Compliance with the growing body of environmental legislation combined with competitive pressure on Tunisian industry arising from globalisation have in recent years led to an increased demand for environmental technology and know-how. This demand has not been met due to inadequate advisory and training services and the lack of specialised institutions.

The Tunis International Centre for Environmental Technologies (CITET), founded in 1996, is charged with promoting technology transfer and building Tunisian capacities in the environmental sector. The GTZ supports CITET in becoming a recognised, demand-oriented and largely self-financed environmental competency centre offering training, consulting and other services.

•	Training: Initial support for CITET was limited to training activities in the environmental sector.
•	Consulting and other services: In a second phase, the quality and scope of CITET’s services as a whole – especially for the private sector – were enhanced. Concurrently, the centre’s organisation and client orientation were developed.
•	International networking: The ongoing third phase supports the networking of business, R&D institutions and technology-centres and promotes technology cooperation between European enterprises and Tunisian partners.

CITET has become increasingly active, better known on the national and international levels, more client-oriented, competent and sought after. Its growing turnover and self-financing capacity, client diversification and rising number of requests for services and cooperation are evidence of this positive trend. The GTZ’s support has contributed substantially to CITET’s performance, which includes:

•	Certification of CITET’s environmental and quality management systems (ISO 9001, 14001, 17025)
•	More than 8,000 seminar participants in 6 years
•	Over 5,600 conference, business meeting and exhibition participants in 3 years
•	More than 20,000 monthly visitors to the environment portal www.citet.nat.tn
•	An average of 15,000 analyses annually in CITET’s laboratories
•	Environmental management systems introduced, technical consultations provided and international partners identified for technology cooperation and transfer benefiting over 200 Tunisian enterprises
•	Annual savings of € 1.2 million and substantial reductions in environmental pollution in a control sample of 15 enterprises