Tunisia-27th Session May 2017-Empowerment of women

Para 129) A nationwide project to prevent school dropout, particularly among girls in rural areas, has continued to be implemented as part of a national strategy for the economic and social empowerment of women and girls in rural areas 2017–2020. Development complexes were established in 16 governorates during the first quarter of 2022, and 2 women’s centres were set up in Central West Tunisia with 30 female beneficiaries. Para 130) The strategy also includes several programmes aimed at women in rural areas, who have benefited from a number of measures (see paras.112 and 346–353 of CEDAW/C/TUN/7), including raising the allocation for the women’s entrepreneurship programme from 3 million to 10 million Tunisian dinars (D) in 2020 and a fivefold increase in the proportion of loans for women’s agricultural projects, from 6 per cent to 30 per cent. Para 131) The “Raida” programme was established to support women’s access to the labour market and to advance and promote entrepreneurship among women. The programme envisages a line of credit for women, created in partnership with the National Solidarity Bank. This has helped to launch about 2,300 projects for a total investment of around D 17 million. Para 133) The new “Raidat” programme was launched on 8 March 2022. It diversifies credit lines to female entrepreneurs who actively support value chains, solidarity, development and innovation with an estimated financial allocation of D 50 million. The aim is to launch some 3,000 projects at the rate of 600 a year. Para 134) One of the features of the new programme is the elimination of self-financing, the granting of delays of between 3 and 5 years and an increase in the value of loans of between D 10,000 and D 300,000. As of June 2022, around 2,000 project applications had been submitted, 1,600 of them via the online platform created for that purpose. Para 201) With support from a number of international partners several pilot programmes have been rolled out as part of the implementation of the national entrepreneurial strategy. The most important of these are: • The “Entrepreneurs” youth economic integration project, which benefits … mothers who have no family support,