The country displays an energy system that performs better than its regional average, and a preparation capacity that is eroding. Sixteen points separate the two. It is in this gap that the Tunisian energy decade is played out.
There are two ways to read an international energy ranking. The first is to note the rank and issue a press release based on it. The second, markedly more informative, is to measure the gap between what an energy system delivers today and what it has the means to deliver tomorrow. Applied to Tunisia, this second reading completely reverses the apparent diagnosis.
Published recently by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Accenture, the Energy Transition Index, in its sixteenth edition, evaluates 120 economies using 44 indicators, distributed between the performance of the current system, measured in terms of security, equity, and sustainability, and the preparation for the transition, which aggregates regulation, finance, innovation, infrastructure, and human capital. Tunisia ranks 62nd globally with an overall score of 56.0 points, below the global average set at 57.3.
A decent ranking
The composite score masks the essential. Tunisia earns 62.4 points in system performance and only 46.3 points in preparation for the transition. The gap reaches 16.1 points, one of the widest in the Mediterranean region. In other words, the country runs a functioning energy system inherited from the past, while accumulating delays in the conditions that determine its capacity to transform it.
This configuration is structurally fragile. The World Economic Forum reminds that performance describes a state, whereas preparation describes a trajectory. A country can display for several years correct indicators of access, price, and reliability while its regulatory, financial, and industrial capacity to finance what comes next shrinks. The ranking does not immediately penalize this drop. Capital markets, however, do.
The Maghreb transformation that no one has commented on
