With Tunisia’s new constitution ratified and election preparations underway, citizens are optimistic about political progress and the gradually improving security situation, but they are concerned with high unemployment, rising prices and poor service delivery, according to a new round of NDI focus group research.

“We must do better than this,” said Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “Too many women are unaccounted for, underutilized, and over-exploited. It is a moral imperative, but it is also an economic imperative. The evidence is plain—when women contribute more, the economy does better.”

Lagarde delivered the keynote address at NDI’s May 19 Madeleine K. Albright Grant luncheon, encouraging people to “dare the difference” through the three “L’s” of women’s empowerment — learning, labor and leadership.

The President of Tunisia’s National Constituent Assembly, Mustapha Ben Jaafar, was hosted at a small dinner in Washington, D.C., May 6 by NDI Vice Chairman Thomas Daschle and NDI President Ken Wollack. Dr. Ben Jaafar discussed the commitment of Tunisia's political leaders to resolving differences through consensus as they steered the country through its democratic transition and the drafting of a new constitution.

After playing a leading role in the 2011 protest movement that launched the Arab Spring, Tunisian youth are now trying to find their place in the country’s political parties. They have been active in party organizing and are eager for more responsibility ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections anticipated for late this year.