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The recent economic recovery has been short-lived, stalled in early 2019 by the most serious political crisis facing Libya since 2011. The outbreak of the war around Tripoli in April 2019 prevented Libya from continuing its strong economic expansion. Indeed, after its deep recession over 2013-16, driven by limited oil production (0.6 million bpd in average vs. a potential of 1.6 million bpd), the Libyan economy was able to substantially increase oil production above one million bpd in average over 2017-2019. As a result, real GDP growth reached an average of 21% during 2017-18, but slowed down sharply to 2.5% in 2019, and is expected to be negative in 2020.

The ongoing fight around Tripoli and the subsequent failure of the political rivals to reach a sustained peace deal have taken a heavy toll on the economy, which the Covid-19 pandemic is further exacerbating. In this context, the production and export of oil has almost come to a stop since January 18, 2020, due to the closure of oil ports and terminals. Assuming the disruption stays for up to end April 2020, and oil production resumes slowly to reach last-years average production level by the end of the year, Libya would only produce a daily average of 0.67 million bpd this year (about half of last years). As a result, GDP growth will be negative in 2020 (minus 19.4%), but will rebound by 22.2% in 2021, before stabilizing around 1.4% thereafter.

Risks to the baseline forecast are unusually high and tilted to the downside. First, peace and stability seem illusive given the conflicting agendas of the foreign countries supporting the main parties involved in the fight for power and wealth, which would delay recovery and stability. The disruption of oil production and export may continue for a longer period with disastrous economic and social consequences. Second, the ongoing spread of the COVID-19 infection in Europe is disrupting both demand and supply of commodities. Libya may suffer from lower demand for oil, reducing Libyas income. It might also face lower supply of equipment and final consumption goods, which would disrupt further basic services delivery and increase the hardship of the population. Third, in case the spread of COVID-19 intensifies domestically, exacerbated by weak enforcement of social distancing and its high contagion among displaced people and migrants, it would be hard to address and contain the infection because of the decrepit health system.

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Libya's Economic Update April 2020 - World Bank

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/libya/overview

The World Bank is committed to supporting Libya with technical assistance and analytical services, as well as trust fund and grant financing, but the resumption of armed hostilities has placed its program to Libya on hold.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/libya

The World Bank is committed to supporting Libya with technical assistance and analytical services, as well as trust fund and grant financing, but the resumption of armed hostilities has placed its program to Libya on hold.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/libya/research

Latest research from the World Bank on development in Libya, including reports, studies, publications, working papers and articles.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/libya/publication/economic-update-april-2020

Libya may suffer from lower demand for oil, reducing Libyas income. It might also face lower supply of equipment and final consumption goods, which would disrupt further basic services delivery and increase the hardship of the population. Third, in case the spread of COVID-19 intensifies domestically, exacerbated by weak enforcement of ...

https://www.worldbank.org/en/search?q=libya

The World Bank is committed to supporting Libya with technical assistance and analytical services, as well as trust fund and grant financing, but the resumption of armed hostilities has placed its program to Libya on hold. Libya's Economic Update October 2020.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/libya/publication/economic-update-october-2020

The Libyan economy has recently been hit by four overlapping shocks: an intensifying conflict that suffocates economic activity, the closure of oil fields that puts the countrys major income-generating activity largely on hold, decreasing oil prices that reduce income from oil production in surviving fields, and the COVID-19 pandemic (with 3,438 confirmed cases and 73 deaths as of August ...

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/libya/publication/economic-update-october-2019

The war around Tripoli that erupted in April 2019 between the two main political rivals reversed the momentum of the relative economic recovery over 2017-18. Indeed, Libya managed to more than double its oil production over the two-year recovery period, to reach 1.17 million barrel per day (bpd) in April 2019.

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Worldbank Search

In a recent meeting with WHO, the deputy Minister of Health informed the WHO Representative that all MOH warehouses were practically empty and the country was facing stockouts of critical vaccines and medicines including COVID-19 treatments, insulin, blood products, medicines to treat patients with HIV, TB and noncommunicable diseases, as well as surgical and trauma supplies. The situation is exacerbated by the disrupted supply chain (manufacturers who previously supplied Libya have not been paid and are refusing to fill new orders).

WHO is working with different MOH departments to prepare lists of critically needed medicines and supplies. Once the lists are ready, it will ask the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya to release immediate funds to replenish critical supplies. WHO will also work with the government to set up a strengthened supply chain that includes a reliable payment mechanism.

Libya has transferred USD 9.7 million to the COVAX Facility to secure 2.8 million doses of vaccine. This will be enough to vaccinate around 1.25 million people (two doses per person plus 10% in wastage).

The government is revising the national COVID-19 vaccination plan to add a component addressing vaccination of the approximately 570 000 migrants and refugees in Libya. Once the revised plan is ready,WHO will ask the Global Vaccine Alliance (GAVI) to consider making vaccines available for around 16 200 high-risk migrants and refugees under its Humanitarian Buffer fund. The government will pay the costs of administering these vaccines to migrants and refugees but will not cover the costs of the vaccines themselves.

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WHO Libya: Health response to COVID-19 in Libya, update # 23 (Reporting period: 24 December 2020 to 31 January 2021) - Libya - ReliefWeb

A new United Nations report alleges that the United Arab Emirates has established direct contact with armed Sudanese groups fighting in Libyas proxy conflict on the side of Khalifa Haftar.

The report by the Panel of Experts on the Sudan, released in January, says that for around a year the UAE has had direct relations with armed groups from Sudans Darfur region fighting in Libya on the side of Haftars Libyan National Army. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the UAE had, in violation of a U.N. arms embargo, increased its deliveries of weapons to Haftar, who ended his unsuccessful 14-month assault on the capital, Tripoli, last June.

The UAEs contact with the Sudanese armed groups in Libya, bypassing Haftars forces, is seen by some experts as a sign of the countrys appetite for a more hands-on role in the conflict and of growing mistrust of the renegade general.

I think theres an argument to be made that they distrust Haftars battlefield competence. Many outside backers have [distrusted it], including the Russians, said Frederic Wehrey, a senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Haftars international backers have stuck by him so far out of concern that eastern Libya could descend further into chaos fueled by fracturing rebel groups in the absence of clear leadership. But in establishing closer direct ties with Sudanese groups in Libya, the UAE could be well positioned to shift its support to another leader, should one emerge.

Whoever takes on Haftars mantle later on, theyll definitely try to endow him with the same sort of support that includes, inter alia, the mercenaries, said Emadeddin Badi, a nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Program of the Atlantic Council.

The UAE is one of several countries that have waded into the complex conflict in Libya as they jostle to further their own objectives in the fragile North African nation. The proxy war has pitted allies against each other. France, Egypt, and Russia (through the Wagner mercenary group) have thrown their support to Haftar and his Libyan National Army. Turkey, Italy, and Qatar have provided military backing to the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord in Tripoli. Complicating matters further is the presence of militias from Sudan, Chad, and Syria.

A report by the U.S. Department of Defenses inspector general for counterterrorism operations in Africa last year assessed that the UAE was possibly helping to fund the activities of the Russian mercenary group Wagner in Libya. The Emirati ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al Otaiba, strenuously denied the claims.

In October 2020, the U.N.-backed government and Haftars Libyan National Army signed a peace deal that stipulated that all foreign parties leave the country by Jan. 23. But satellite imagery reveals that Russian fighters are digging enormous trenches, and the UAEs outreach to Sudanese groups suggests that foreign parties are in no hurry to disentangle themselves from the conflict.

According to the U.N. report, leading Darfuri commanders had regular meetings with Emirati officers in Benghazi, Libya, to discuss how the UAE could support the logistical and financial needs of the groups. The report details how Abu Dhabi sought to cultivate close ties with the senior commanders, and it alleges that at least two of them spent several weeks in the UAE in late 2020, where they reportedly met with members of the countrys security services.

Analysts have suggested that the UAEs intervention in Libya stems from a deep fear of political Islam and is intended to send a message about the perils of popular uprisings. The Libyan story is meant to push an almost moral lesson not just to the Libyans but other populations that if you revolt against the ruler, it brings instability, Badi said.

The embassy of the UAE in Washington declined to comment. Last week, the UAE ambassador to the U.N., Lana Nusseibeh, called for a renewed diplomatic effort to bring the conflict to an end.

A peace deal signed between the Sudanese government and an alliance of rebel groups this past August called on all members of armed groups to return to the country, but the authors of the U.N. report noted they expected a significant Sudanese presence to remain in Libyathough its unclear how many even remain there now.

One commander from the Sudan Liberation Army-Minni Minawi group told the U.N. panel that they had recruited 3,000 new fighters since mid-2019. That group and the Justice and Equality Movement recruited fighters in Darfur and in refugee camps in eastern Chad, according to the report. The U.N. panel noted that the Justice and Equality Movement had focused its activities in Libya on smuggling and was the only major Darfurian group not aligned with Haftars forces.

Sudanese fighters have a long history in Libya. Theyve been used as pawns in the Libyan conflict since 2011, said Wehrey of the Carnegie Endowment. Its estimated that former Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi recruited as many as 10,000 fighters from Sudan, Chad, Mali, and Niger to fight on his behalf before he was ousted and killed in the wake of the Arab Spring protests in 2011.

In November 2020, Human Rights Watch reported that an Emirati security company, Black Shield Security Services, had recruited more than 390 Sudanese men on the pretense of working as security guards in the UAE, before transferring them to Ras Lanuf in oil-rich eastern Libya, controlled by Haftar. Several men interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they lived alongside Haftars forces and were expected to guard oil facilities in the region. The company has previously denied any allegations of misleading the Sudanese men about the nature of their work in Libya, and it said that it does not offer any services that are military in nature.

Katie Livingstone contributed to this report.

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The Conflict in Libya Is Getting Even Messier - Foreign Policy

Wed, Feb 3, 2021

MENASourcebyWill O'Brien

Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar shakes hands with a comrade during Independence Day celebrations in Benghazi, Libya December 24, 2020. REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori

As the civil war in Libya approaches the decade mark, many in the international community and certain segments of Libyan society have started to look for seemingly simple solutions to end the conflict. One of the solutions that has started to gain traction is the potential partitioning of Libya into two separate nation-states. This is a bad idea.

For international bodies, western alliances, and separatist powers, partitioning states was a hallmark of twentieth century statecraft. This relic of a bygone age ostensibly fixed a handful of global conflictssuch as Ireland, Israel, and Indiawhich contain some of the most militarily and politically contested borders in the world today.

There are three primary arguments against partitioning Libya: the historical outcomes of partitioned countries, the potential for exacerbating the ongoing proxy war in Libya, and the risk of degrading international institutions.

History is against partitioning

The historical case against partitioning is twofold. First, partitioning remains a divisive relic of the colonial era. Second, the timeline to achieve peace and stability after partitioning cannot be known. Partitioning was a standard practice to sow division and make it easier to govern divided territories and countries. Proponents of partition argue that it brings peace and stability to the region quickly; the historical examples below would suggest otherwise.

Three key examples of partition illustrate its utility for twentieth century colonial powers seeking to divide and conquer, thereby debunking the claim that it is a quick solution to conflict.

The first historical example to consider is Ireland. At the end of the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921), Ireland was partitioned by the United Kingdom in 1921 following the passage of the Government of Ireland Act of 1920. This sparked the Irish Civil War and led to the three decades of insurgency known widely as the Troubles. The political and military upheavals that stem directly from the partitioning of Ireland have remained contentious for a century. As recent as September of this year, the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was revisited as a source of tension during Brexit negotiations.

The most well-known example of partitionand the closest to Libya geographicallyis the partitioning of the British Mandate of Palestine in 1947 along ethnic-religious lines and the subsequent creation of the state of Israel a year later. The recent establishment of diplomatic ties with Israel by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the opposition by the Palestinian authority, and ongoing conflict demonstrate that partitioning successfully divided the regions population, but did not manage to bring peace.

The final historical case against partition is the division of colonial India and the creation of the dominions of India and Pakistan. Britain partitioned Indiaagain, along ethnic-religious linesthe same year it partitioned British Mandate Palestine. The partitioning led to the Kashmir conflict, decades of skirmishes, nuclear buildup in the region, and the continued contestation of nearly 120,000 square miles of territory. In September, the army chiefs of both India and Pakistan engaged in a rhetorical standoff over military capabilities and threatened conflict.

In brief, these historical case studies demonstrate that partitioning is not a tool to end division and conflict. Rather, partition has heightened divisive forces, prolonged armed conflicts, and intensified political rivalries.

Proxy war by a different name

Partitioning Libya would prolong the violent conflict that the country has been experiencing for nearly a decade. The conflict in Libya has devolved from a revolution in 2011 to oust Colonel Muammar Gaddafi into a proxy war with two different Libyan governments claiming legitimacy on the basis of differing international support. The Government of National Accord led by Prime Minster Fayez Al-Sarraj was established by the United Nations (UN) in 2015 and is nominally supported by a broad group of Western democracies and NATO allies, including the United States and the United Kingdom (however, Turkey has emerged as the GNAs primary backer). The Tobruk-based government of General Khalifa Haftar is supported by Russia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates.

The partitioning of Libya alone is not enough to discourage all international actors from supporting the armed conflict. More importantly, partition cannot meet the peoples desires for increased democratization and improved governance in Libya. This proxy war allows self-interested governments with authoritarian tendenciesincluding the government of General Haftarto undermine the democratic desires of the Libyan people that sparked the 2011 revolution during the Arab Spring. Furthermore, a partitioned Libya would not stop international actors from injecting the military armaments that are fueling the war.

Consider the aforementioned historical examples; partitioning Ireland led to financial and political support for violence from Irish Americans. Similarly, the Arab league has provided financial support for the Palestinian Authority. While the foreign actors faith in General Haftar may waver, somenotably Egyptremain committed to opposing GNA allies in Eastern Libya.

An attempt to draw a partition between these two sides will merely change the rhetoric of political scientists, who will rebrand the civil war as a war between bordering nation-states. This will not increase the accountability of Libyan government(s) to the citizens of Libya, nor will it change the daily lives of millions of Libyans who have lived in a country divided by conflict for nearly a decade.

The 2011 Arab Uprising was a missed opportunity to build strong, democratic institutions in North Africa. The partitioning of Libya draws a line in the sand that will be impossible to reverse; the hope for a united, democratic government will be all but extinguished. The proxy warbe it civil or between two newly formed stateswill continue until unity-focused diplomatic solutions can be implemented. Partition cannot inherently end armed conflictit can only complicate a potential reunification.

Leaning into international institutions

Partitioning Libya would further undermine the international institutions that could support democracy and stability in Libya and North Africa. We are at a moment that requires greater support for international institutions and their ability to convene decision-makers to build political consensus.

The power and legitimacy of international institutions are degraded when they appear to set up pathways for democratic growth and then stand by as violent conflicts fester. The United Nations assistance in establishing the GNA in Libya five years ago was critical to supporting peace, unity, and democracy in Libya. The subsequent creation of a parallel government in Tobruk sabotaged this step, increased division, and prolonged the violence in Libya. This divisive response cannot be repaired through the even more divisive act of partitioning.

Partitioning Libya moves the goalposts a decade into the conflict. What began as a movement to build a democratic government in Libya cannot be seen as successful if there are two states, potentially at war, with differing levels of adherence to democratic values and practices. This will reaffirm to separatists that the UN and other international bodies will abandon half a nation if they can draw out conflict for a decade.

The UN, Arab League, African Union, and international governments must use their platforms to facilitate diplomatic communications that build political consensus around supporting fledgling democracies. Furthermore, they must support the hard work of establishing domestic and international coalitions to build democratic systems in the first place.

The dangerous precedent set by failing to support a UN-backed government coupled with the lack of diplomatic options to reverse partitioning demonstrates the need for Libya to forgo partitioning and lean into the strength of international institutions to support a unified state.

The path ahead

The path forward for a united Libya hinges on Libyans aspirations for peace, the political will of Libyas two governments, and the support of the international community to find a peaceful solution that can lay the groundwork for stability in Libya. This will require three difficult, yet, essential steps: rebuilding political consensus for a united Libya, which has dissipated since 2015, negotiating a ceasefire that is respected by all parties, and creating a long-term, diplomatic pathway forward. The seeds have been planted in each of these areas, but partition would prevent these seeds from ever taking root and bearing fruit.

The international community must continue to show a vested interest in long-term peace and stability in Libya and the broader Mediterranean region. Constructive engagement with Libya and regional partners must follow the Hippocratic principle of first, do no harm.

Partitioning Libya is a diplomatic band-aid that merely substitutes a border war for a civil war, degrades the legitimacy of international institutions, and prolongs the political and military conflict in Libya. It is time to throw out the twentieth century playbook. The twenty-first century answer will require greater focus on diplomacy, stronger international institutions, and a renewed commitment to building a stable, peaceful Libya.

Will OBrien is the special assistant to the Atlantic Councils executive vice president. He has a masters degree in religion in global politics from SOAS, University of London with a focus on North Africa and the Middle East. Follow him on Twitter: @WmThOBrien.

Tue, Oct 29, 2019

Egypt is facing multiple security challenges for which a military solution is deficient. A complex interplay between internal and external challenges, as well as human and security challenges, is evident in western Egypt and within the area bordering Libya. The mix of harsh climatic conditions, inhospitable terrain, and lagging economic development, on one hand, and []

MENASourcebyAmal Kandeel

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Preventing partition: The case against a diplomatic band-aid in Libya - Atlantic Council