1986: Creation of the National Programme for Needy Families (Programme National d’Assistance aux Familles Nécessiteuses – PNAFN)

The National Programme for Needy Families (PNAFN) constitutes the main operational non-contributory social assistance programme targeting poor households. It was created in 1986 and aimed at covering the entire national territory, providing direct financial aid and free access to care services (especially health coverage) for eligible households. PNAFN’s budget is allocated by region from the central Government. Access to the programme is based on self-demand and on eligibility criteria related to the national poverty index. At its establishment, its objective was to limit the negative effects of IMF’s Structural Adjustment Programme on which Tunisia embarked in the first part of the 1980s after a period of strong social unrest, heightened by the “bread riots” that broke out in the winter of 1983-1984. The PNAFN was supposed to counter the impact of the progressive price hikes on basic commodities due to the ongoing reform of the General Compensation Fund (CGC). According to the Ministry of Social Affairs, the PNAFN program reached 73,000 families on the first year of its implementation, and 260,000 families in 2020 (920,000 individuals in total, the equivalent of 7.8% of the entire Tunisian population).