Three years after the beginning of the „Arab Spring“, transformation processes are still under way in Northern African states. High unemployment rates prevail and especially young and highly qualified Tunisians suffer from a lack of professional perspectives.

The pilot project, which was carried out by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH in cooperation with the International Placement Services (ZAV) of the Federal Employment Agency (BA), was financed by the German Federal Foreign Office with the aim to contribute to the transformation process in Tunisia by offering a perspective to unemployed Tunisian engineers. At the same time German companies, which are faced with increased labour shortages, were offered the opportunity to fill their open positions with highly motivated Tunisian engineers.

After the completion of a 5-month linguistic and intercultural qualification phase in Tunisia and Germany, the Tunisian participants completed a 6-months internship within a German company. In 2013, 100 Tunisian engineers arrived in Germany. Given their excellent qualifications and language skills about 70 participants (as of February 2014) received a work contract immediately after their internships. Most of the young Tunisians have found a professional perspective in Germany, others in German companies in Tunisia where they profit from enhanced skills and newly acquired professional experience.