Libyan women have struggled with exclusion from official peace talks. However, in 2022, sixteen of the seventy-five negotiators (21 percent) in the UN-facilitated Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) were women, marking a significant improvement in women’s representation in the official Libyan peace process. The LPDF participants released a roadmap [PDF] following the talks, which emphasized the “full equality” of all citizens, and called for 30 percent of leadership positions in a future unity government to be comprised of women. The female participants released their own statement following the talks, reiterating these demands and calling for one of two future deputy prime minister positions to be held by a woman. However, the LPDF was ultimately unable to help facilitate a lasting political solution for Libya, and a stalemate has ensued since late 2020. 

In a show of the country’s deep division, the special representative of the secretary general and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Abdoulaye Bathily, resigned in April 2024, citing a lack of “good faith” by the country’s political factions to resolve the crisis. Stephanie Koury—the deputy special representative for political affairs in the United Nations Support Mission in Libya—is currently working to help restart the political process, including by supporting municipal elections, and is consulting with women’s groups as efforts move forward. The first round of municipal elections was held in November 2024, with turnout reaching approximately 77 percent of registered voters. A small number of women did participate in the elections, which saw the election of the first female mayor in Libya’s history. The second round is expected to be held in 2025. 

More broadly, there are no women participants in two official efforts aimed at ending Libya’s political impasse—the 5+5 Libyan Joint Military Commission, which includes five members from each competing administration, and the 6+6 Libyan Joint Committee for Preparing Electoral Laws. The lack of women on the committee is reflected in the work of the electoral committees: a recent electoral law proposal allocates only six out of ninety seats for women in a future Libyan Senate.