Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key drivers of economic growth and job creation in Libya, but they often face operations, management, and other internal constraints that hold them back.

The EU-funded Libya Competes project partners with companies to apply tailored technical assistance addressing their specific competitiveness constraints. The project focuses on high-growth potential sectors, including those that can create job opportunities for Libyan youth and women. Rapid turnaround results generate new jobs and improve sales, productivity, efficiencies, customer service, market access, and more. Working with both individual enterprises and clusters of companies in the same sectors, we deliver upgrades and quality improvements that ripple across the full value chain—from suppliers and producers to specialists in packaging, logistics, components, transportation, and more. 

EU Libya Competes also focuses on workforce development to help bridge the gap between frustrated job seekers who struggle to find employment and equally unsatisfied recruiters who say they cannot find candidates with the skills their companies need to expand and succeed. The project teams up with partner companies to offer on-the-job or pre-employment training to upskill current and potential new staff. EU Libya Competes also organizes activities to help young jobseekers with networking, interview skills, and other job search training support. In addition, the project sponsors major job fairs that bring together screened applicants with hiring companies to create effective job matches.

Gender equity also is a major focus on EU Libya Competes. Traditionally, women are excluded from the broader job market and predominantly restricted to education, public service, handicrafts, health, and agriculture. This gender gap imposes adverse outcomes regarding lost productivity and economic growth not only for the women themselves but also for the broader Libyan society. EU Libya Competes actively supports women through training, capacity-building, technical assistance, coaching, and mentoring to enhance their employment access, control of economic resources, and income generation capacity. The project deploys Pragma’s proven demand-driven model to drive the upskilling of the female workforce and facilitate sustainable employment generation. Moreover, EU Libya Competes is building an extensive local and regional network that is scaling up women-focused job opportunities in Greater Tripoli. This is reaching vulnerable women with limited mobility or access to vocational training opportunities, including female Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who have fled violence in conflict areas, widows, and single heads of households who struggle to meet their families’ basic needs.