Union markets without customs impediments, and 12 years later European goods will be allowed into Tunisia without customs duties. Dr. Safra expresses the hope that Tunisia’s associate status will bring into Tunisia a large share of a $5 billion European Union line of credit being extended to associated countries. (In addition to such countries in Eastern Europe, other southern Mediterranean countries expected to reach similar agreements with the EU are Morocco, Israel and perhaps Egypt.)

Dr. Safra is especially eager for vocational training grants and technology transfers that “will upgrade our economy to be competitive with European businesses” while at the same time enabling Tunisia to diversify its trade to include more transactions with the United States, Canada and the East Asian “tigers.”

Dr. Safra is the first to admit, however, that despite the visible improvement in Tunisia’s economy and quality of life, the country’s present research allocations, comparable to those of Greece and Turkey, do not yet match those of the United States. American research expenditures, some two-thirds of which are made by private companies and foundations, are estimated to be about 3 percent of the U.S. gross national product.

In Africa, however, only Tunisia and South Africa have reached the point of investing 1 percent of the government budget in research. This amounts to about 0.4 percent of Tunisia’s GNP, less than that of the industrialized countries, but far above that of the developing world.

That reflects Tunisia’s present intermediate status between the two worlds. If Tunisia is not yet a full-fledged industrial country, Dr. Safra and the other dynamic planners now running Tunisia’s economy plan to correct that. And, if they have their way, that transition will be completed very early in the 21st century.