Country Assistance Strategy (CAS)

Guiding World Bank operations in Tunisia

The Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) is the World Bank’s work plan that guides its operations in a country, usually for a period of three years. It describes the country's economic and social performance, its main development challenges, and a summary of the government's development strategy.

Objectives
This Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) proposes to:

• Strengthen the business environment, to support the development of a more competitive, internationally integrated private sector, and improve competitiveness of the Tunisian economy.
  Bank support will thus be directed to improve the regulatory framework; increase production and exports; improve infrastructure service delivery; improve agricultural competitiveness; strengthen banking systems, and private sector development; and, improve local financial markets, both public and private.
• Enhance skills and employment potential of graduates, and the labor force in a knowledge economy.
  It is intended to improve the quality and relevance of all levels of education; improve financial sustainability of the education system; and, improve linkages between research, higher education, and the market place to achieve greater innovation, and competitiveness. 
• Improve the quality of social services, through enhanced efficiency of public expenditures.
  This should entail increased budget flexibility and better fiscal mobilization to reduce public debt, while performance budgeting, and operational monitoring and evaluation should be in place in key line ministries. Furthermore; improved coverage, quality, and financial sustainability of health, social protection, and pension systems will be pursued.

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What is a Country assistance strategy ?

The World Bank prepares a Country assistance strategy (CAS) for active borrowers from the International Development Association (IDA) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).

The CAS takes as its starting point the country’s own vision for its development, as defined in a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper or other country-owned process. Oriented toward results, the CAS is developed in consultation with country authorities, civil society organizations, development partners, and other stakeholders.

The purpose of the CAS is to set out a selective program of Bank Group support linked to the country’s development strategy and based on the Bank Group’s comparative advantage in the context of other donor activities. CASs are designed to promote collaboration and coordination among development partners in a country. 

The CAS includes a comprehensive diagnosis—drawing on analytic work by the Bank, the government, and/or other partners—of the development challenges facing the country, including the incidence, trends, and causes of poverty.

The CAS identifies the key areas where the Bank Group's assistance can have the biggest impact on poverty reduction. In its diagnosis, the CAS takes into account the performance of the Bank’s portfolio in the country, the country’s creditworthiness, state of institutional development, implementation capacity, governance, and other sectoral and cross-cutting issues.

From this assessment, the level and composition of Bank Group financial, advisory, and/or technical support to the country is determined.

To track implementation of the CAS program, the CAS is increasingly results-focused. It includes a framework of clear targets and indicators to monitor Bank Group and country performance in achieving stated outcomes.