Despite its rich historical past, which dates back to the ancient Greece, since 2014, Libya is known today as a war zone. News about conflict, terrorist attacks and clashes between armed groups are featured in the media constantly. However, young people in Libya are determined to change the course of history and not only forge a culture of peace in the country, but nurture innovation to create sustainable jobs.

Nour Al-din Albriky, is one of those young Libyan entrepreneurs, who decided to make a difference in his hometown, Benghazi, engaging, learning and trying to find solutions to the country challenges. “I want to create my own business, and hire people that will help me to take Benghazi and the whole Libya to a new phase”. He added “I want to change the state reliant mentality.”

In 2017, UNDP Libya and Tatweer Research launched a partnership to build the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Libya. The initiative is part of a three-year EU-funded project named “Strengthening Local capacities for Resilience and Recovery.” It is being implemented in collaboration with the Libyan Ministry of Local Governance, and aims to help local authorities to improve access to essential services, create jobs, and increase security.

One important milestone of the partnership was the opening of Tatweer Entrepreneurship Campus (TEC) a 500 square meters co-working space in Benghazi, which offers support and mentoring for emerging entrepreneurs.

In this space, Nour Al Din participated in TEC Camp, a boot camp where participants receive technical training on coding, Apps and web development. He stated: “TEC Camp opened my mind to the technology world and showed me that it is possible to create a business in Libya.”

During the opening ceremony of TEC Space, EU Ambassador to Libya, H.E. Ms. Bettina Muscheidt declared:

“Youth can contribute in areas such as child education, employment, social inclusion, housing, healthcare and gender equality. Promoting the potential of young people for the renewal of society is a priority of the EU social agenda, and so it is for the EU support to Libya.”, She continued, “Hence, we jointly launched with UNDP this strategic partnership with Tatweer Research so that using innovation as a tool through which we all try together to increase income generation opportunities especially for young people across Libya”.

“One of the main focuses of UNDP in Libya is to help people to have access to decent jobs, especially women and youth. Our partnership with Tatweer Research is an important step towards achieving this goal, bringing bright young minds into a space where they can develop their ideas and create their own businesses. We usually talk about difficulties, and there are more than one indeed. However, there is also a lot of determination and energy to overcome, and our aim is to empower and support such enthusiastic efforts” said UNDP Country Director to Libya, Mr. Sultan Hajiyev.

The number of programmes in which the innovators can enroll is large. Apart from TEC Camp, they can participate in TEC talks; the TEC Incubator, in which entrepreneurs receive a three-week intensive business training course; TEC Impact Fund, to help start-ups to find funding; TEC Renewable Energy course, and the list goes on.

Ahmed Neihoum, TEC project manager, said: “The Libyan economy is heavily dependent on oil as more than 95% of the nation’s GDP comes from oil industry, and more than 1,500,000 people are working in the public sector, far more than the needs of the civil service,” he continued, “with TEC we are trying to give alternatives to youth unemployment.”

Shihab Eddin graduated from TEC Camp on April 2018: “I had no knowledge of web and App development, but in TEC I learned to code and after two months I created a completely functional website and an App. I named it ‘Motah’ (Accessible). I am now working on my business model within TEC Incubator to launch it as my own startup.”

Under the slogan “2020,” TEC is calling to action through social media and in the street to all young people around Libya.

Ahmed Ben Mussa, Tatweer CCO, said: “TEC is an attempt to build the foundation for a prosperous entrepreneurial ecosystem, and spread the culture of entrepreneurship and seize the opportunity in the socioeconomic behavior in the country by making the people and especially the youth less dependent on the state”.

With UNDP and EU support, TEC will directly or indirectly support 90 startups, providing 1,000 jobs across Libya by 2020.

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