It is The Ibn Khaldun Award Program Steering Committee's pleasure to announce that Mr Jim Phippard has been selected as the recipient of the fourth annual Ibn Khaldun Award for his distinguished service to the Tunisian-American community.

As USAID Mission Director in 1982 in Tunisia, Mr Phippard focused much of the USAID program on the poorer areas of central Tunisia, bringing agricultural technologies that resulted in increased incomes for many small farmers.

The program's excellence was recognized as one of five outstanding successes cited in USAID's evaluation documents. The work, also, had earned Mr Phippard The Order of The Republic medal from the late Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba.

He is also a founding member and current President of the American Tunisian Association, a non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening American-Tunisian relations. The Association is designed as a cultural institution which works closely with the Tunisian Embassy in Washington, DC