Outcome LBY_D_7.1

By late 2022, core government functions, Libyan institutions and Civil Society will be strengthened, at all levels; and better able to respond to the needs of the people (Libyans, migrants and refugees) through transparent, accountable and inclusive gender-sensitive decision-making and peacebuilding processes abiding by the democratic principles of division of power and rule of law (UNSF Outcome 1)

The outcome was partly achieved. First, progress was made towards the outcome as Libyan institutions and civil society are growing stronger. Members of the Presidential Council, which holds the mandate for national reconciliation in Libya, strengthened their capacity to better incorporate the needs of Libyan women in inclusive peacebuilding processes. In June, the head of the Office for Women and Youth from the Presidential Council met with 22 diverse Libyan civil society activists, academics, and women politicians who shared their priorities on the national reconciliation process . The participants came from diverse regions (including Tripoli, Benghazi, Misrata, and Murzuk), and five (5) were under 30 years of age, one (1) was over 65, and three (3) were women with disabilities. The priorities identified include (i) a regionally diverse and inclusive national reconciliation commission including a women’s empowerment unit and advisory board of academics, religious leaders, and former fighters; (ii) specific support for the return of internally displaced persons; and (iii) a fact-finding component to identify missing and disappeared persons. UN Women contributed by organizing the workshop and moderating the discussions between civil society actors and Presidential Council. Following the workshop, UN Women shared the priorities with the Presidential Council and the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), both of whom are working on the national reconciliation process. Moreover, civil society became more empowered, with two diverse women-led civil society coalitions strengthening their ability to contribute to and lead peacebuilding initiatives. The Libyan Women Network for Peacebuilding (LWNP) made major progress in electing leadership from the West, East, and South of Libya and identifying its strategic priorities for joint work, including around issues of women’s political empowerment and ending violence against women. 22 LWNP members participated in a 5-day workshop for strategic discussions, during which they also enhanced their capacities on strategic peacebuilding and project management. According to the workshop’s pre- and post-tests, the participants enhanced their knowledge on project proposal development and writing (66% pre-test, 100% post-test) and results-based management. This will greatly support the LWNP in ensuring the sustainability of their work through resource mobilization. Moreover, specifically, 16 of the 25 LWNP members led community-level dialogue initiatives with 256 people to reduce community tensions. In Ubari, LWNP members launched an initiative to reduce electoral violence and build trust between Libyan women married to non-Libyans and municipal officials. In a historic meeting arranged by LWNP in Murzuq, women from disputing tribes engaged in dialogue. Children from the Tebu and Ahali communities in Murzuq also engaged in dialogue. UN Women has supported the LWNP since its inception and contributed in 2022 by hosting the workshops in May and November, including the technical expertise of a trainer. Clingendael Institute provided the training on mediation and negotiation. A new women-led civil society coalition, the ‘Women’s Alliance for Peace and Justice in Libya’ (Alliance) was launched in 2022. Its 21 women board members adopted their guiding strategy in September. The Alliance represents a wide range of stakeholders, including civil society, academics, women municipal councillors and women’s unions. To ensure that its strategy is diverse and representative, the board consulted over 400 individuals in dialogue sessions to feed into the development of the workplan during a three-day strategy workshop. The workplan identifies areas for joint activities to tackle the lack of women’s participation, the lack of reliable data, and the impact of armed conflict and violence against women in Libya. Two Alliance members attended the UN Global Conference on Women’s Leadership for Sustainable Peace held at the UN Palais in Geneva in November, and discussed challenges facing Libyan women civil society actors, including the Alliance’s priorities as identified in their workplan. Additionally, in October, UNSMIL’s new Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) requested guidance from the Alliance on their priorities for a roadmap towards elections in Libya. This involvement strengthens a bottom-up approach in the political track of the peace process in Libya and contributes to alliance-building across different civil society actors involved in community-level conflict resolution. UN Women contributed by organizing the strategy-building workshop in response to demand for support by the Alliance, providing the expertise of a strategy-building expert, and leveraging its coordination mandate to invite UNSMIL and the international community to the workshop’s closing event. Second, media professionals increased their ability to do their work in a way that promotes women’s representation in the media and their equal participation in inclusive decision-making and peacebuilding processes. In 2022, 22 media professionals (16 women, of which two are women with disabilities; 6 men) from diverse Libyan media outlets and different regions strengthened their capacity and understanding around concepts and perspectives sensitive to women’s rights, intersectionality, power relations between men and women, violence against women, women’s representation in the media, and violence against women in politics (VAWP), especially in elections. Pre-test results for the five-day training programme showed that for 15 of the participants, it was their first time to receive a training on media reporting that is sensitive to women’s rights; three of them identified violence against women as discrimination between men and women, and one participant linked this to the concept of social roles for men and women. Post-test results demonstrated that participants gained a deeper understanding of women’s issues including socially-constructed ideas of women’s roles, the concept of intersectionality and the ability to analyse power relations between men and women. It also showed that these media professionals better understand the effects and various forms of violence against women, and the role the media plays in reinforcing or challenging the social norms and stereotypes underlying those issues. The 22 participants also had the unique opportunity to engage directly with the High National Elections Commission (HNEC) and learned about facts and figures on women's participation in the past elections and the postponed election of 2021, including information about the available communications channels with the HNEC and its media centre, and initial findings from HNEC’s Online Violence Against Women (OVAW) monitoring report. This strengthened the media professionals’ capacities to monitor and report on VAWP. UN Women contributed to this by organizing a five-day training programme in collaboration with HNEC. UN Women built the capacities of media professionals to conduct media reporting with a special lens on women’s issues and perspectives, to understand intersectionality, and to foster critical journalistic skills to effectively report on VAW in elections. HNEC focused on enhancing the knowledge of these media professionals around HNEC’s role in conducting electoral processes, its cooperation with the media, the differences between national and local elections, and OVAW. Based on the progress made, the strategy and theory of change are largely still applicable. UN Women will continue to diversify its engagement with civil society by focusing on youth and persons with disabilities as well as leveraging its coordination function to link civil society initiatives with decision-makers. If this strategy is successful, impact-level changes in the lives of women and girls in the areas of inclusive reconciliation and participation of women are expected within five (5) years.