Diaspora Talks

*Podcast in Arabic + Arabic description below Tunisia was once distinguished as the "best-in-class", a "role model" and a "success story" by the World Bank and the IMF. The young nation borrowed carefully and wisely after achieving its independence in 1956, but it seems to struggle greatly today in its relationship with both institutions. In this episode we explore the four different periods. How did Tunisia's debt evolve? how wisely was it used to achieve economic progress and prosperity? what is going on today and what are the current prospects? نعتت تونس في السابق من قبل البنك الدولي وصندوق النقد الدولي بالتلميذ النجيب. اقترضت بعناية وحكمة بعد حصولها على الاستقلال عام 1956 ، ولكنها تشهد صعوبات اليوم في علاقتها مع كلتا المؤسستين. في هذه الحلقة نتناول الفترات الأربع المختلفة. كيف تطورت ديون تونس؟ ما مدى حكمة استخدامها لتحقيق التقدم الاقتصادي والازدهار؟ ما هو سبب الأزمة الحالية وما هي الآفاق المستقبلية؟

Development aid was instrumental in lifting Korea out of poverty, and in rebuilding Europe after WWII. So why is it not working for other countries? We visit this questions and more in this podcast, to extract lessons relevant to Tunisians and Maghrebis who want to contribute to development in our countries. Dead Aid is a book written by Dambisa Moyo, an economist from Zambia who used to work at the World Bank and who has a critical position. Diaspora in Action members and show hosts Hajer ben Charrada and Amin Zayani together with our dear guest and active member from Hazem Krichene will take you through the ideas in this book in three parts: Part 1: What is development aid? how did it evolve? and what are its implications? Part 2: A world without aid. Part 3: Development Aid in Tunisia. Addressing feedback, questions and comments from you, our dear listeners. You can interact with us on our platform for Tunisian Diaspora: www.diasporainaction.org Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn

Development aid was instrumental in lifting Korea out of poverty, and in rebuilding Europe after WWII. So why is it not working for other countries? We visit this questions and more in this podcast, to extract lessons relevant to Tunisians and Maghrebis who want to contribute to development in our countries. Dead Aid is a book written by Dambisa Moyo, an economist from Zambia who used to work at the World Bank and who has a critical position. Diaspora in Action members and show hosts Hajer ben Charrada and Amin Zayani together with our dear guest and active member from Hazem Krichene will take you through the ideas in this book in three parts: Part 1: What is development aid? how did it evolve? and what are its implications? Part 2: A world without aid. Part 3: Development Aid in Tunisia. Addressing feedback, questions and comments from you, our dear listeners. You can interact with us on our platform for Tunisian Diaspora: www.diasporainaction.org Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn

We explained the principles of the prosperity paradox in Part 1. In Part 2 we visited the ideas of corruption, governance and infrastructure (the previous two episodes). But so far we haven't criticised the book, and that's what we're doing in Part 3. Is it reasonable to suggest market creating innovations as an alternative to digging wells in Nigeria? What are the other factors that helped South Korea go from receiving development aid to giving aid to other countries? And can we really talk about the USA as a prosperous country? All this and more is discussed by the show hosts: Hajer ben Charrada, Amin Zayani and our guests Mehdi Fekari and Hazem Krichene. You can interact with us on our platform for Tunisian Diaspora: www.diasporainaction.org Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn

We explained the principles of the prosperity paradox in Part 1 (the previous episode). In Part 2 we covered: corruption, good laws and infrastructure. Which one of these three pillars is necessary to achieve prosperity? How did South Korea go from a country where gangs pocketed protection money to suing the president and jailing her over corruption charges? What made it possible for a company in Nigeria to build better infrastructure faster than the government? and why can't Tunisia prosper despite a brand new constitution? All this and more is discussed by the show hosts: Hajer ben Charrada, Amin Zayani and our guest Mehdi Fekari. You can interact with us on our platform for Tunisian Diaspora: www.diasporainaction.org Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn

How was it possible for South Korea to go from a development aid receiver to donor within a few decades? What can we learn from the first African telecom company Celltell? Is a great constitution a must to develop Tunisia? We visit these questions and more in this podcast, to extract lessons relevant to Tunisians and Maghrebis who want to contribute to development in our countries. The Prosperity Paradox is a brilliant book with a key idea: to effectively fight poverty, don't fight poverty, but rather generate prosperity through market-creating innovations and entire nations will be lifted out of poverty. Diaspora in Action members and show hosts Hajer ben Charrada and Amin Zayani together with our dear guest and active member from Morocco Mehdi Fekari will take you through the ideas in this book in three parts: Part 1: Market creating innovations with examples from Korea, Japan, Africa and Mexico. What can we learn from Toyota's driving schools, Henry Ford's model T and Singer's sewing machines? Part 2: Corruption, good laws and infrastructure. Is a shiny new constitution a requirement for development? Does investing in infrastructure create prosperity? Part 3: Addressing feedback, questions and comments from you, our dear listeners. You can interact with us on our platform for Tunisian Diaspora: www.diasporainaction.org Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn

The second episode of Diaspora Talks hosts Emna Ghariani, a successful Tunisian female entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley. Emna is co-founder & CEO of Veamly, a developer unified workspace for software engineers. As a digital wellbeing activist and productivity guru, she is on mission to fix our relationship with work and to advocate for a brave new world where wellbeing and work/life balance are celebrated to live a full-filling life. She also brings a hybrid model of remote work that puts people and their own wellbeing at the center.  Emna's work has been featured on Gitlab, ThriveGlobal, Hackernoon ,etc… In this podcast talk,  Emna will tell us more about her story, venture, and how her passion for entrepreneurship started. We will also discover, together with her, the challenges that female entrepreneurs face in this exciting journey and the lessons learnt to achieve resilience and claim power as a female leader and founder.

In this first edition of Diaspora Talks Podcasts, we will talk about the current status of digital platforms in Tunisia, how these platforms are developing, the challenges they are facing, and the the role COVID-19 crisis has played to boost platforms in Tunisia.