Amid the power vacuum and political deadlock that has plagued Libya since the death of Muammar Gaddafi, the country is being held together not by central government, but by local authorities – with support from their European counterparts.



According to Fathi Suleman, adviser to the council of Sirte, a coastal city in central Libya, local authorities are delivering basic services to their residents, in “chaotic” situations, despite their resources and capacity being tested to the limit.

Suleman’s own city, Sirte, was controlled by Islamic State (Isis) until December 2016. “The war against Isis left the city in total devastation, and it’s had no help yet from the Libyan national government,” he says.

The Nicosia Initiative

It was in this context that the Nicosia Initiative was born. Launched in the Cypriot capital in January 2016, it twins European cities with Libyan ones, allowing European city leaders to bypass the unstable central government and offer support instead to Libya’s mayors.

Sirte is one of seven Libyan cities involved in the initiative. The others are Tripoli, Gharyan and Zintan in the west, Sebha in the south, and Benghazi and Tobruk in the east.

The project focuses on public services. The Belgian city of Antwerp has provided training on waste management, for example, while Nicosia offers its expertise in public administration, Portugal’s Vila Real in healthcare and Spain’s Murcia in water management.

“I strongly believe that where governments have failed, local authorities can succeed,” says Eleni Loukaidou, deputy mayor of Nicosia. She explains that her city is well-placed to understand the needs of its neighbours across the Mediterranean: “Cyprus is the bridge between three continents and has experienced conflict first-hand.”

Decentralising public services

The project originally kicked off in 2015, when a delegation of Libyan mayors visited Brussels, and the Committee of the Regions – the EU’s assembly of local and regional representatives – invited them to identify areas where they most needed help. The committee then asked European cities to volunteer their support. The first training session, attended by politicians and civil servants from all seven Libyan cities, was hosted by Murcia in March 2016.



Where governments have failed, local authorities can succeed Eleni Loukaidou, deputy mayor of Nicosia

This “bottom-up approach” is new for the north African nation, says Suleman. “Libyan local councils are still young and need guidance.” He is referring to a legacy of the centralised Gaddafi regime, under which public services were largely run by the state. When the regime fell, services stopped.

A 2012 law established a local administration system and a process of decentralisation began. But it was halted in 2014 amid political and security conflict.

Salem Mokamdy, representing the municipality of central Tripoli, says that local authorities have been set up from scratch, and are delivering a range of services unprecedented in Libyan history. But public officials are used to working under a totalitarian regime, and lack basic operational and managerial skills.

The Nicosia Initiative aims to help Libya’s mayors to finally develop functioning administrations, explains Benedetta Oddo, a senior adviser on partnership building at the European School of Governance, who helped initiate the project. “Libyan local authorities need quick impact projects that show local communities that transition towards democracy is painful, but worth it,” she adds.



The initiative is not short on ambition. Projects in the pipeline include setting up organic waste compost units in five Libyan municipalities, anti-radicalisation training for 200 young community leaders, and even the development of a public administration master’s curriculum to eventually be taught in universities in Libya.



Security setbacks

But it is fraught with complications. Only the mayors of Tripoli and Zintan actually made it to Nicosia last January: a week before the launch the mayor of Gharyan was shot and wounded, while others faced logistical issues, such as getting visas.

Benedetto Oddo, senior adviser on partnership building, European School of Governance. Photograph: Nuno Rodrigues

Since August last year, when Benghazi’s mayor was ousted by the army and replaced with a senior intelligence chief, the committee in Brussels has had to communicate with city councillors instead. The mayor of Sirte, a leading force behind efforts to reconstruct the city, was kidnapped just last month.

“The situation in Libya changes every day and we have to adapt,” says Filippo Terruso, a policy adviser for the committee leading on this initiative.

And while partnership building is a slow process, problems in Libya are getting worse. Without proper sewage and wastewater collection systems, waste in Tripoli largely ends up on the city’s beaches, or is pumped into the sea. Sewage in the streets of Benghazi now reaches half a metre high. It is, Oddo explains, a public health emergency.

Access to funding

The biggest challenge of all is funding. So far, the relatively small costs have largely been absorbed by European cities and partner organisations. But the compost units, for example, cost €70,000 (£60,550) each – a figure too big for European cities to stump up but, as Terruso explains, not usually big enough for the European commission to step in. There is money earmarked for projects such as these – it’s a lack of trust in Libyan institutions that’s more the issue, he adds.

Terruso is, however, talking to the European commission to identify available budget, and is confident he will succeed.

For Oddo, finding the money to move the project on to its next phase is crucial. “The Nicosia Initiative has opened a precious window on Libyan local authorities,” she says. She says it has shown “in practical terms how they can be trustful interlocutors and contribute to their country’s stability”.

Sign up for your free weekly Guardian Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday. Follow us on Twitter via @Guardianpublic.