From Training to Employment: What Happened to Young People Targeted by Employment Programmes in Tunisia?

                               

From Training to Employment: What Happened to Young People Targeted by Employment Programmes in Tunisia?

A document- and data-based investigative journalism report
Prepared and Published by: Mohamed Chaieb Barhoumi
ATEP MED – Arabic Digital Center for Media & Development
Areas: Youth Unemployment | Employment | Poverty | Rural Development | Vocational Training | Women and Youth | Entrepreneurship | Development Finance | Accountability

INVESTIGATION SUMMARY

Tunisia and its international partners have invested in a number of programmes and projects aimed at addressing youth unemployment, improving employability, linking training to labour-market needs, and supporting young people in rural areas to create businesses or access paid employment.

Among these initiatives is Agriboost, a project designed to strengthen the employability of young people in the rural agricultural sector by training jobseekers to help them obtain paid employment in existing agricultural enterprises or establish their own businesses. Its pilot phase targets 200 young people in Kairouan Governorate.

However, the existence of a training programme does not necessarily mean the creation of jobs, and a funded project does not necessarily produce sustainable income.

This investigation therefore starts with a simple but fundamental question:

What actually happened to the young people after the training?

Did they find jobs? Did they obtain stable incomes? Did they establish businesses? How many businesses survived? And how many young people returned to unemployment after the training or support ended?

This investigation does not assume in advance that the programme succeeded or failed. Instead, it seeks to follow the complete chain:

Funding → Selection of young people → Training → Skills → Employment → Income → Sustainability.

1. A Problem Bigger Than One Project: Youth Unemployment

No employment programme can be understood separately from the wider labour-market situation in Tunisia.

World Bank data indicated that youth unemployment in Tunisia reached approximately 39.2% in the first quarter of 2024, compared with an overall unemployment rate of 16.2%, with women facing a higher unemployment rate.

The World Bank has also highlighted a mismatch between the skills possessed by jobseekers and those required by employers, particularly in the agricultural and agri-food sectors.

This means that the problem is not only the number of jobs available. It also concerns the relationship between:

Education → Training → Skills → Employer Needs → Employment.

Evaluating employment programmes is therefore essential to determine whether money allocated to training and support actually addresses the problem or simply produces statistics about the number of people trained.

2. Agriboost: A Youth Employment Experiment in Kairouan

Agriboost provides a relevant case study for investigation.

The project seeks to improve the employability of young people in the rural agricultural sector by providing training to jobseekers so that they can obtain paid employment in an existing agricultural enterprise or establish their own businesses.

Its pilot phase targets 200 young people in Kairouan Governorate.

This makes Kairouan an important starting point for the investigation because it allows the journalist to move from the broad national debate about unemployment to a defined group of young people, a specific programme and a specific target.

The journalistic question is therefore not:

How many young people were trained?

It is:

How many actually moved from training into employment?

3. Training Is Not Employment

One of the most important issues for this investigation is the distinction between training and employment.

A young person may receive a training course, certificate or professional qualification without obtaining a job.

The investigation should therefore distinguish between:

Number registered in the programme → Number who started training → Number who completed training → Number who obtained employment → Number who retained employment after six months or one year → Number who achieved stable income.

This is the chain that must be followed.

4. From 200 Young People to 200 Outcomes

If the pilot target is 200 young people in Kairouan, the investigative questions become more precise.

How many actually entered the programme?

How many completed the training?

How many obtained employment?

How many established businesses?

How many are still working?

How many stopped?

And how many returned to unemployment?

It is not enough to publish one final figure showing how many people received training.

The real outcome of an employment programme must be measured by what happens after the training.

5. Where Does the Money Go?

Every employment programme financed by public funds or international institutions represents an investment in human capital.

The investigation should therefore ask:

How much funding was provided?

How much was spent on training?

How much was spent on equipment?

How much was spent on consultancy?

How much was spent on administration and monitoring?

And what was the actual cost of each job created?

This last question is particularly important.

A programme that spends one million dinars and creates 100 sustainable jobs has a very different cost-per-job from a programme that spends the same amount and trains thousands of people without producing stable employment.

The investigation will therefore go beyond the size of the funding and attempt to examine:

Training cost → Cost per beneficiary → Cost per job → Cost per sustainable job.

6. Kairouan: Why Agriculture?

The choice of the agricultural sector is particularly relevant in Kairouan and rural areas.

Agriculture and agri-food activities are important sources of income and employment in inland and rural communities. At the same time, the sector faces challenges related to informal employment, productivity, water scarcity and climate change.

Development programmes also identify the need to attract more young people to agriculture and agri-food activities.

This raises an important question:

Can agriculture move from providing seasonal and low-income work to becoming a source of more stable employment for young people?

If so, what happened to the young people targeted by employment programmes?

7. From Jobseeker to Entrepreneur

One of the pathways promoted through Agriboost is support for young people to establish their own businesses.

But creating a business does not automatically mean creating a successful business.

The investigation should therefore follow the full business life cycle:

Business idea → Training → Financing or support → Launch → First income → Continuity → Additional job creation.

The questions are:

How many young people started businesses?

What types of businesses were created?

How much financial support was provided?

Did entrepreneurs actually receive the necessary equipment?

How many businesses are still operating?

How many stopped?

Why did they stop?

Was follow-up provided after the business started?

And did these individual businesses become stable sources of income?

8. The Problem of Informal Employment

Another important dimension must not be overlooked.

Tunisia's labour market has a significant informal component, particularly affecting young people and rural communities.

This means that a young person may find work after training but still work without a formal contract or adequate social protection.

The question should therefore not simply be:

Did the young person find a job?

It should also be:

What kind of job did the young person obtain?

Does the worker have a contract?

Is there social protection?

Is the job permanent or seasonal?

Does the wage provide stable income?

And can the young person build a sustainable economic future from this employment?

9. Young Women: Does the Support Reach Them?

The investigation should include a specific focus on young women.

National and international programmes frequently identify women's economic inclusion as a priority. However, participation in training does not automatically translate into economic independence.

The investigation should therefore examine:

The number of young women participating.

The number completing training.

The number obtaining employment.

The number establishing businesses.

The number of women-led businesses that remain operational.

And most importantly:

Has the programme generated real and sustainable income for women?

10. From Training to Employment: The Missing Link

This question is also relevant to the Nexus Skills & Jobs for Youth initiative within the TRACE programme, which focuses on addressing the gap between youth skills and employer needs in the agricultural and agri-food sectors.

Such initiatives provide an important basis for comparing training with actual employment outcomes.

If programmes perform better when they involve direct partnerships with private companies ready to recruit workers, an important question arises:

Can this model be replicated in Kairouan and other inland regions?

11. Why Do Some Programmes Perform Better Than Others?

This is a central investigative issue.

If the documents show that some training programmes lead to actual employment while others do not, the investigation should identify the reasons.

Is the difference related to:

Choice of training specialisations?

Training quality?

Private-sector partnerships?

Geographical location?

Education level?

Transportation?

Weak investment in inland regions?

Difficulty accessing finance?

Lack of post-training follow-up?

Or simply insufficient demand for labour?

These questions transform the investigation from a presentation of statistics into an analysis of causes.

12. Kairouan as a Test of Public Policy

Kairouan can be more than simply the geographical location of the investigation.

If a small employment programme succeeds in creating sustainable jobs for young people in rural communities, it could provide a model for expansion.

If, however, a programme produces more trainees than jobs, this raises questions about the design of employment policy itself.

Kairouan can therefore serve as a test case:

Do employment programmes reach the communities that need them most?

13. The Real Indicator: What Happens One Year Later?

One of the biggest weaknesses in evaluating employment programmes is the focus on immediate outputs.

The number of trainees is an indicator.

The number of certificates is an indicator.

The number of businesses launched is an indicator.

But the most important question is:

What happened six months later?

Then:

What happened one year later?

And:

What happened after the funding ended?

If a young person works during the project period and then returns to unemployment after the programme ends, the project may have achieved a short-term result without necessarily achieving sustainable economic inclusion.

14. Investigative Monitoring Scorecard

Project: Agriboost

Location: Kairouan Governorate

Target group: Young jobseekers in rural and agricultural communities

Pilot target: 200 young people

Stated pathway: Training → Employment or Business

Question 1: How many young people actually entered the programme?

Question 2: How many completed the training?

Question 3: How many obtained employment?

Question 4: How many established businesses?

Question 5: How many businesses are still operating?

Question 6: How many young people achieved stable income?

Question 7: What was the average cost of each employment opportunity?

Question 8: What proportion of beneficiaries were women?

Question 9: Were the jobs formal or informal?

Question 10: What happened to beneficiaries six months and one year later?

15. What Do the Documents Establish and What Still Requires Verification?

Official sources establish the existence and objectives of the Agriboost project, including training for young jobseekers and pathways towards paid employment or self-employment. The pilot phase identifies 200 young people in Kairouan as its target.

However, these facts alone do not establish the project's final impact.

Additional verification is required concerning the number of young people who actually participated, the number who completed training, the number who obtained employment, the nature of their jobs, wages, contracts and social protection, the number of businesses established, the number that survived, the number that stopped operating, the income generated and the real cost of each sustainable job.

16. Questions the Investigation Must Answer

Who are the 200 targeted young people?

How were they selected?

What are their ages and educational backgrounds?

How many are women?

What type of training did they receive?

What was the cost of training each young person?

Who provided the training?

Was the training actually aligned with labour-market needs?

How many young people obtained employment after training?

Were those jobs formal?

Did workers receive social protection?

How many established businesses?

What level of support did they receive?

How many businesses are still operating?

How many stopped?

Why did they stop?

Did beneficiaries receive follow-up support after launching their businesses?

And what happened after the support ended?

17. Proposed Field Investigation

The next stage of the investigation should move from documents to people.

A sample of current and former beneficiaries could be identified and compared.

Case One: A young person who received training and found employment.

Case Two: A young person who received training and established a business.

Case Three: A young person who received training but did not find employment.

Case Four: A young person who launched a business and later stopped operating.

Comparing these four cases can reveal the difference between:

What the project documents say

and

What actually happened in the lives of beneficiaries.

18. From Numbers to People's Stories

Investigative journalism does not rely on statistics alone.

Behind every number there is a person.

If a programme targets 200 young people, the investigation should seek to understand what happened to some of them after participating.

Did they obtain income?

Were they able to support their families?

Did they leave unemployment?

Did they migrate?

Did they return to seasonal work?

Is the business they created still operating?

These stories, when independently documented and verified, can make the investigation both stronger and more human.

19. From Training to Impact

An employment programme may announce:

200 young people were trained.

But investigative journalism must ask:

What happened next?

If 150 obtained stable jobs with formal contracts, that would represent a strong result.

If 50 established sustainable businesses, that would also be significant.

But if 200 young people received training and most subsequently returned to unemployment, the problem would not necessarily be the number of training courses. The deeper question would be the programme's ability to convert training into genuine economic opportunities.

This is the difference between:

Output – what the programme produces

Outcome – what changes as a direct result

and

Impact – what changes sustainably in people's lives.

CONCLUSION

Youth employment programmes in Tunisia represent an attempt to address one of the country's most complex social and economic challenges: unemployment, particularly among young people in inland and rural communities.

Agriboost provides a valuable case for investigative journalism because its pilot phase targets 200 young people in Kairouan Governorate and establishes a clear pathway from training towards employment or entrepreneurship.

However, the success of an employment programme should not be measured only by the number of training courses delivered or the number of participants.

The real indicators are:

How many young people obtained jobs?

How many achieved stable income?

How many businesses survived?

And how many remained outside the labour market?

This leads to the central question of the investigation:

FROM TRAINING TO EMPLOYMENT: ARE YOUTH EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMMES IN TUNISIA TURNING DEVELOPMENT FUNDING INTO REAL AND SUSTAINABLE JOBS?

Methodology and Sources

This investigation is based on an analysis of official documents and data concerning youth employment and economic development programmes in Tunisia, with a focus on Agriboost and relevant TRACE initiatives addressing rural employment and the agricultural and agri-food sectors.

The investigation does not assume in advance that any programme has succeeded or failed, and it does not make allegations of corruption or mismanagement without independent evidence.

The methodology compares:

Funding → Objectives → Beneficiaries → Training → Employment → Income → Sustainability → Impact.

Final findings require further verification through implementation documents, beneficiary records, employment data, interviews with young people, employers and implementing institutions, and field reporting wherever possible.

Primary sources: World Bank – Tunisia Economic Resilience & Inclusion / TRACE; Agriboost; Nexus Skills & Jobs for Youth; MPTF for Employment and Youth in Tunisia; relevant official labour-market data and reports.