About Expertise France

Expertise France (EF) is a French public agency under the tutelage of the French Ministries of European and Foreign Affairs and Economy and Finance with a strong inter-ministerial vocation. EF offers project engineering and technical assistance by developing and implementing international cooperation actions worldwide. The agency operates in various fields of development and institutional cooperation including safety and security sector reform, post-crisis/stability, public health, human rights, strengthening of institutions and NGOs and governance. Carrying out large-scale, multi-stakeholder projects, EF can ensure the cooperation between individuals, teams and institutions with very different statuses, cultures and specialties. Besides, EF has acquired a sound experience in administrative and financial management of large-scale international projects and is accredited by the European Union for the management of delegated community funds

Context of the mission

Since the Government of National Accord (GNA) came into power according to Skhirat agreement on the 17th of December 2015, the country’s security situation faced several challenges with the worst period being in April 2019. This is when a military campaign was launched by the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by General Haftar, to take over the capital, Tripoli. The LNA offensive against Tripoli resulted in an increased destabilization of Libya and completely unpredictable outcomes.

Despite this situation combined later on with the COVID-19 pandemic, that structurally affected all cooperation activities developed by the international community in Libya, Expertise France continued to implement its programs, using alternative channels and tools such as online features, or locating its activities elsewhere when the security / safety situation in the country was not allowing to do it there, as it happened for example for training or workshops together with the Libyan partners in Tunis.

Moreover, the European Commission and Expertise France capitalization strategy for the implementation of successive projects permitted to reach great achievements of both EU funded projects SLEIDSE (2016 - 2020) and EU4PSL (2019 - 2023).

Such favorable results encouraged the European Commission, at the beginning of 2022, to fund E-NABLE project (2023 - 2025) and EU4SKILLS (2024 – 2027), regardless of the political and security instability and having the objective to continue the relevant partnership established with the Libyan authorities and partners around the support to private sector development and to economic and financial governance

The projects

To tackle some of these issues, Expertise France, the French technical cooperation agency, together with the European Union and in close cooperation with both international and local Libyan partners, have developed a set of targeted activities based on several years of experience in order to improve Libya’s business environment and support the growth of the private sector.

Considering the very volatile environment in Libya, at both political and security level, it is of paramount importance to adopt a flexible approach in implementing the action. Classical long-term planning is not realistic in view of the ever-changing context. It is suggested to review both objectives and achievements every year during the steering committee to allow the necessary operational adaptations in the scope of the activities that would allow reaching the objectives of the action.

 Expertise France is working on two projects until 2024 and other projects are in development.

The first project is E-NABLE, a 3 years-project, funded by the European Union, with 5 M€. The overall objective of the action is therefore to improve the capacities of key economic institutions for sustainable and digital economic recovery and dynamics, in order to institutionalize the economic growth of the private sector, with the support of both private and public sector organizations.

The three objectives and components of the project are described, as follows:

-       To enhance public policies for economic diversification and enabling business environment

-       To take up digital innovations related to economic governance among public institutions

-       To improve services and products provided by financial institutions 

This project seeks to assist the government of Libya and all relevant stakeholders in their efforts to promote development of an open, dynamic and diversified economy in Libya.

The project will contribute concrete and practical assistance to key Libyan stakeholders, who have capacity to accelerate the transition towards:

-       economic diversification;

-       competitiveness of the private sector;

-       digitalization of the economy and the society.

Outcome 1 (O1): Public policies for economic diversification and enabling business environment are enhanced.

Outputs 1:

-       Economic knowledge and data base are improved

-       Shared and concerted vision on sustainable economic development issues

-       Knowledge and capacities for enabling business environment, facilitating private sector development and fostering domestic and foreign investment are improved.

Outcome 2 (O2): Digital innovations related to economic governance are taken up among public institutions.

Outputs 2:

-       Public actors are supported in developing and implementing a national digital and innovative strategy

-       Capacities of MoET and CoCs' staff on a strategy and digital tools are strengthened

-       Digital tools and relevant capacities within the tax administration are improved

Outcome 3 (O3): Services and products provided by financial institutions are improved.

Outputs 3:

-       A political and organizational framework for establishing a leasing company for accessing credit is developed

-       Organizational and technical capacities of the Libyan Credit Information Center are strengthened

-       Knowledge on micro-finance is increased among banks

-       A new regulatory framework for enabling local market fintech actors is supported.

The second project is RAQAMEYON, a 1-year project funded by the French government with 0.8m euros and implemented by Expertise France in collaboration with the Ministry of Education. 

The aim of the Raqameyon project is to diversify the Libyan employment market through the development of a digital economy, which currently offers very significant potential in terms of job creation. The development of such an economy is at the heart of Libya's development strategy.

To achieve this objective, the project will implement capacity-building activities to train the future players in this digital transition. The aim here is to disseminate digital skills to a wide range of people.

The project is based around 3 key areas:

-       Component 1: "Getting started with the Office suite" training for businesses, the public sector and in particular the Ministry of Education

-       Component 2: Supporting the Ministry of Education in rolling out digital training in Libyan schools

-       Component 3: "Turnkey digital skills" training for entrepreneurs and SMEs

-       Component 4: On-job training on specific topics related to digital (talent tech’ Libya)

As part of its efforts to support economic development, EF is working with Libyan partners on employability (EU4SKILLS). This development action complements, supports and deepens the work carried out by the ongoing E-NABLE and RAQAMEYON projects, drawing on analyses by the World Bank and studies by the OECD and Expertise France. Its four components are closely linked in terms of the objectives and activities they seek to achieve.

The impact of the action is to improve the capacities of key economic institutions for a sustainable and digital economic recovery and dynamic, in order to institutionalise economic growth for the private sector, with the support of private bodies and the public sector. The expected outcome are as follow:

Outcome 1 (O1): Employability governance and mechanisms are approved and enforced within the Libyan educational system.

Outcome 2 (O2): Employability and business opportunities are supported through the reinforcement of the digital transformation.

Outcome 3 (O3): Skills and employability on green and blue economies are reinforced for both public and private sectors.

Outcome 4 (O4): Skills and capacities of financial sector actors are reinforced to improve SME financial inclusion and employability at institutional level.

The MEAL manager will have the opportunity to integrate other projects into his/her actual portfolio (projects in development) depending on the integration of new initiative in EF Libya portfolio. Depending on the needs of the MENDAMI 2 and AJYAL projects, the MEAL manager will participate in project activities.