Financial Times – Expectation State Interview

This week, Expectation State’s Ons Ben Abdelkarim had a conversation with the Financial Times to give her perspective on the situation in Tunisia. We’ve made a long term commitment to Tunisia and, now more than ever, want to do more to improve the lives of Tunisian across the country. If you have ideas, we’d love to hear from you.

Nightly riots by Tunisian youths this week have underscored the depth of the country’s economic crisis as it grapples with rising poverty and widespread unemployment even as it is feted as the Arab world’s only democracy. Violent protests have swept at least 15 cities and police have clashed with teenage demonstrators, using tear gas and water cannon to disperse stone-throwing youths. Hundreds have been arrested and the army has been deployed to prevent the looting of shops and banks. “The protests reflect the extremely tense atmosphere in the country,” said Ons Benabdelkarim, senior associate in Tunisia of Expectation State, an international development group. “These are teenagers protesting and there is despair and a sense of lack of perspective over what their future will look like. It comes on top of the economic stress of the pandemic and the lockdowns which makes the situation flammable.”

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