TRIPOLI — The Economy Track of the Structured Dialogue, during its first five-day session this week, reached a significant consensus on the necessity of unifying the national budget and reforming oil-revenue governance.
Track members also converged on the need to prioritise solutions to current fiscal pressures, such as liquidity shortages, increasing public debt, growing foreign currency deficits and exchange-rate volatility—all of which generate hardship for a large part of the Libyan population.
In the coming months, the Economy Track, with the facilitation of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), will explore concrete recommendations aiming to advance urgent stabilisation measures, strengthen state institutions, address short- and long-term conflict drivers, and build consensus around a national vision to guide Libya’s path towards durable peace. Together with the other Structured Dialogue tracks—governance, security, and human rights and reconciliation—the Economy Track will also propose mechanisms to help ensure the implementation of the recommendations they put forward.
The issues the group has agreed to review align with top public concerns identified in a survey of more than 1,000 people UNSMIL conducted in November. Survey respondents indicated strong support (66 per cent) for adopting a unified and transparent national budget as a top economic reform priority, with many noting in written answers that the absence of a single national budget is a driver of the duplication of spending and inequitable service delivery. Meanwhile, 71 per cent of respondents expressed strong concern about corruption and misuse of public funds, with many explicitly citing a lack of transparency in oil income flows and the political capture of sovereign resources.
“The challenge is to propose solutions, based on a clear understanding of the current state of the economy and the shortcomings of current public financial management practices,” said Special Representative of the Secretary-General Hanna Tetteh, during her remarks on the session’s opening day. “There is a need to have a broader understanding of the systemic risks and weaknesses and to recommend appropriate measures to address them in order to prevent further deterioration of the economy.”
Across the five days, economic track experts contributed presentations that established a shared factual baseline for discussions, outlining challenges, institutional constraints, and key priority areas. The track benefitted from exchanges with Libyan officials working on anti-corruption efforts and international financial institutions.
Members also launched substantive discussions on the management of oil and sovereign resources, noting that the oil sector remains both the country’s most critical economic asset and its most significant vulnerability. They broadly agreed on the necessity of transparent oil resource management and the depoliticisation of decision-making.
They agreed that economic and fiscal reforms depend on political legitimacy, security-sector restraint, and governance coherence. At the same time, progress on those tracks requires credible economic outcomes to restore public trust and produce development results for people across Libya. This reinforces the need for parallel, coordinated advancement across Structured Dialogue tracks, with institutional accountability serving as a key cross-cutting anchor.
“Without putting in place pragmatic policies to address these issues, the economy will continue to face challenges regardless of who is in a position of leadership,” SRSG Tetteh said. “There is the common belief that business as usual can continue as Libya has the reserves to finance all the demands and obligations currently placed on the country’s resources, but those reserves are not bottomless. The efficient and accountable management of the country’s resources are key to promoting the country’s accelerated growth and development.”
The Structured Dialogue’s work aligns with UNSMIL’s mandate to use its good offices to facilitate an inclusive, Libyan-owned and led political process, without determining outcomes, and to advance consensus on governance arrangements toward elections and long-term stability. It includes representatives from across the country from municipalities, political parties, security actors, universities, technical institutions, women’s and youth groups, and civil society organisations, including human rights and victims’ groups, and persons with disabilities. It is 35 per cent women.
The Human Rights and Reconciliation Track will meet from 25 to 29 January. All other thematic dialogue teams will continue to meet online before joining in-person meetings again in February.
