The digital platform economy harnesses digital technologies to connect supply and demand, fostering economic and social value through interactions among consumers and producers. Despite being in its early stages in Tunisia, the digital platform economy shows promise in creating jobs, boosting income, enhancing supply chains, and empowering micro-entrepreneurs, thereby driving socio-economic progress. While Tunisia boasts favourable conditions like robust mobile internet infrastructure and supportive policies, challenges persist, such as inadequate mobile payment infrastructure and policy gaps concerning informal digital workers.

To fully realise the potential of Tunisia’s digital platform economy, a collaborative effort from various stakeholders is imperative. This includes implementing best practices to enhance working conditions for platform workers and providing actionable recommendations outlined in this report to address existing challenges and propel sustainable growth.

This research report looks at the rise of the digital platform economy in emerging economies, including the benefits, risks and enablers influencing the emergence of the platform economy and highlights Tunisia’s potential contribution of the platform economy, along with insights from the Platforms for Tomorrow programme and recommendations to accelerate the development of Tunisia’s platform economy.

This report is supported by the Special Initiative Decent Work for a Just Transition – “Invest for Jobs” mandated by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented at the Digital Transformation Center of the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH in Tunisia.