Table of contents

1. Introduction and Background 4

2. Prevalence of CSOs and Geographical Coverage 6

3. Internal Governance 7

4. Funding 9

5. CSO Categories and Activities 11

6. Women’s Participation 14

7. Empowerment and Civic Engagement 15

8. Identity and Trust 17

9. Cooperation Among CSOs 18

10. Attitudes Towards Institutions 19

11. Media 22

12. Capacity Building 25

List of References 27

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In the wake of the 17 February 2011 uprising in Libya, civil society organizations were able to proliferate in a newly found participatory climate and the emergence of civil society organisations has been inspiring. Across the country, CSOs have been flourishing, with a wide range of civic activists and groups collaborating in areas as varied as human rights democratic dialogue, women’s empowerment, transparency and accountability, service delivery to the poor and civic education and engagement more generally.

Given the importance of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the development of an inclusive, democratic and stable society in Libya, a number of international donors and International Non-Governmental Organizations have been supporting the growth and development of indigenous civil society in Libya. UNDP has also sought to support such development through a strategy focused both on strengthening the capacities of CSOs themselves and supporting their design and implementation of key initiatives in support of the democratic transition. Civil Society organizations have a key role to play in many aspects the democratic transition in Libya and are being increasingly consulted by both national and international actors in Libya and with the deterioration in security, also recognised as crucial partners in delivering basic services as well as contributing to peace building efforts and democratic development.

This report provides highlights from an extensive mapping of civil society organisations and activities in Libya during 2013-14. Based on an initial mapping of civil society organizations in Sebha conducted by the ACTED Civil Initiatives Libya programme in 2013, UNDP and UNICEF decided to further develop and widen the mapping by covering a further three major cities, Benghazi, Misrata, & Tripoli in 2013-14. During the research process, Zawia and Zwara were also added to the mapping.

This research is aimed at providing a coherent and rich database of CSOs to assist Libyan CSOs and development partners in developing informed and targeted programmes. It aims to help all those who wish to support the development of Libya to better understand civil society organizations and to facilitate knowledge sharing and networking and provide more information on and visibility to, Libyan CSOs

These mappings provide information on CSOs through a survey of a broadly representative group of all reachable CSOs operating in the above mentioned cities and will enable UNDP, Libyan CSOs and other development partners to craft more effective intervention strategies, each in its field of expertise, and to identify potential partnerships to implement these strategies. Using the extensive data provided through the CSO Mapping, UNDP also propose to develop a publicly accessible CS Web-portal & Database which will provide all development partners and CSOs with accurate and up-to-date knowledge on civil society activity in all development sectors across Libya

I would like to particularly thank the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) for their continued financial support, which made this publication possible. Finally, my thanks go out to our colleagues at UNICEF and to all partners who have supported UNDP in this effort, to the researcher and to UNDP colleagues who have managed the process and provided editorial input and support.

Thank you,Selva RamachandranCountry Director, UNDP Libya

FOREWORD

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Civil societies are crucial for sustainable development everywhere, and Libya is not an exception. UNICEF believes that the role civil society partners play in promoting children’s rights is of utmost importance. This belief was confirmed twenty-five years ago when the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was adopted on 20 November 1989, by the United Nations General Assembly.

By ratifying the CRC in 1993, Libya committed itself to promote, advocate for and defend the rights of every child in Libya; a commitment which is difficult to achieve without an active and efficient role of the civil society. Upon ratification, the CRC became an integral part of the legislation and thus, both the government and the civil society have become committed to uphold children’s rights in times of peace and prosperity as well as in times of conflict and crisis.

Considering the relevance of the topic and the lack of reliable information, both UNICEF and UNDP, in consultation with the Ministry of Culture and Civil Society, decided to provide local and international counterparts and partners with this civil society assessment, which aims i) to better understand the nature, activities, capacity, needs and challenges of civil society organizations in the target cities, and ii) to establish a detailed roster of CSOs to serve as a reference for potential partners and donors, thereby facilitating their work while granting more visibility to the local CSOs.

Based on the above, a series of reports and a comparative analysis have been finalized and they provide critical insights into the needs and capacities of CSOs through rigorous research and analysis. It is expected however to have the assessment as a living reference, ready to be updated continuously and to be adapted to the changes on the ground, as needed and required.

UNICEF has been expanding since July 2014 its partnership with the civil society in Libya, to advance all children’s rights, including their right to be protected, to be heard and to their full participation in the society.

In addition, UNICEF launched in April 2015 “Together for Children”, a national campaign with municipalities in Libya. The Campaign aims at providing psychosocial support for the internally displaced children, the establishment of child friendly spaces, the prevention of school dropouts, the integration of school-based psychosocial activities, the non-involvement of children in the armed conflict and empowering young people and engaging their parents through local and community actions. Municipalities which joined the Campaign pledged themselves to work with the civil society organizations in their geographical scope to protect children from exploitation, abuse and violence.

This assessment is expected to provide local governance institutions and all other actors a better understanding of the capacities and challenges that the civil society is facing in Libya. UNICEF will grant a particular attention, based on this assessment, to developing the capacity of organizations working in the field of child rights. This assessment will undoubtedly lead to a better strategy to support the civil society organizations not only in the area of management, advocacy and coordination, but also in being able to specialize in certain areas, and especially in the area of child rights.

FOREWORD

Dr. Ghassan KhalilSpecial RepresentativeUNICEF - Libya

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Introduction and Background1Since the popular uprising in Libya in 2011, the endogenous emergence of civil society organizations, unions, associations and grass roots groups, has been dynamic and inspiring. Across the country there are now a wide range of civic activists and groups emerging and collaborating with each other and it is no surprise that these groups and the type of activities they conduct reflect the distinctive Libyan context, in terms of cultural attitudes and local needs. Since these vary across the country, civil society organizations (CSOs) have developed particular models, approaches and emphases in different cities, each with their own strengths and challenges.

For Libyan CSOs therefore, as well as for the range of international agencies seeking to support their work, the approach to supporting the emergence and development of Libyan civil society needs to be tailored and contextualized. While it is now clear that a solid, active and resilient network of Libyan civil society organizations exists, both in the country and among Libyans abroad, detailed information on the nature of civil society in each city is needed at this critical moment in Libyan history. This will enable more effective support to the development of vibrant civic engagement in the transition towards democracy.

Based on an initial mapping of civil society organizations in Sebha conducted by the ACTED Civil Initiatives Libya program in 2013, UNDP and UNICEF invited the same researcher, Mr. Jean-Louis Romanet Perroux, to further develop and widen the mapping by covering a further five major cities in Libya1 in 2013-14. Considering that a total of 1022 CSOs were surveyed and that the cities covered host about half of the Libyan population, a conservative estimate of the total number of CSOs that were actually operating in Libya in early 2014 is about 20002. Given that this was only three years after voluntary associations were allowed to exist in Libya, this figure represents a very significant concentration of CSOs per inhabitant. As a comparison to some countries in the region, it is six times larger to the concentration

1 The cities are Benghazi, Misrata, Tripoli, Zawia and Zuwara, which host about half of the Libyan population2 As elsewhere in the world, this number differs from the number of registered organizations. In Libya in 2014 there were about 4000 registered CSOs, many of which were inactive.

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of CSOs per inhabitant in Iraq in 20113 and it is also comparable to that reported in Egypt in 20064.

This remarkable prevalence of associational membership among Libyans is confirmed by the 2010-2014 World Value Survey, according to which Libya has a greater number of members of volunteer organizations per capita than any other countries in the Northern Africa region5. This holds true for all types of organizations: religious; sports or recreation; artistic, musical or educational; environmental; professional; humanitarian or charitable; consumer and self-help and mutual aid group6. Nowadays, hundreds of young, innovative and resilient Libyan CSOs exists in the country and among Libyans abroad.

Owing to the widespread individual empowerment and civic engagement achieved through the 2011 revolution and to the unprecedented access to information, knowledge, economic means and resources, thousands of Libyan CSOs and tens of thousands of invisible Libyan activists across Libyan communities are pursuing freedom, political participation and access to economic opportunities. By doing so collectively, many are in fact developing a new Libyan identity through forging bonds of elective interest that cut across their kinship ties. They are also re-conquering the public space and fostering civic participation through volunteerism. Finally, they are developing attitudes of tolerance and inclusion by giving voice to the eclectic pluralism that characterizes their society.

However, the further deterioration of security situation in Libya since the summer of 2014, has meant that while new CSOs have formed, others have become

3 Based on “The 2011 Civil Society Organization Sustainability Report for the MENA, USAID, 2011, available at: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CCsQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usaid.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fdocuments%2F1866%2F2011_MENA_CSOSI.pdf&ei=j7kxVcLhOYmRyATsvoDIAQ&usg=AFQjCNE37ul1T6u4PvbYFeKcNtDOk4bYAg&sig2=QA4hC6t8JC0P44wmNRddvQ

4 Based on data by the Government of Egypt reported in Andrea Liverani, “Civil Society and Social Capital in North Africa”, in Anheier, Helmut K., and Stefan Toepler, eds. International encyclopedia of civil society. Springer Science & Business Media, 2009

5 no data are available for Mauritania6 Measured in 2013 by the World Values Survey Wave 6: 2010-2014, questions 25 to 35 (Libya ques-tionnaire) available at: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org

Youth conference, Tripoli, November 2013

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inactive and scores of activists have left the country. The needs of Libyan CSOs, their goals and the most effective strategies to achieve them continue to change, along with the changing situation in the country. It is therefore imperative that this mapping is viewed as a snapshot in time and as a living document which will need to be updated on regular basis. Funding permitting, UNDP is therefore intending to develop the current database into a dynamic web-portal which will be managed and updated on an ongoing basis to provide a vivid picture of civic engagement in these cities.

What follows are brief comparative highlights of the mapping of CSOs across six Libyan cities, with some comparisons with data from other countries in the region. For a more detailed analysis of CSOs in Benghazi, Misrata, Sebha and Tripoli, please refer to the dedicated city reports.

Prevalence of CSOs and Geographical Coverage2

Based on the data collected in 2013-14, the prevalence of CSOs, the proportion of those who were registered at the Ministry of Culture and the proportion of those who had a national coverage varied markedly among Libyan cities, as shown in Table 1 below. The prevalence of CSOs per inhabitant is one among many indicators of how vibrant civil society is in that city. However, it must be considered together with other characteristics of CSOs, such as their membership size, their level of activity, and other aspects that are more complex to evaluate, such as their level of cooperation with other CSOs and with other actors, their effectiveness and their level of responsiveness to their community.

The geographical coverage of CSOs is another important characteristic to look at. CSOs who conduct activities at the national level help develop the national social fabric of dialogue and cooperation that is so important for both state institutions and the development of democracy. This is all the more relevant at a time of conflict and divisions, when communities turn inward rather than working with each other and the geographical coverage of CSOs inevitably narrows. Given that CSOs can play an essential role in promoting peace-building and social cohesion, it may be

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Internal Governance 3

important to encourage Libyan organizations to extend their projects beyond their city and follow some models that appear to have developed in Tripoli and Benghazi.

Table 1: CSO prevalence, membership size and national coverage

Benghazi Misrata Tripoli Zawia Zuwara Sebha National

Prevalence of CSOs (CSOs / 100’000 ppl)*

60 23 40 17 80 50 40

Number of active members* 15 11 15 10 12 10 12

National coverage 49% 25% 51% 27% 31% N/A 45%

* Based on the 2012 Libyan census ** Median number

In terms of number of CSOs in Libya, following the remarkable blossoming of organizations during and after the 2011 revolution, their number has been in marked contraction since mid-2013. In part this is an inevitable and not necessarily negative development given that, after the initial flood of enthusiasm and sudden access to international donors, there was a progressive structuring of the civil society landscape in Libya. CSOs that responded to popular needs and were most effective in delivering social goods consolidated, gained credibility and grew. Many others who were not as effective, responsive or well managed disappeared. Since the deterioration of the security situation in 2014, the number of active CSOs have further declined due to both the departure of most international donors and NGOs (with the consequent drop in funding availability) and the increased threat to activists from armed groups.

Overall, the majority of CSOs in Libya appeared to have adopted some of the key elements of a democratic internal governance, including transparent practices; written mission, principles and goals; mechanisms for the monitoring and evaluation of their activities and elections of their leadership. However, there are some notable differences across cities (see Table 2).

These key practices and tools of good internal governance not only have a direct impact on the effectiveness of CSOs in Libya but also on their responsiveness

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and legitimacy. Furthermore, the practice of transparency, participation and representation within CSOs helps foster a culture of democracy across society. At a time of political division and conflict, this is an important contribution to the transition towards democratic institutions and the peaceful management of conflict. It is therefore highly valuable to encourage and support Libyan CSOs to adopt such governance measures, which can be achieved through focused capacity development and conditional funding based on a minimum set of agreed internal governance requirements.

At the same time, given the early stage of civil society development in Libya and the difficult conditions confronting CSOs with minimal experience and resources, this should be a step-by-step process. Conditionality should be aligned with capacity development and ongoing support. Governance requirements should also be commensurate with the membership size and the budget of each CSO. In other words, as stated earlier, these approaches should be tailored and contextualized.

In addition, capacity development of CSOs in Libya should be focused developing an understanding of the principles of democratic governance and their functioning rather than on prescribing over-simplistic and rigid practices and models. Therefore, applying minimum internal governance requirements should focus on the effective translation of principles of democratic governance (i.e. transparency, accountability, equality) into practice. Secondly, it should aim at identifying those mechanisms and practices that are most effective and compatible with local cultural traditions and practices and promote them in a collaborative rather than a prescriptive manner. To this end, the design of capacity development programs will need to be designed collaboratively, with the direct participation of Libyan activists working alongside international actors and based on an intimate understanding of the Libyan context.

Table 2 : Internal governance (% of CSOs that have each of the following)

Benghazi Misrata Tripoli Zawia Zuwara Sebha National

Written mission statement 94% 75% 89% 92% 90% N/A* 89%

Monitoring and evaluation 76% 68% 82% 83% 85% N/A* 78%

Organizational goals 73% 49% 65% 60% 63% N/A* 66%

Director elected 69% 67% 70% 80% 75% N/A* 63%

* These questions were not asked during the research in Sebha

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Funding4 Interviewees were asked to score each source of funding (i.e. own members, private, public, international) according to how core it was for their organization, ranging from no funding at all to being the main source of funding. Average results presented in Figure 1 indicate the relative importance of each source of funding compared to each other. Note that this was the subjective assessment of CSO leaders, rather than an account of the actual distribution of funding coming from the various sources.

It is readily apparent that in 2013-2014 Libyan CSOs relied predominantly on contributions from their own members. This ratio has no doubt increased with the escalation in fighting in 2014, which led to the departure of international organizations and foreign representatives from Libya, the slowdown of the Libyan economy and the further reduction in the presence of the State. With sources of funding for CSOs further

decreasing, and an increase in the security threat to civil society activists, it is no surprise that a significant number of CSOs have suspended their activities or dissolved as organizations.

As Figure 2 shows, the availability of funding also varied among cities. Overall, Sebha CSOs were benefitting the least from any funding outside of their own members and in both Zuwara and Sebha, international sources of funding were almost entirely absent. However, Zuwara was most able to secure public Libyan funding at the level of the local administration (i.e. municipal council) with which CSOs had developed many valuable avenues for cooperation (notably on health, information, education and transparency)7. This synergy had the double positive effect of strengthening the municipal administration and developing the civil society sector in the city (as shown in Table 1, Zuwara had the highest prevalence of CSOs by number of inhabitants).

7 Researcher’s in-depth interviews with members of the city Council and CSO leaders, November 2014.

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Zuwara and Misrata CSOs also appeared to have been most successful in securing private funding from Libyan citizens and companies.

Overall, the data show that in 2013-2014 Libyan CSOs were already struggling to secure sufficient funding for their activities. This is confirmed by their assessment of their own funding situation, whereby only less than 20% of Libyan CSOs interviewed stated that their financial situation allowed them to cover at least for their current activities (Fig. 3). As explained earlier, the availability of funding for CSOs has further deteriorated, and thus it is now of vital

importance that national and international actors devise mechanisms to provide funding to Libyan CSOs. Although international actors have traditionally feared having an inflationary and distorting effect with the provision of external funds, causing CSOs to become ‘funding-lead’, the evidence shows that CSOs in Libya have developed a membership model of funding and can also achieve a significant amount with relatively small budgets. As an indication of this, the typical (median) desired minimum yearly budget among all CSO surveyed in 2013-2014 was $29,000.

Finally, the mapping of CSOs in Zuwara and the interview of local officials shows that multiple avenues for cooperation exist at the local level between CSOs and municipal councils. Although the municipalities do not generate significant revenue or enjoy large budgets, many concrete cases have shown that local CSOs provide them with several very cost-effective ways to achieve their goals in terms of up keeping of the city and infrastructure maintenance; health; education; information and many other aspects of service delivery. It will be essential therefore to look at how social accountability models and “co-production” of services (i.e. state-civil society partnerships in the provision of services) from elsewhere in the region can be tailored to the Libyan context. These forms of ‘constructive engagement’ between municipalities and civil society will allow to strengthen both, without compromising the essential independence and neutrality which is at the heart of civil society activism and advocacy.

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CSO Categories and Activities5The distribution of work areas among CSOs surveyed across Libya (Fig. 4) clearly shows that those engaged in work with a greater political significance and involving a larger presence in the public domain, such as media work, research and analysis, workers unions and conflict prevention and reconciliation, are much less common among Libyan CSOs. This trend is confirmed by the type of activities that are least common among Libyan CSOs. As Figure 5 shows, monitoring and reporting on specific issues and conducting advocacy with decision-makers are by far the least common types of activities, which CSOs conduct to achieve their objectives.

Moreover, since the increase in fighting in May 2014 in the East and in July 2014 in the West, and the ever increasing threats, intimidations and killings of civil society activists, most CSOs have further restricted their work to activities that have a low public visibility and that are least controversial.

Certainly civil society activists should not be pushed to conduct any activity that may endanger them. However, on the other hand advocacy and monitoring-type activities are particularly important for the development of democracy, human rights, access to information and the rule of law, which allow Libyan citizens to play a public role. A particular area of focus for development partners will therefore need to be helping Libyan CSOs learn how to develop and conduct such activities while minimizing personal risk. This could involve training on digital security, projects to train and support bloggers, social media activism and citizen journalism and fostering the development of dialogue and cooperation between local state authorities, some armed groups8

8 Those armed groups that have some grounding in the local community and that may be open to dialogue

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and CSOs. Overall, the most common work areas among Libyan CSOs were those focusing on training and education; charity work (assistance to people in need) and human rights (Fig. 5). Conversely, the least common work areas were protection of consumer rights; workers unions and political groups; improving the provision of basic services; religious organizations; research and analysis and freedom of the press, media and access to information.

Aside from these broad trends, there are many other differences among Libyan cities (Table 3). However, while it is possible to identify some broad characteristics for each city, it is just as important to not fall into the ‘comparison trap’, assuming that the civil society landscape should be similar.

Table 3 : Percentage of CSOs by type of objective and by city

Benghazi Misrata Tripoli Zawia Zuwara Sebha National

Human rights 36% 19% 34% 27% 48% 37% 37%

Environment 16% 12% 17% 15% 20% 21% 19%

Transparency 19% 15% 17% 17% 28% 30% 21%

Training, education 35% 43% 36% 38% 43% 48% 42%

Women and gender 9% 8% 15% 13% 23% 26% 15%

Media, freedom of press 6% 17% 8% 2% 18% 17% 10%

Charity 33% 34% 40% 33% 38% 58% 42%

Cultural 9% 15% 24% 25% 35% 43% 22%

Civic awareness 20% 23% 27% 31% 35% N/A* 24%

Constitution 9% 12% 11% 13% 33% N/A* 12%

Unions / political groups 5% 5% 4% 10% 0% 15% 7%

Basic services 5% 5% 6% 6% 3% N/A* 5%

Conflict 11% 4% 11% 17% 8% N/A* 10%

Research 6% 6% 9% 6% 3% N/A* 7%

Consumer protection 2% 0% 2% 0% 0% N/A* 1%

Religious 6% 15% 5% 15% 5% N/A* 7%

*The Sebha research questionnaire did not include these options and the questionnaire was later expanded thanks to the feedback from Sebha CSO leaders and used in subsequent cities.

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Civil society should reflect local needs and attitudes, which will differ from one city to another, therefore it is entirely natural and appropriate that the work of CSOs varies among cities. At the same time, some notable characteristics in the various cities can be observed:

• Compared to the rest of the cities surveyed, in Benghazi there were less CSOs focusing on gender equality and women’s empowerment; freedom of the press and media; cultural activities and civic awareness. Conversely, there was a relatively high proportion of CSOs focusing on conflict prevention and reconciliation and on the defense of human rights.

• In Misrata, there were comparatively less CSOs focusing on human rights; environmental protection; transparency; gender equality and women’s empowerment; cultural activities and conflict prevention and reconciliation. Instead, Misrata hosted a larger proportion of CSOs focusing on freedom of the press, media and information and religious organizations.

• The civil society landscape in Tripoli was characterized by a higher proportion of CSOs focusing on civic awareness and research and analysis than the average among the cities surveyed. Instead there were relatively fewer CSOs focusing on transparency, training and education and religion.

• The distribution of CSOs by type of activity in Zawia and Zuwara should be looked at as a more approximate trend than in the previous cities due to the smaller overall number of CSOs in these cities (50 and 40 respectively). However, these numbers still provide a faithful indication of activities conducted by CSOs in these cities.

• As stated in the introduction, the research in Sebha was conducted with an earlier version of the survey questionnaire that did not include all the questions asked in the subsequent surveys. The question about the type of activity was posed, however, given that a smaller array of options was provided to the interviewee to choose from, the results presented cannot be compared to those relative to the other cities.

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Women’s Participation6One of the most impressive gains from the 2011 revolution has been in the realm of women’s empowerment and public participation. Libyan women were at the forefront of the 2011 uprising, beginning with the February 2011 protests in Benghazi. The seven months of fighting that culminated with the toppling of the Gadhafi regime witnessed Libyan women feeding the fighters on the frontlines, providing medical assistance to the injured, smuggling arms and conveying important information. Many of these women formed civil society organizations and continue to advance the role of women in the Libyan society and politics. Nowadays, women organizations include some of the most engaged, dynamic and visible CSOs in Libya.

Among all CSO surveyed in Libya in 2013-14, 12% identified themselves as women CSOs. This is a remarkably high prevalence of women CSOs if one compares it with Tunisia, where only 1% of CSOs were women organizations9.

However, a large presence of women CSOs does not necessarily equate with a strong movement for women’s rights. In other words, one thing is the participation of women in civil society, another is their engagement in activities aimed at furthering gender equality and empowering women. As a matter of fact, only 28% of CSOs that self-identified as women CSOs chose “gender equality and women empowerment” as one of their three areas of work. This discrepancy was most visible in Misrata, where only 5% of women CSOs focused on gender equality and women empowerment, which was less than among all Misrata CSOs. Overall, 15% of all CSOs in the six cities surveyed indicated gender equality and women’s empowerment as one of their three main work areas.

The relative proportion of women CSOs varied from one city to another, as shown in Table 4. The greatest proportion of CSOs focusing on women empowerment and gender equality was in Sebha and Zuwara. These differences show that there is a substantial variation among cities at the level of attitudes towards critical social and political issues, such as the role of women for example, with a low level of activity focussed on gender issues and women empowerment in some cities.

9 2015 data, from the Information Centre, training, research and documentation on associations (IFE-DA), available at: http://www.ifeda.org.tn/fr/

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This will require attention from international actors which wish to promote such objectives. It should also flag to development partners the distinction between supporting ‘women CSOs’ and advancing the empowerment women and promoting gender equality.

Overall, Libyans appear to be the most conservative, both in terms of respect towards traditions and pressure for conformity, compared to other nations in the Middle East and North Africa region10.

Since the 2011 uprising, countless Libyan civil society initiatives have proven to be a strong antidote to extremism and intolerance. Hundreds of Libyan CSOs whose activities span across their own city and beyond have allowed scores of Libyans across communities to freely pursue common elective passions and interests and take their place within the public sphere. Libyan CSOs are proving to be a rare and effective channel for cultivating people’s empowerment and participation by developing civic and political engagement and offering tailored capacity development models.

10 According to the World Values Survey Wave 6: 2010-2014, questions 77 and 79 (Libya question-naire) compared to Tunisians, Egyptians, Algerians and Moroccans, a substantially higher proportion of Libyans strongly identified with the following statements: “It is important to this person to always behave properly; to avoid doing anything people would say is wrong” and “Tradition is important to this person; to follow the customs handed down by one’s religion or family”, available at: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org

Table 4 : Percentage of women CSOs and of CSOs focusing on gender equality and women empowerment

Benghazi Misrata Tripoli Zawia Zuwara Sebha National

CSOs focusing on gender equality and women

9% 8% 15% 13% 23% 26% 15%

Women CSOs 12% 18% 10% 20% 8% N/A* 12%

Women CSOs focusing on gender equality and women

18% 5% 47% 22% 67% N/A* 28%

* The research in Sebha did not include the question asking whether or not the organization was a woman CSO. The Sebha questionnaire was further expanded thanks to the feedback from Sebha CSO leaders and used in subsequent cities.

Civic Engagement and Empowerment7

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This shift is immediately visible at the level of the individual attitudes of CSO leaders. A comparison between the findings of this mapping and the World Value Survey11 conducted on a representative national sample of Libyans in 2013 shows that CSO leaders were more likely to believe that they had quite some freedom of choice and control over their life compared to the average among residents of Libya. A comparison at the level of concrete actions, such as voting in national elections, also confirms the correlation between activism in civil society and political engagement.

CSO leaders consistently had a higher turnout in national elections and a much greater propensity to vote in future elections compared to the overall eligible Libyan population. On average, 86% of CSO leaders surveyed between August 2013 and April 2014 had voted in the 2012 national election compared to 72% of eligible Libyans. Equally, when asked whether they would vote in the next election, 79% of CSO leaders had an intention to vote compared to 58% of Libyans12. Whether this shows that CSOs are the cause or the expression of a greater civic and political engagement is a valuable question, which may not offer nor need a simple one-way answer. However, it is clear that CSOs provide the means for the expression and the development of these types of engagement.

However, it is clear that CSOs provide the means for the expression and the development of these types of civic engagement and at the very least, act as role models for the wider population in terms of their democratic participation. It would be worth exploring if and how this engagement and positive attitude could be used as an example in civic and voter education initiatives, given that ‘behavior modeling’ often serves as an effective tool in supporting democratic learning and behavioral change.

A shared national identity binds people together through a sense of solidarity based on shared cultural traits such as language, culture, ethnicity, descent, history and/or a common faith. Communitarian attitudes follow the same process of identification but at a much narrower level, limiting the identity radius to one’s own

11 World Values Survey Wave 6: 2010-2014, available at: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org12 All these figures exclude the “don’t know” answers. They were measured by national surveys in May 2013 and November 2013 respectively. See NDI and JMW Consulting, “Believing in Democracy: Public opinion survey in Libya”, August 2013, p. 18, available at: https://www.ndi.org/files/Believing-in-Demo-cracy-Public-Opinion-Survey-Report-August-2013.pdf and “Committed to democracy and unity: public opinion survey in Libya”, March 2014, p. 20, available at: https://www.ndi.org/files/Libya-Committed-to-Democracy-and-Unity-ENG.pdf

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Identity and Trust8community (e.g. city, tribe, family). The balance between national and communitarian attitudes can only be shifted over time through a process of dialogue and cooperation based on tolerance, pluralism and inclusion. Even though activists are increasingly targeted with threats, intimidation and assassination, Libyan CSOs have continued to promote these values through countless local, national and international campaigns. When CSO leaders were asked to select the geographical group they identified as being from primarily, a large majority (69%) selected Libya whereas only 13% selected their hometown and interestingly, almost as many selected “the world” (Figure 6). Libyan civil society activists also displayed a much greater level of generalized trust than the average among Libyan citizens. Generalized trust is trust that extends to the out-group, to people that are not directly known, “the others”13. Compared to only 11% among the general Libyan population14, almost double (23%) the percentage of CSO leaders surveyed believed that most people could be trusted. At the same time, CSO leaders displayed an equal level of trust in family and a lower level of trust in their neighborhood, compared to the overall Libyan population. This lower level of personalized trust (i.e. trust in people one knows) coupled with a higher level of generalized trust may also demonstrate a lesser inclination to social acceptance and conformity towards traditional and familial figures and a greater openness towards ties based on elective interests. This can be interpreted as another reason why Libyan civil society activists may be drawn to engaging as positive agents of change.

13 For a detailed explanation of the distinction between particularized trust and generalized trust and for a description of the importance of the latter see Yamagishi and Yamagishi (1994), Fukuyama (1995) and Uslaner (2002).14 Measured in 2013 by question 24 (Libya questionnaire) in the World Values Survey Wave 6: 2010-2014, available at: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org

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Libyan scouts

Cooperation Among CSOs9

In conclusion, by engaging together across communities in the pursuit of a common cause, Libyans expand the definition of their identity and reframe their interests from ascriptive criteria that are acquired by birth (e.g. kinship ties based on family, tribe or ethnicity) to elective criteria freely espoused. Through daily civil society initiatives, scores of Libyan CSOs are building the trust and the social cohesion that are needed to bridge the various internal Libyan divides. In turn, these attitudinal changes help prepare Libyans to act as citizens of a modern state and knit divided communities into a unitary but plural nation.

As highlighted in the previous section, a key indicator of civil society development is networking and cooperation among organizations. In addition, CSOs working together, sharing information and engaging in dialogue and learning, adds significant value to both the projects being delivered and the capacity of the organizations. Over time and under favorable circumstances (detailed below) such cooperation fosters trust and mutual understanding among groups and also has the potential to contribute to the development of a national identity. As Figure 7 show, 70% of the CSOs surveyed engaged in cooperation varied from once city to another (Table 5).

Table 5 : Cooperation with other CSOs

Benghazi Misrata Tripoli Zawia Zuwara Sebha National

No 25% 27% 35% 25% 21% 36% 30%

Yes, city 36% 31% 24% 29% 8% 34% 29%

Yes, city & Libya 24% 20% 19% 31% 34% 29% 23%

Yes, Libya & international org. 15% 21% 23% 15% 37% 0% 18%

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When CSOs do engage in work with other civil society actors, the majority of this cooperation took place with other CSOs from the same city. This proportion has further increased since 2014, given that increased fighting has divided the country thereby making cooperation with CSOs from elsewhere in Libya and with international NGOs much more challenging. This is an important area of work for development partners who can play a key role in encouraging and helping to foster cooperation among Libyan CSOs. However, at a time of polarization and division cooperation should also be promoted with a clear bias towards dialogue and understanding which seeks to be free of competitiveness and politicization. Discussions about political issues are to some extent inevitable among CSOs, but civil society activists should be clear that their individual political views should be clearly separate from their collective civil society work. Moreover, in order to foster cooperation, knowledge sharing and engagement in policy dialogue, development partners should consider how they might facilitate and support groups of CSOs from different areas of Libya. This could include allocating specific funds to CSO networking and associational activity at regional and national level and on the development of capacities in the areas of cooperation and policy dialogue.

Attitude Towards Institutions10CSO leaders were asked to rate the level of trust they had towards a series of institutions, with ratings ranging from 0 (do not trust at all) to 3 (trusted completely). Although no institution ranked higher than 2 (trusted somewhat), the results presented in Figure 8 show that CSO leaders had the highest level of trust for the Army, the judiciary and the police. In other words, CSO leaders trusted state institutions, despite the challenges they were facing in terms of effectiveness. This should also offer encouragement that support for civil society and civic engagement more generally also benefits the institutions of democracy in Libya.

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At the same time, it is interesting to note that CSO leaders displayed the least level of trust towards political parties, which scored even lower than militias. The government and the Parliament also received a low score on levels of trust. This presents significant challenges for the development of a functional democracy in Libya, which depends to a large degree on the effective functioning of a political society (political parties and decision-making bodies) and on the trust of citizens in these institutions. This suggests that a key focus for international development partners should be on helping CSOs build trust in politics and political processes, including dialogue, debate, representation and political engagement as a means of promoting democratic change and development.

In the years following the 2011 revolution, Libyan civil society actively worked to develop state-citizen dialogue and a wide variety of Libyan CSOs across the country provided public information and fostered political participation before each election. They organized civic education initiatives, debate sessions with the candidates, published their information and political platform, articulated a “goodwill charter” laying out a contract between voters and candidates and organized face-to-face engagement between candidates or elected officials and the electorate. This work has been vital to increasing democratic space and promoting a culture of information sharing and greater and transparency which are key foundations for trust and reconciliation. Development partners should now consider how best to continue to support such trust-building and political engagement efforts at both the local level of city municipalities, as well as at regional and national levels.

The relationship with armed groups is more complex. A similar question about the level of trust was asked specifically about armed groups (see Figure 9). Overall, the Police and the Army enjoyed the highest level of trust, however, the results varied greatly from one city to another (see Table 6). For instance, in some cities communities had developed a high level of trust with specific groups. The most glaring case was Zuwara, where the majority of CSO leaders trusted a local armed group called the “anti-crime group” or “Mugannain” (i.e. the masked ones). Similarly, many Misrata activists were trustful of some of the city militias, such as the Brigade 154 which was formed from many revolutionary groups to establish a strong security militia

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in the centre of the city. In other settings, such as Tripoli and Benghazi, trust between CSOs and militias had almost entirely broken down. This further demands a nuanced, contextualized and tailored approach to local level dialogue and reconciliation efforts, as some dialogue and trust-building between CSOs and armed groups may be feasible and advisable in some cities, while in others it may not be a viable starting point.

Libyan activists gather against violence in memory of Tawfik Bensaud, Benghazi, February 25, 2015

Table 6 : Trust in armed groups

Table 7 : Proportion of CSOs registered at the Ministry of Culture and Civil Society (MoC)

Benghazi Misrata Tripoli Zawia Zuwara Sebha National

Army 51% 23% 39% 35% 14% N/A* 40%

Police 25% 31% 29% 54% 17% N/A* 29%

No trust in any group 18% 11% 23% 6% 9% N/A* 18%

Other 3% 11% 4% 0% 60% N/A* 7%

Specific kataib 3% 21% 3% 4% 0% N/A* 5%

Own neighborhood vigilantes 1% 4% 1% 0% 0% N/A* 1%

Benghazi Misrata Tripoli Zawia Zuwara Sebha National

Registered at the MoC 94% 61% 89% 81% 60% 83% 85%

* The research in Sebha did not include this question. The Sebha questionnaire was further expanded thanks to the feedback from Sebha CSO leaders and used in subsequent cities.

Finally, the level of trust towards central state institutions could also be gauged from the proportion of CSOs which were registered at the Ministry of Culture at the time of the research in 2013-14. Although this was required of all CSOs operating in Libya, a number of them did not register with the Ministry’s ‘Civil Society Support Centers’ as they were called [later to become the Civil Society Commission], although the proportion of unregistered CSOs varied substantially among the cities surveyed (Table 7).

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Given that trust in state institutions is unlikely to have increased since 2014, any attempt to reach out to Libyan CSOs and to engage them in partnership, information sharing and coalition building, will need to adopt a multi-dimensional strategy that goes beyond official registries (e.g. through social media, referrals, incubator centers, and conferences. These efforts should aim at connecting CSOs with each other and with potential partners in order to promote networking and joint cooperation. It is also true that for state institutions, the challenge of dealing with a wide range of CSOs each working on different issues, and often with contrasting or competing positions, has proved significant over the last three years.

With this in mind, an approach which connects Libyan CSOs with each other and enables cooperation and access to information on multiple thematic areas, offers the potential for CSOs to establish city, regional and national platforms. For UNDP, this was one of the objectives of the CSO mapping research, with the intention to establish an open dynamic web portal and database which is managed on an ongoing basis. This web portal would also provide international partners with vital and relatively ‘real-time’ information on CSO activities in each region across a range of sectors.

Media11It is particularly important to understand how civil society activists use the media and where they receive their information from in order to reach out to them in the most effective manner as well as to provide capacity development in support of CSO-led public campaigns.

The most important sources of information for Libyan CSO leaders, according to their own ranking, were the television and internet, followed in order by the radio, their own group (tribe or clan), the newspaper and the mosque. This is also reflected by the daily use of media by CSO leaders, as presented in Figure 10.

Although television is ranked as the second source of information among CSO leaders, a further inquiry revealed that half of the top channels viewed were non

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Libyan (mainly Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya). However, respondents also indicated a wide variety of international, national and local television stations, all of which capturing a few viewers. Similarly, CSO leaders cited dozens of radio channels, mostly local ones, varying from one city to another. This “atomization” into multiple small channels of information was even clearer when it came to newspapers. Although this was the least popular medium of information, many small local newspapers were cited, each by only a few respondents. This again should provide some indication of the need for contextualized tailored approaches to public information and supporting CSOs in their outreach efforts. A sophisticated understanding of media channels at local level will be vital to ensuring as wide a reach as possible and a ‘one-size fits all’ approach to supporting media capacity among CSOs should be avoided.

With regards to internet, CSO leaders make most use of social media platforms such as Facebook. As has already been well documented, these platform of communication Arab uprisings across the MENA region used extensively which have now become prime tools for civil society activists. The wider availability and decreasing cost of smart-phones has also contributed to the use of social media, which formerly required a laptop or PC. This medium offers the great advantage of a low entry cost and the new possibility of two-way interaction between the provider of information and recipient, which again offers a range of possibilities for encouraging political engagement, sharing of information and fine-tuning of initiatives as they progress.

At the same time, there are significant drawbacks with use of social media as a source of information. Firstly, it doesn’t necessarily provide a certainty regarding the identity of the authors of information. Secondly, most of the current models do not unify the conversation, but rather atomizes communication and information sharing across multiple segments through which opinion groups may end up simply reinforcing their own narrative. Thirdly, many pages and groups are not publicly accessible, so information may sit within narrow channels, Finally, there is no quality control or reliability-barrier to entry for information, which leaves the user with the burden of sifting and dicing on the reliability and quality of information, when they may not be equipped to do so.

At any rate, for many, a reliance on social media for information has probably further increased. In 2013-14, only 26% of CSO leaders surveyed trusted the

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traditional media outlets and since then, the media landscape has continued to evolve dramatically towards further polarization coinciding with further curtailment of the freedom of information, with some TV channels closed, while others have been forced to change their message and in some cases, taken over by force15.

Overall, these results indicate that social media are currently considered to be the most effective method for CSO leaders to share information. At the same time it also indicates that CSO leaders use multiple media, often a wide variety local sources, and that their level of trust in Libyan news channels is very low. This indicates an important gap, not only for civil society activists, and CSOs may consider addressing this gap through joint efforts to create independent community media channels and sources.

International development actors should also continue to build CSO media capacity, as many have been doing since the 2011 revolution, and provide financial support for collaborative efforts to develop effective and inclusive community media. To ensure representativeness, legitimacy and increase the level of security, these efforts should be carried forward by groups of CSOs rather than by single groups, which again reinforces the case made above for supporting collaborative platforms through which CSOs can cooperate on joint initiatives.

Given the importance of information and public communication for democratic governance, community information projects would greatly benefit municipal councils in providing support to develop their public communication capacity as guests of community information channels. An example of this synergy happened in Zuwara with the Kassas radio station created by civil society activists in September 2011.

Libyan CSOs should also strengthen and in particular diversify their use of media in the conduct of all their activities, from advocacy to calls for volunteers to information campaigns. In 2013-14, only a fraction of Libyan CSOs possessed any internet tool for communication aside from a Facebook page: 10% had a YouTube channel; 9% had a website; 2% had a twitter account and 1% had a blog (Figure 11).

15 For more information read the various reports by Reporters Without Borders, available at: http://en.rsf.org/libya.html

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In light of the current security and logistical constraints on the use of public spaces, and despite the very variable reliability of internet and electricity services, it is particularly important that Libyan civil society activists develop their capacity to use mobile communication and internet.

Of course, we should be very aware that any use of media should follow a careful assessment of the potential adverse consequences in the face of the security threats and development partners could provide significant support to help develop capacities to use media both effectively and safely.

Capacity Development12Overall, 59% of Libyan CSOs stated that they had never received any kind of training or education. Among those who did, the most popular types of training and workshops that Libyan CSOs had received were those focusing on elections and on the Constitution (Fig 12). Incidentally, this was also the type of training that was considered least desired by CSOs (see Table 8).

CSO leaders were asked to rank each of the 12 types of training listed in order of priority, with 1 indicating the most desired training and 12 indicating the least desired one. The results, presented in Table 10, show a substantial variation from one city to another. Note that the types of training that were not ranked at all, automatically received the lowest score. Also given that the number of options not ranked varied across cities, the overall values benchmark also varied from one city to another, therefore values shown in Table 8 should only be compared within each city, whereas a cross-city comparison can be done between the overall rankings of trainings in each city.

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Table 8 : Training most desired by CSO leaders*

Benghazi Misrata Tripoli Zawia Zuwara Sebha National

Strategic planning 5.9 6.0 5.9 5.6 9.8 N/A** 6.1

Team management 5.1 5.3 4.1 5.0 10.6 N/A** 4.9

Languages 3.9 6.9 4.5 5.8 9.2 N/A** 4.8

Advocacy 4.4 4.1 4.0 3.8 10.0 N/A** 4.3

Program Management 3.8 5.1 4.3 3.1 9.4 N/A** 4.3

Public communication 3.7 5.7 3.6 4.0 9.4 N/A** 4.0

Fundraising 3.7 3.5 3.0 3.4 9.2 N/A** 3.5

Civic Education 3.2 3.8 3.2 3.2 10.3 N/A** 3.4

Program design 3.1 4.3 3.1 2.3 9.2 N/A** 3.3

Financial management 2.5 3.7 2.1 3.4 8.1 N/A** 2.6

Conflict analysis/mgt 2.7 2.1 2.7 1.4 9.3 N/A** 2.6

Elections/Constitution 1.8 2.9 2.0 2.8 6.9 N/A** 2.2

* Each respondent scored each type of training from 1 (most desired) to 12 (least desired)** The research in Sebha did not include this question. The Sebha questionnaire was further expanded thanks to the feedback from Sebha CSO leaders and used in subsequent cities.

Despite the cross-city variation, the most desired types of training were strategic planning, team management and language training. This should provide some guidance to international actors designing CSO capacity development strategies.

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