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At a meeting last week of the Deauville Partnership in the UAE, Libya was offered support in finding jobs for young people. . . .[restrict] It is estimated that 28 percent of the Libyan population is aged between 15 and 24 years of age.
The Deauville Partnership was set up in May 2011 as a platform for countries to assist Arab Spring nations during their transitions. The first Finance Ministers’ meeting was held in September 2011 in Marseille, with Libya as an observer. The Abu Dhabi event was the first meeting of the Deauville Partnership where Libya attended as a full partner.
Libya was represented at the meeting by Aref Ali Nayed, Libyan ambassador to the UAE, who highlighted the continuous challenges facing the Finance sector in Libya.
Assets stolen by previous regimes were spotlighted at the meeting. Libya underlined that Libyan funds stolen by previous regime elements are still unrecovered and amount to the billions of dollars. It recommended setting up a working group to discuss ways for the partnership to assist asset recovery.
It was recognized by Deauville partners that support is required to help Libya, Egypt and Tunisia recover stolen money and that the Deauville partnership would be able to support this initiative. The partners discussed ways to take this forward and it was proposed that Libya host the first specialist working group meeting on asset recovery.
The World Bank in particular was very supportive of the initiative and has asked Libya to set-up a committee to be the counterpart in the working group discussions. This recommendation was passed on to the Libyan Finance Ministry.
The African Development Bank has also offered to assist Libya with this initiative and offered support by providing technical expertise.
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