Can Libya bring its experts back into the state?

Tripoli is hosting the first Libya Experts Forum from August 23rd to 25th in an attempt to connect Libyan expertise abroad with the country’s reconstruction needs.

The forum, organised by the Ministry of Labour and Rehabilitation under the Government of National Unity, brings together around 100 Libyan experts based abroad, alongside experts and academics from inside Libya, participants are linked to 26 countries including the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Canada, Japan, Australia, Spain, Turkey and several Arab states.

Libya’s crisis is not only a crisis of elections, militias or rival governments but also a crisis of knowledge inside the state as public institutions lack the technical capacity to design policy, manage data, regulate markets, modernise services and plan development beyond short term political survival.

The Ministry of Labour says the forum aims to create a national database of Libyan experts, strengthen communication with international institutions, transfer knowledge and international experience to Libya, support innovation and scientific research, encourage partnership with the private sector and provide scientific advice to decision makers, these goals reveal the real purpose of the initiative as Tripoli wants to build a bridge between dispersed Libyan knowledge and weak domestic institutions.

Libya has money, resources and a strategic location, but it often lacks the administrative means needed to convert those advantages into any kind of development, oil revenue can finance budgets but it cannot by itself build a modern state.

The participating experts cover medicine, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, aviation engineering, software development, nanotechnology, telecommunications, data analysis, electrical engineering, petroleum and mining engineering, financial and banking consultancy, business advisory work and fibre optic technologies.

These sectors are exactly the areas where Libya’s reconstruction deficit is most visible.

Many Libyan professionals abroad have accumulated experience in systems that Libya needs to rebuilds such as universities, hospitals, research centres, companies, public agencies, banks, laboratories, technology firms and international organisations.

Libya may be able to gather experts in Tripoli, but can its ministries absorb their advice? Can policy papers become programmes? Can recommendations become law, regulation, budgets and implementation plans?

This is notably where many Libyan initiatives fail, the country often produces conferences, declarations and recommendations but then struggles to convert them into institutional action so that the forum will matter only if it creates a permanent channel between experts and decision makers, with clear responsibilities, follow up mechanisms and measurable outcomes.

For this reason preparatory meetings discussed linking the forum’s outcomes with relevant authorities and organising bilateral meetings between experts and decision makers, a general conference can create visibility but bilateral technical meetings are where useful work begins.

Without that level of connection, the forum will remain just ceremonial but with it, the diaspora can become a technical resource for state reconstruction.

Libya’s institutions are divided and knowledge does not operate outside power, this is why a forum organised in Tripoli by the Government of National Unity may be viewed differently in the east, where rival authorities and the Haftar linked power structure maintain their own institutions and networks, if the initiative is perceived as serving only one side of Libya’s divided political landscape its national value will be incredibly limited.

That is why the forum must be framed as a national base instead of a Tripoli mean of propaganda, Libyan expertise abroad belongs to the whole country, not to one government.

Many Libyans abroad left because of instability, weak institutions, poor professional opportunities or insecurity, some left during earlier waves of political repression, others after 2011 and others because the post revolution state failed to offer them a credible future.

Asking them to contribute to national reconstruction requires a system that respects their time, protects their data, uses their expertise properly and does not trap them in factional politics.

LANA reported that the electronic application was designed to allow Libyan experts abroad to register and participate through an integrated digital platform, with attention to data protection, confidentiality and privacy. That may sound technical but it is politically relevant as experts abroad will not engage seriously if they do not trust the mechanism collecting their information or if they fear their expertise will be used selectively.

A national expert database can help ministries identify specialists for projects, advisory boards, training programmes, university partnerships and technical missions and can help connect Libyan institutions with international networks but if the database becomes opaque, politicised or unused, it will reinforce distrust rather than solve it.

Libya’s economy remains dominated by oil revenue and public sector employment while the private sector is constrained by informality, weak regulation, limited access to finance, insecurity and competition from the state wage bill, this is why young people often wait for government jobs instead of entering private employment, while companies struggle with skills mismatches.

At the same time, data gaps weaken policy design, making it harder for institutions to understand the economy they are supposed to manage.

But expertise alone will not fix structural problems as advices becomes meaningful only when there is political willingness to act as if decision makers want expertise only to legitimise decisions already made, the forum will fail but if they want expertise to challenge assumptions, improve policy and expose institutional weaknesses, it could become a serious step toward a strong unified Libya.

Libya must also avoid treating experts abroad as saviours, the country also has professionals inside its borders who understand the daily realities of ministries, hospitals, municipalities, universities and companies as many have remained in difficult conditions and kept services functioning despite political instability.

A successful forum must therefore connect external expertise with internal experience so that those abroad may bring international standards and comparative knowledge and collaborate with those inside Libya who understand local constraints, informal power relations, administrative bottlenecks and implementation risks as reconstruction requires both.

While it is true that many young Libyans are educated, digitally connected and frustrated by the gap between their skills and the opportunities available at home a national experts platform could help create mentorship networks, training pathways and research partnerships that give younger professionals access to global Libyan knowledge and if designed properly, it could become a long-term human capital project.

Its medical track can support health sector reform, especially if it connects oncology, diagnostics and treatment technologies to hospital planning and pharmaceutical oversight as Libya has recently faced serious questions about medicine supply, drug regulation and food and pharmaceutical safety.

Its technical and information track can support digital sovereignty, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence policy, Libya cannot modernise public administration while leaving state data exposed or fragmented especially now that cybersecurity is a state capacity issue.

Its economic and financial track can help Libya think beyond spending oil revenue as the country needs better tools for financial stability, investment planning, private sector growth and crisis management.

Libya’s state cannot reconstruct the country alone as public spending remains central, but private initiative, technology companies, medical providers, training centres, contractors, banks and investors all have a role, for this reason diaspora professionals can help connect Libyan firms with external standards, markets and financing models as they can also help improve corporate governance and professional accreditation.

The private sector language in Libya can become vague unless linked to legal reform, financial access and transparent procurement, here experts can advise, but companies need rules as investors need predictability and most entrepreneurs need payment systems, contracts, courts and security.

The forum may also serve a political purpose for Tripoli by gathering Libyan experts abroad, the GNU can present itself as a government concerned with development, knowledge and institutional reform rather than only security and political survival, that message is useful at a time when Libya’s political process remains blocked and public frustration with services is high.

There is nothing wrong with a government seeking legitimacy through development initiatives, the problem comes if the initiative is not followed by real policy as citizens have seen enough announcements and they will judge the forum by what it actually produces after the closing session.

For the forum to succeed, its recommendations must not disappear into a report but they should be converted into a public action plan, with named institutions, deadlines and responsible teams as Libya should identify a limited number of priority projects rather than produce a long list of general ambitions and a national experts database should be launched, updated and used.

Ministries should publish which experts they consult and on which issues, Universities should be connected to diaspora researchers, young professionals should receive access to mentorship and training, the private sector should be given a clear role through public tenders.

A serious follow up mechanism could include sectoral advisory councils made up of Libyan experts inside and outside the country, these councils could work on health reform, digital infrastructure, energy transition, labour market policy, banking reform and innovation.

Their role should be advisory but structured as Libya does not need another symbolic committee but rather an expert input tied to careful and planned decision making.

The forum should also link to municipalities as reconstruction is not only national, many of Libya’s service failures appear locally such as water, waste, roads, health facilities, schools, electricity distribution and urban planning.

Diaspora engineers, planners, doctors and digital specialists could support pilot projects in municipalities willing to work with transparent standards, that would make the initiative visible to citizens, not only to ministries.

There is also the issue of national reconciliation as diaspora engagement can help reconnect Libyans divided by geography, politics and displacement and a professional platform may create a space where Libyans speak through expertise rather than factional identity.

That does not solve political division but it can create a different kind of national conversation.

Libya’s experts abroad are not a substitute for elections, security sector reform or institutional reunification, they cannot replace political settlement but they can help fill a gap that politics alone cannot address even if Libya reaches a political agreement, the country will still need people who know how to rebuild systems.

The forum points to a different definition of reconstruction as not only rebuilding what was damaged, it is building what Libya never fully developed.

Still, optimism should be cautious as Libya has produced many initiatives that sounded promising and achieved little, the danger is that the Libya Experts Forum becomes a photograph of national ambition rather than a mechanism of national change and it may bring experts to Tripoli, produce recommendations and generate positive headlines but then fail to alter how decisions are made.

If the forum creates a living expert network, connects specialists to ministries, supports practical projects and strengthens policy design, it could mark a useful step in Libya’s reconstruction debate, if it remains a three day event it will join the long list of missed opportunities.

Tripoli is trying to link diaspora expertise to state reconstruction because it knows that Libya’s future cannot be built only by those currently inside the political system, the country needs its dispersed knowledge and the Libyans who learned abroad, worked abroad and built careers in systems Libya now wants to emulate.

But the diaspora cannot rebuild Libya from outside the state unless the state is willing to change how it works.

Libya’s experts can offer knowledge, but institutions must be able to receive it, they can propose solutions but decision makers must be prepared to implement them, they can bring international experience but Libya must create national systems capable of turning experience into policy.

The first Libya Experts Forum is therefore more than a development event, it is a question addressed to the Libyan state on wether Libya can finally make use of the talent it has lost?

The forum could become an early step toward rebuilding state capacity or it will reveal once again that Libya’s problem is not the absence of expertise but the inability of power to listen to it.

Alwasat, Libyan News Agency, LANA, IMF 2025 Consultation on Libya, IMF 2026 concluding statement, maghrebi.org