One year on: Libya’s UN-backed government remains dysfunctional

Hampered by a combination of a historical absence of strong and centralized state institutions and a recent destruction of the institutional pillars underpinning the Gaddafi-regime, Libya’s transition government that took office on 17 December 2015, remains at a loss.

Like previous transition governments, the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) has failed to re-establish central authority. In a new DIIS brief, Senior Researchers Rasmus Alenius Boserup and Hans Lucht and Non-resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Mohamed Eljarh, analyse the constraints for the current government. They propose a way forward based on an acknowledgement that power resides in the peripheries of Libya, not at the centre.