Partnership and capacity building in the date sector in Tunisia: the contribution of support organizations

PurposeThis paper aims to understand how support organizations promote the structuring of the agricultural value chain through partnerships and capacity building of the various links in the chain.Design/methodology/approachThe study is exploratory and qualitative, based on ten semi-structured interviews with the main public support organizations related to the date sector in Tunisia.FindingsThe results showed that the support organizations of the Tunisian date sector do not share the same vision of the priorities to be strengthened to promote the export of dates in Tunisia.Research limitations/implicationsReviewing the coordination mechanisms between the support organizations is important in order to improve the governance of the value chain and to reinforce the capacity of the operators in the date value chain.Originality/valuePublic support organizations are important actors in agricultural value chains as these organizations implement agricultural policies. Assessing these organizations' contribution to capacity building of chain links is an innovative approach to detecting organizational dysfunction in agricultural value chains in developing countries.