Tunisia/ 6. Financing of culture  

6.3. Trends and indicators for private cultural financing

Private funding can be classified into two types: refundable and non-refundable. In the refundable private funding, bank financing to cultural production through loans is an example of this type. The OIF cooperation project ‘Credit insurance funds’ established in 2005 in Tunisia targeted the promotion of bank financing to cultural enterprises at production or supply  levels. Unfortunately the fund was not attractive either for Banks or private cultural enterprises. The private cultural enterprise is still unable to mobilize its own financial resources without recourse to non- refundable funds. In addition, the banking system was discouraged to finance private cultural enterprise due to the absence of the economic information on the cultural sector as being unable to determine sector lending risk. Moreover, attempts to mobilize financial resources through participation in the cultural project with deferred refunding after completion are absent, such as the mechanism of crowd funding.     

For non-refundable private funding which takes the form of grants, donations are not common at the individual level and mostly exist through institutional donations especially by sponsoring cultural events, exhibitions,  or festivals. For example, the historical communication operator Tunisie Telecom supports international festivals through sponsoring and several banks provide annual awards in the field of literature.

Data related to private funding of culture, especially financial data, is absent as most of the amounts would be indicated in activity contracts. In addition, there are no relevant tax breaks that can encourage private funding for cultural sector and can promote its financial contribution. 

Chapter published: 05-05-2015

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