Abstract
Over the past years, the global challenges to renewable energy (RE) development have been driven by a broad set of environmental and social trends, such as global energy transition, environmental quality, climate protection and social dynamics of RE development. To address these challenges and to position for a global RE development, cooperation between the Government, private institutions and civil society, remains imperative. The Tunisian Government tries to develop a larger and an accurate vision to engage Civil Society Associations (CSAs) in the debate of the energy futures of Tunisia. The promotion of RE remains an important purpose, especially as the current situation is marked by the continued surge in oil prices on the international market and the increase of domestic consumption. This research describes CSAs' actions to promote RE and identifies motivations and barriers to their activities. Indeed, despite the increasing literature on RE, the empirical research on it remains scarce. This paper relies on a qualitative research to explore the actions, motivations and barriers to Tunisian CSAs. The results show that the increasing emphasis given recently by Tunisian CSAs to promote RE sources, through a rich variety of activities, is related to a wide range of aspects: environmental, economical, industrial, employability, social and scientific. In light of these aspects, the CSAs show a real motivation to catalyze change towards adoption of these energies. However, Tunisian CSAs face a range of barriers that require timely actions. They are internal, external and related to technology.