Young Policy Leaders

Non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes are estimated to account for 72% of annual deaths in Libya, and their prevalence and incidence continues to increase. Libya’s healthcare system struggles to contain and address this problem, which is increasingly weighing on the national budget.

– Carry out large-scale targeted education and training of Libya’s healthcare workforce, notably including Primary Health Care (PHC) centers and healthcare associations.

– Harness the capacity and reach of health-focused NGOs to provide advanced trainings about NCDs.

– PHC healthcare workers and community centers should establish public health campaigns to raise awareness about preventative measures for NCDs, including lifestyle changes (diet, exercise).

– PHC centers should hire health educators to enhance their capacity and skills. They should improve their delivery of information and basic care to patients, thereby taking some workload off of general practitioners.

– NGOs should conduct research to address the lack of data on NCD patients and analyze how the healthcare system can improve the prevention and management of NCDs.

NAPI and the author wish to thank Michel Cousins and Perry DeMarche for the precious and unwavering mentorship and guidance they provided to the author throughout the policy research and writing process.

More than elsewhere in the country, southern Libya suffers from the absence of national government and functioning state institutions. In this context, tribes and other non-state actors largely manage security and justice. However, notwithstanding their contribution to justice and security, the nature and functioning of these actors is inadequate to carrying out these important tasks. In particular, tribes and other non-state actors prioritize the interests of small groups over the stability of the entire region. Moreover, they are not transparent, accountable, inclusive, and egalitarian.

The Libyan government, international community, and local media and civil society organizations should bolster the capacity of state institutions in the South through the following actions:

– Facilitate communication between citizens and local state authorities to help with conflict management and community cohesion

– Foster state-society dialogue to raise awareness about the needs of the South

– Implement youth employment programs to help deter youth from joining armed groups

– Deliver capacity-building training for new police recruits to emphasize the rule of law, and common security goals

– Rehabilitate local police stations, and provide them with key equipment and resources

NAPI and the author wish to thank Francesco Cavatorta and Perry DeMarche for the precious and unwavering mentorship and guidance they provided to the author throughout the policy research and writing process.

Libyans are divided by constant and complex localized conflicts and by a national confrontation. The large-scale dissemination of hate speech, and political and tribal intolerance further restrict space for dialogue and peaceful debate within the Libyan society. Dialogue and debate are two rare and valuable tools to fight against mistrust, partisanship, and division, and to build a cohesive nation based on citizenship and the rule of law. However, the few existing dialogue and debate initiatives do not receive any significant support. Worse, the authorities’ failure to understand the functioning of dialogue and debate clubs prompts them to impede their work or to block their activities altogether.

– Foster a culture of dialogue and debate among all social segments, particularly among those who fuel hate speech and intolerance. 

– Foster a culture of dialogue and debate among all social segments, particularly among those who fuel hate speech and intolerance.

– Support dialogue and debating clubs

– Modify the approach in national education by shifting from memorization to reasoning through dialogue, conviction, argumentation, and acceptance of differences.

– Involve authorities in the functioning of dialogue and debate clubs

NAPI and the author wish to thank Mehdy Cherif and Fida Sassi for the precious and unwavering mentorship and guidance they provided to the author throughout the policy research and writing process.

Agriculture is no longer a viable livelihood in the greater Tripoli area because what farmers grow does not respond to the demands of the local market. As a result, Libya relies increasingly on food imports. However, food import is unreliable, expensive, and will not meet the future local food demand. If they are unaddressed, these issues can have highly destabilizing effects.

Libya’s agriculture sector should adopt an agri-business approach to help farmers’ access local food markets. In particular, the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Authority for Scientific Research (NASR), and the Chambers of Commerce should adopt the following recommendations with the support of International organizations, notably FAO and WFP: 

– Develop a national agriculture strategy to guide farmers in growing products that are competitive in the local market 

– Implement aid programs to make small-holder farming financially viable  

– Provide education programs for farmers to learn better methods and techniques 

– Create a communication system to connect public and private sectors in order to assess market needs  

NAPI and the author wish to thank Mathieu Galtier and Perry DeMarche for the precious and unwavering mentorship and guidance they provided to the author throughout the policy research and writing process. 

Libya’s economy is suffering from a shortage of workers in the private sector, particularly in construction, cleaning, and medical aid. Most Libyans are unwilling to take on these jobs, to which they prefer an employment in the public sector. Migrants can fill this gap. However, they struggle to obtain work permits, which prevent them from working legally in Libya. 

– Enhance the capacity of department of passports, nationality and foreign affairs to issue work permits for migrant workers 

– Conduct a national survey to identify Libya’s needs for foreign workers 

– International organizations should support Libyan civil society organizations that advocate for the legal employment of foreign workers 

– Improve the cooperation between Libyan companies and the ministry of labor and rehabilitation 

– The ministry of labor and rehabilitation should monitor compliance with labor laws through its Labor Inspection Unit 

– Conduct a national survey to identify Libya’s foreign needs 

NAPI and the author wish to thank Harry Johnstone and Fida Sassi for the precious and unwavering mentorship and guidance they provided to the author throughout the policy research and writing process. 

Between 2013 and 2016 hundreds of thousands of migrants moved illegally from Libya to Italy. In 2017 Libyan and Italian authorities signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to deter the flow of migrants. While the MoU has succeeded in achieving its goals, migrants are now trapped in Libyan detention centers (DCs), facing inhumane conditions. 

 – Libyan judicial authorities should open an investigation about ongoing human rights violations in Detention Centers 

– Provide relevant training to officials from the Libyan Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM) and Coast Guard 

– International organizations should provide more medical support to vulnerable women and children in the detention centers 

– Integrate migrants’ children and unaccompanied minors in the Libyan education system or open child-friendly learning centers 

– The Libyan government should promulgate and enact legislation that allows migrants to obtain a work permit in order to avoid their indefinite detention 

– The Libyan government should facilitate the visit of DCs by national and international NGOs 

– DCIM, Ministry of Health, Libyan Red Crescent, and international organizations should provide greater medical support to migrants, especially to women and children 

NAPI and the author wish to thank Mohamed Masbah and Fida Sassi for the precious and unwavering mentorship and guidance they provided to the author throughout the policy research and writing process. 

Unemployment among youth in Libya is among the highest in Africa. Despite some measures adopted since 2011 to liberalize the economy, the private sector remains small and weak. As one of the consequences, unemployment among youth in Libya is among the highest in Africa. At the same time, young Libyans lack the skills, creativity, and entrepreneurial culture that they would need to need to fuel the development of Libya’s private sector. The national education system can play a central role to address these issues. 

The Ministry of Education and NGOs focused on education should undertake the following actions:  

– Carry out a nation-wide research on current school curricula, on mapping school capacity, and on available financial resources 

– Based on the nation-wide research, develop new curricula that foster leadership, creativity, and critical thinking among students 

– Implement a national teacher training program to enable them to teach the new curricula 

– Pilot the new curricula in specific schools to assess their impact and effectiveness 

NAPI and the author wish to thank Joe Massad and Perry DeMarche for the precious and unwavering mentorship and guidance they provided to the author throughout the policy research and writing process. 

The failure to include the residents of Tripoli’s Old City in local cultural policies and practices has led to the divergence of their attitude and interests from that of cultural actors. This division is fueling social fragmentation and conflict, and is undermining the preservation of the cultural heritage of Tripoli’s Old City.  

This paper recommends that the Old Tripoli City Administration Bureau adopts the following actions: 

– Host a local art competition to identify local residents interested in cultural activities who may help bridge the gap between outside cultural actors and the local community 

– Implement art-based initiatives to allow local residents to voice their concerns and vision for the Old City 

– Facilitate roundtable discussions to recognize the issues deemed important by local residents and negotiate the role of culture in the Old City 

– Host solution-oriented workshop(s) to actively address the concerns raised during roundtable discussions 

– Form an inter-group committee for participative decision making. This committee should draft an action plan to establish a pilot cultural production space in the Old City 

NAPI and the author wish to thank Arbi Soussi and Perry DeMarche for the precious and unwavering mentorship and guidance they provided to the author throughout the policy research and writing process. 

The collapse of the health system in Libya goes beyond the medical care that needs to be provided to the citizens to also include the structural failure of the entire prevention system, mainly targeting youth and the family in general. The lack of awareness by a large part of the population of the overlap between environmental and health risks mainly reflects the absence of a comprehensive government educational policy for counsel, supervision and care. In the current situation in Libya, the lack of awareness of the authorities about the absence of a preventive policy puts the health of new and future generations at considerable risks. 

– Raise the awareness of mothers, families and young children about the importance of maintaining public health principles and promoting community health to prevent infectious diseases; 

– Support educational activities to reinforce the psychological and physical health of children and adolescents, and to fight against bullying and violence at an early age; 

– Promote the culture of healthy meals and balanced nutrition in educational institutions;  

– Raise awareness about the selection of safe water sources for drinking, domestic usages and agricultural purposes; 

– Sensitize families on how to reduce and calculate the carbon footprint to rationalize activities dependent on the emission of carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas. 

NAPI and the author wish to thank Aya Burweila and Fida Sassi for the precious and unwavering mentorship and guidance they provided to the author throughout the policy research and writing process.