By Sami Zaptia.
London, 27 July 2020:
The UK Government and the Tripoli-based Government of Libya have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen joint collaboration efforts to enhance the capacity of sub-national government in Libya to deliver essential services, Crown Agents reported.
It said activities will be delivered through the UK Conflict Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) programme, ‘Tazeez’. The cost of the programme was not reported.
Tazeez is a three-year programme implemented by Crown Agents and supported by the Government of Libya. It aims to improve the delivery of local services to citizens by strengthening the capacity of subnational government. The goal is to make these services available and responsive to the needs of citizens by improving their delivery and ensuring that planning and budgeting information is shared across local and central government, Crown Agents explained.
Tazeez also strives to place local concerns and ownership at the heart of the programme. Tazeez has three main objectives: Strengthening the executive body at central and municipal levels to implement the emerging local government and decentralisation agenda; improving working practices and relationships between central government and targeted municipalities; and supporting sub-national government services to be more responsive to people’s needs.
The Head of the UK Embassy in Libya, Ambassador Nicholas Hopton was quoted as saying, “We are very pleased to work closely with and support Libyan authorities and municipalities to improve local governance and service delivery for the Libyan people through the Tazeez project. The UK remains a committed partner to Libya, and this project provides an opportunity for us to further strengthen that partnership.”
Crown Agents describes itself as a not-for-profit international development company and reports that it has been working in Libya since 2011 supporting the strengthening of Libyan civil society and local administration.
