Country profile: Tunisia

WAGGGS Region:

Arab

Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting introduced:

1934

7,298 Girl Guides and Girl Scouts

Address

Scouts Tunisiens
Tunis Mahragene
Po Box 339
1082 Tunis
Tunisia

Promise

I promise to do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
To help others, and
To follow the Guide Law

Law

A Girl Guide believes in God and is loyal to her country

A Girl Guide is noble and keeps her promise

A Girl Guide is genuine and contemporary

A Girl Guide is disciplined and law abiding

A Girl Guide is alert and attentive

A Girl Guide looks after the environment

A Girl Guide is a manager and is conscientious

A Girl Guide is loyal and respects the property of others

A Girl Guide is useful and overcomes difficulties

A Girl Guide is pure in thought, word and in deed

MDG 7 in Tunisia

One of Tunisia’s main environmental challenges is a lack of fresh water sources. Its water availability for each person is well below average for the Middle East and North Africa. To provide water for its population, agriculture and industry, large numbers of dams are being built on rivers, changing the natural environment.

In some regions around the coast too much water has been taken from sources underground. This causes seawater to move into these areas, in a process called ‘saline intrusion’. As a result, the ground water becomes salty and unusable. Farming methods inTunisia often cut down too much forest to make way for agriculture, thereby reducing habitats for animals and plants, and allowing overgrazing by animals. This causes the soil to have poor quality and to be washed away or removed (soil erosion) easily. Poor, eroded soils make farming even harder resulting in low wages and poverty.

Soil erosion and the lack of water are two causes for one of the most serious environmental threats in Tunisia and North Africa – desertification, where arable land is converted to desert. Climate change may also increase desertification. If the land lost could be used for farming, it has a cost to individual people and to the country. In Tunisia, this cost has been estimated at 100 million US dollars every year.

Environmental Indicators

• Only around 1 per cent of land and marine areas are now protected as nature reserves
• Nearly 62 per cent of water sources are used to provide water for people, industry and agriculture
• 5 per cent of people use solid fuels to heat their homes
• 94 per cent of people have access to good quality drinking water
• Only 85 per cent of people have access to basic sanitation
• Nearly one in ten people live in slums