Women in Diaspora Libya

In April 2017, The Hague Academy for Local Governance convened in Tunisia a group of Libyan women activists. The tailor-made training titled, “Empowering Libyan women in diaspora,” was part of the MENA Scholarship Programme (MSP), financed by The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Main goal

The overall objective of this project was to strengthen the role of Libyan women and to enhance their participation in the Libyan development process. Libyan female ‘change makers’ living in Libya and in other countries of the MENA region were brought together to share experiences and to work on common challenges and issues for the benefit of their home country by developing collective action plans.

Objectives

• The first goal was to design an advocacy strategy by working in groups on pre-identified topics. Participants were introduced to the different steps in developing an advocacy strategy. The training focused therefore as well on gaining more insight into their own sources of power and on how to realise change within their own circle of influence. The progress of the participants’ action plans was monitored at different moments after the 5-day training.
• The second goal of this training was to establish a pool of ‘change makers’ as this is a unique opportunity for Libyan women with different backgrounds to meet. This training was the first step to align the participants’ interests and to build collaboration between them.

Partners