Bridgeheads of EU border externalisation? NGOs/CSOs and migration in Libya

The Libyan context

Libya has suffered political instability and internal conflict since Gaddafi’s ousting in 2011 (Bensaaad, 2018; Morone, 2018). The power vacuum is filled by armed groups that vary “widely in their make-up and the extent to which they [a]re under the direction of state authorities. These disparate groups [have] committed various human rights abuses, including unlawful killings” (US Department of State, 2020). Even borders “are not controlled by a unitary state-actor, but instead are managed by a number of factions, military forces from several states, numerous militias and groups of foreign armed security guards and mercenaries” (Pacciardi and Berndtsson 2022: 11), also including local tribes (Bensaaad, 2018).

In this context, migrants and refugees “are systematically subjected to a litany of abuses” “both in and outside detention”. Human rights violations include labour exploitation, slavery, exclusion from the housing market, abduction, rape, forcibly conscription into militias, arbitrary detention, killings etc. Those held in detention suffer an increased risk of specific abuses such as extortion, deprivation of healthcare, trafficking, torture and other inhuman and degrading treatments. Perpetrators “include government officials, members of armed groups, smugglers, traffickers and members of criminal gangs” (UN Security Council, 2020: 9). Indeed, while crimes are often committed “with the collusion of government officials” (Ferstman, 2020: 463), namely “Libyan Coast Guard (LCG) officials, immigration officers, security officials, Ministry of Defense (MOD) officials, members of armed groups formally integrated into state institutions, as well as officials from the [Ministry of Interior (MOI)] and MOI’s Department to Combat Illegal Migration (DCIM)” (US Department of State, 2020), state authorities are also directly responsible for gross human rights violations. The fact that one of such perpetrators is the Libyan Coast Guard, ³ which has long been equipped, supported and trained by Italy and Europe in the field of border management, including forced returns from international waters to Libya (Pijnenburg, 2018), shows a clear correlation between externalisation and human rights violations. Importantly, militias and smugglers, as well as local tribes, are Europe’s partners in externalisation, too, based on informal agreements (Michael et al., 2019; see also Raineri and Strazzari, 2019).

Libya has no national asylum policies. National authorities have always denied the presence of refugees in their territory, ⁴ with the consequence that asylum-seekers can be more easily labelled as ‘illegal’ and subjected to criminalisation, exploitation and abuses. Refugee status, indeed, is only recognised by the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), which is unable to reach all asylum seekers and cannot provide effective protection for those recognised as refugees (UNHCR, 2020).

In December 2015, the international community, having considered that the civil war was “depriving the most vulnerable of their basic needs and triggering large-scale displacements”, while “[a]ccess to food, water, sanitation and shelter ha[d] deteriorated dramatically and the fragile healthcare system [wa]s on the brink of collapse” (Libya Humanitarian Country Team, 2015: 4), launched the first humanitarian response plan for Libya. The humanitarian emergency is still ongoing, and makes large amounts of funding available, including in the field of migration and asylum. The move was criticised by many of my interviewees (including representatives of NGOs, donors and IOs alike): “European countries are creating a humanitarian situation out of no humanitarian situation” (a donor representative), thus enabling formal actors in the field “to launch appeals to get money” (an NGO representative). While migration eventually attracts – according to many of my interviewees – a disproportionate share of attention and resources from the international community, Libyan formal and informal actors remain free to abuse and exploit migrants. Additional resources in the specific field of migration have been made available in Libya by the EU and (mostly European) state governments of the Global North. So far, the largest funding scheme has been the ‘European Union Emergency Trust Fund for stability and addressing root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa’ (EUTF) (Pacciardi and Berndtsson, 2022). The EUTF was established in 2015 for a five-year period ⁵ based on the three pillars of protection, community stabilisation and border management, thus linking humanitarian, development and security concerns under the umbrella of mobility containment.

Whatever the funding source, however, Libyans are reluctant to support projects for migrants. Especially national authorities tend to see migrants, particularly sub-Saharan ones, as second-class individuals, as people “who have less rights, or as criminals” (as a representative of an IO told me), and do not think they deserve any assistance. As a result, projects for migrants are not welcome: “if you go to Libya, and talk with your partner ministry, or even with the mayors, and say we want to come here to support migrants, they will slam the door in your face!” (a donor). According to another donor, Libyan national authorities put “blockages on humanitarian organisations’ ability to implement their humanitarian programs”. ⁶ Moreover, authorities are always suspicious of foreign actors and foreign-funded activities, fearing they might support their political opponents. This attitude is also widespread among the population. ⁷ As a representative of an IO told me, “in Libya I think it is wise to assume that anything that is foreign is to be suspected, be it UN or NGO”. This also means that foreign funding bodies can hardly tell what the actual outcome of their projects will be: “putting conditions in Libya is almost impossible. We do not have the leverage vis-à-vis our [governmental] partners”, a governmental donor told me. According to an NGO representative, “there has not been a political negotiation in order to ensure that they [IOs and NGOs/CSOs] can actually work”. A typical problem is access to detention centres (DCs). First, it must be noted that NGOs, as well as IOs, are only allowed to work in official DCs – those that are, on paper, under the direct control of the Libyan DCIM, but are often managed by militias. They have no access to the unknown number of unofficial DCs (those ‘officially’ under the control of militias) and investigation centres (police facilities where people are brought temporarily, before being transferred elsewhere) (Cuttitta, 2021; UNHCR, 2020). Second, even access to official DCs is often restricted, and organisations are not allowed to see all detainees or visit the entire premises. Third, a DC may suddenly turn from official to unofficial, putting a halt to IOs’ or NGOs’ projects. This adds to the inaccessibility of specific places, areas and regions because of ongoing fighting.

Between support and opposition to externalisation: The Italian Refugee Council

NGOs/CSOs hardly existed in Gaddafi’s Libya. While they were formally tolerated, the political framework made the emergence of an independent civil society impossible (Mikaïl, 2013). Thus, the few existing NGOs/CSOs were actually GONGOs (Government Organised NGOs), as they were under the direct control of the regime. Foreign NGOs/CSOs, also including humanitarian ones, were seen with even greater suspicion and not allowed to work in the country. Of the few Libyan GONGOs, just one worked in the migration field: the International Organization for Peace, Care and Relief (IOPCR). IOPCR was established in 2000 but only started working in the migration field in 2006, after the lifting of international embargoes boosted Gaddafi’s cooperation with Europe and Italy: Libya accepted Italian and European funding and equipment to manage migration, and agreed to readmit to its territory people who had made the sea-crossing to Italy (Paoletti, 2010). Thus, the IOPCR’s involvement in migration-related activities was only made possible by Libya’s opening to the EU’s externalisation policies. It was the European process of externalisation that created the conditions for NGOs in Libya to work in the migration field in the first place. ⁸

The Libyan civil society scenario changed after Gaddafi’s overthrow. Since then, dozens of larger and smaller I-NGOs, as well as hundreds of newly established, independent Libyan NGOs/CSOs have been active in different fields, also including migration.

However, there had been already an exception to the ban on I-NGOs just two years before Gaddafi’s fall: the Italian Refugee Council (CIR), a humanitarian NGO mandated with the protection of refugees and asylum seekers, could start its activities in the Great Jamahiriya in 2009. This section looks at the work carried out by CIR from 2009 to 2018, when it stopped all its activities in North Africa.

CIR opened its Tripoli office in April 2009, upon the invitation of the UNHCR. With the UN refugee agency, CIR was involved in a project funded by the European Commission that was aimed at providing humanitarian assistance to refugees and migrants as well as monitoring the situation in 11 Libyan DCs. Further project partners included the above IOPCR and the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), a European IO that currently counts 18 member states, is active in 90 countries across the continents, and whose mandate is to contribute “to better migration policy development worldwide”, also including the analysis of “current and potential migratory flows to European receiving countries” as well as the development of “measures for the improved recognition and control of migratory movements” (ICMPD, s.d.).

Thus, and not surprisingly, the first foreign and non-governmental humanitarian intervention in the migration field in Libya was only possible within a strongly control-oriented partnership framework. Moreover, CIR’s presence in Gaddafi’s Libya demonstrates how humanitarian organisations tasked with refugee protection in so-called transit countries may be used by governments of destination countries to legitimate the latter’s deportation policies. In May 2009 – just a month after the opening of CIR’s office in Tripoli – the Italian authorities started pushing back people from international waters to Libyan ports. The Italian government responded to allegations that push-backs would violate the principle of non-refoulement – a cornerstone of international and refugee law – by arguing that CIR’s presence in Libya guaranteed the rights of the returned would be respected. ⁹ An even clearer example of how NGOs/CSOs may be used as fig leaves to cover inhuman state policies and practices ¹⁰ is the EU-funded Sahara-Med project, which had been launched by the Italian Ministry of Interior, in partnership with the IOM as well as the Greek and Libyan governments (CIR, 2015: 52; Ministero dell’Interno, 2015: 1611–1612), in 2010, and was aimed at the prevention and management of irregular migration from Libya (European Parliament, 2010). The project was suspended because of the civil war in Libya, then resumed in 2012 and revised in 2013 (Ministero dell’Interno, 2015: 1612, 2016: 22; CIR, 2014, 2015: 53). As a former representative of one of the project partners told me, the European Parliament asked the Commission to amend the project contents, arguing that a humanitarian component was lacking. The Italian government asked CIR to fill the humanitarian gap by providing assistance to people in need of international protection. CIR’s decision was not easy, an interviewee told me, but in the end ethical concerns were overcome: CIR became part of a project aimed at strengthening border control, in the conviction that “being there is better than not being there”.

“Being there”, for CIR, meant to keep providing humanitarian assistance and socio-legal support to migrants in and outside detention (also including covering school fees for children, as well as participating in assisted voluntary return projects), monitoring the situation of DCs, supporting local migration-related NGOs/CSOs and providing capacity-building for Libyan institutions (including workshops in the field of human rights). This was done until 2018, not only within the Sahara-Med project but also within a series of projects funded by various Italian governments – the same governments that, first, carried out the above mentioned unlawful push-backs to Libya, and, then, strengthened cooperation with dubious Libyan authorities such as militias, local tribes (Michael et al., 2019; see also Raineri and Strazzari, 2019) and the Coast Guard, and supported the pull-backs carried out by the latter from international waters.

CIR could also carry out important (and, in Gaddafi’s Libya, unprecedented) advocacy work. In 2010, after the Libyan regime banned UNHCR from the country in June, CIR was able to continue its activities, as the only I-NGO operating in Libya. CIR transferred information to international human rights organisations, which made possible the launch of an international media and political campaign against the indiscriminate and unlawful forced repatriations of Eritrean asylum seekers, as well as the detention of and abuses on those resisting deportation (Human Rights Watch, 2010). The campaign eventually resulted in the release of all Eritrean and Somali refugees from Libyan DCs. In March 2011, at the outbreak of the war, CIR could also successfully advocate with the Italian government for the opening of a small humanitarian corridor which allowed for the relocation of 108 Eritreans from Tripoli to Italy.

In a country with a long-lasting tradition of racist sentiments, policies and practices (Jacques, 2013; UNSMIL and OHCHR, 2018), which also include denying the presence of refugees in its territory, these initiatives were ground-breaking for Libya in that they allowed for refugees’ rights to enter the country’s international relations agenda. However, in doing this they arguably bowed to the principles of an orderly global migration management (Geiger and Pécoud, 2010). Indeed, asylum-related NGOs/CSOs’, pretty much like IOs such as the UNHCR, can be seen as partaking in the global policing of human mobility (Düvell, 2003), insofar as they support the dichotomy between forced and voluntary migrants (Allen et al., 2018; Crawley and Skleparis, 2018), resulting in the irregularisation of many people, and, more broadly, facilitate the transfer of know-how and practices related to migration management (Lavenex, 2016). Arguably, the ‘migration management’ approach has been developed in the interest of wealthier destination countries of the Global North (Boucher, 2008), and the transfer of the relevant values (also including the dichotomy forced vs. voluntary migration), (soft) norms (also including humanitarian protection and human rights issues) and know-how to other countries can be seen as part of the externalisation process. While the above initiatives also provided relief and opportunities to many people, they were still based on the distinction between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ or ‘forced’ and ‘economic’ migrants. Such distinction allows for the increasing stigmatisation and criminalisation of the ‘undeserving’, and, as a result, for further (externalised) border enforcement (Scheel and Ratfisch, 2014). More broadly, asylum NGOs, pretty much like the UNHCR, contribute to the externalisation of asylum (Valluy, 2007), which consists in turning transit countries into ‘safe countries’ to which asylum seekers can be returned in compliance with international law. The 2009 push-backs show that even the mere presence of an NGO in a given country may convey the message that that country is ‘safe’ and refugees receive appropriate protection there. In sum, CIR’s activities in Libya, by perpetuating the refugee-migrant dichotomy, and thus supporting asylum externalisation, did not contribute to weakening border externalisation as such, but rather perpetuated the logics of selective and differential inclusion (Mezzadra and Neilson, 2013) on humanitarian grounds.

Another CIR initiative had a wider and long-lasting impact on European cooperation with Libya instead. Following the push-backs of May 2009, CIR’s staff in Libya was able to collect the signatures of 24 deportees in order for them to file an application against Italy with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). This case resulted in a landmark judgement ¹¹ that condemned Italy for violating the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment, the prohibition of collective expulsions and the right to effective remedy, thus putting an end to direct push-backs to Libya. This was a huge obstacle in the process of EU externalisation. In this case, and importantly, the (potential) beneficiaries were all the migrants, regardless of their condition of (would-be) refugees, since the principle of non-refoulement, and thus the ban on push-backs to Libya, is applicable to any passenger of any boat. ¹²

In sum, CIR’s action oscillates between compliance with and opposition to externalisation logics, with the Sahara Med project and the collection of signatures for the ECtHR application, respectively, at the opposite ends of the spectrum. In between these two poles there is a grey zone in which CIR, like most NGOs operating in this field, remains trapped in the care-control nexus, possibly also acting, from time to time, against the logics of territorial exclusion, but only at the individual level of the people directly involved (i.e. mostly people entitled to international protection), not at the systemic level of the externalisation policies as such.

Another reason for taking CIR as an example of I-NGOs operating in Libya is that it was among the Italian NGOs participating in a highly contested series of ten short-term projects funded by AICS (the cooperation and development agency of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) to provide humanitarian assistance (e.g. food and non-food items, as well as medical care and equipment) in Libyan detention centres (DCs), ¹³ which are typically seen as an example of the NGOs’ passive acceptance of externalisation policies. In Italy, these projects were criticised before they even began: first, because of their too short duration and too limited budget, which would make it impossible to effectively improve the conditions of the detainees in a durable way; second, because of the questionable choice to work in facilities managed by militias; third, because of some project activities going beyond the humanitarian field. In the case of the project that CIR implemented together with two further Italian NGOs, non-humanitarian activities included the rehabilitation of the sanitation system, the improvement of the sewage system, the installation of a power generator and a pump for potable water. The next section shows why other AICS-funded projects were more problematic.

I-NGOs in Libya

The AICS-funded projects in Libyan DCs caused disconcert in the international community. Not only did some Italian NGOs not coordinate with the other organisations in the field, causing duplication and overlap, as representatives of several I-NGOs lamented (see also El Zaidy, 2019: 19). Some were – in the words of a donor – “just implementing blindly the politics of the Italian government” without respecting humanitarian principles. This prompted the Libyan I-NGO Forum (the network of foreign NGOs operating in Libya) to draft a ‘Principled framework for intervention in detention centres’, a non-binding document stating that humanitarian actors should limit their intervention in DCs to life-saving activities. While the ‘framework’ was eventually endorsed by the UN humanitarian mechanism, some NGOs continued carrying out non-life-saving activities in DCs.

Within the AICS-funded projects, some NGOs helped installing fences and gates in the DCs (ASGI, 2020), while items that should have been delivered to the detained people were given to the DC managers, who staged a delivery to the detainees only for the duration of a visit made by international agencies at the centre (Le Iene, 2019), and then sold them on to third parties (Presa Diretta, 2019). Thus, these NGOs supported the Libyan detention system and DC staff rather than migrants. The fact that “an Italian NGO hired a former DC guard” (an NGO representative) and a medical I-NGO hired “doctors who had connections with the direction of the centre, so they would never speak out” (another NGO representative) shows the dubious relationship between the humanitarian actors and the DC personnel. Indeed, these NGOs entered into a conflict of interest, acting in breach of the most basic principles of humanitarian action: activities that are supposed to protect detainees from their jailors should not be carried out by individuals who are likely to be colluding with the latter. Importantly, DC staff are often militia members, and often involved in the economic and political exploitation of detention, also including smuggling (Achtnich, 2021; Malakooti, 2019; Micalleff, 2017).

DC managers also play a fundamental role in granting or denying NGOs/CSOs access to detained migrants. NGOs’ negotiations to gain access to official DCs or specific parts of them are not always successful. Because of access problems, and, more broadly, because they don’t want to legitimise the abusive Libyan detention system, some NGOs (ACTED and Intersos among others) prefer not to work there, as I learnt from my interview partners. Others have a more pragmatic approach and think that ‘being there’ is a necessary step towards long-term objectives such as the end of migrant detention, or to at least improve detention conditions in the short term. Others, again, believe their ‘being there’ gives them the knowledge and authority to speak out, which justifies the compromise.

Another kind of compromise is the one NGOs make when taking funds from state sources, MSF being the only I-NGO that exclusively funds its activities through private donations. The question, in this case, is not about where to work but with whose money. The EUTF is particularly disliked by many NGOs because of its overt support of the Libyan border management system, also including the – allegedly unlawful – forced returns from international waters operated by the Libyan Coast Guard. As an NGO representative put it: “there is this big question about using EUTF money, for example, particularly in Libya it is very sensitive, because they are funding the Libyan Coast Guard. I think any NGO will reflect. Some are very strict and just say: we don’t take any EUTF money”. Others only accept EUTF money indirectly: “if UNICEF takes EUTF money and gives it to me, it’s an acceptable compromise, because the project will be guided by the UNICEF principles, which are OK for us”, another NGO representative told me. What counts, in other words, is not the original source but the way the money is spent. This is exemplified by what Gazzotti (2021: 85) calls ‘juggling’, that is “strategising aid in a way that does not clash with the values and politics of the organisation”, and by what another NGO representative told me: “What we do with EUTF money is based on humanitarian principles. At the same time, we constantly raise issues and advocate for change”. Similarly, UNHCR funding is perceived as highly problematic by many NGOs, both for ethical reasons (because of the UN agency’s high degree of willingness to compromise with – especially Libyan – authorities, e.g. by accepting asylum requests from citizens of nine countries only, or by limiting the provision of services to refugees) and for practical ones (because of the UNHCR’s tendency to treat subcontracting NGOs as passive executors). Some NGOs stopped their (or never engaged in any) cooperation with the UN agency for these reasons, and prefer funds from selected national cooperation agencies. Others keep working with UNHCR, either because they think they are strong enough to impose their principles or because they passively accept their dependence on the UN agency. In sum, the question of what an NGO does, and how, is at least as important as the question of where it works or who is providing the necessary funding.

However, what NGOs do in Libya is currently not likely to challenge the extant migration regime, which is to a large extent the result of EU externalisation. Large part of the services NGOs provide directly to migrants is in the health sector. The provision of information, besides the referral to health providers, is mostly limited to advice on how to ask for repatriation with IOM or asylum with UNHCR. Repatriations – within so called ‘assisted voluntary return’ programmes that are mostly not really voluntary, as people held in arbitrary, indefinite detention are not in the position to make any voluntary choice (Crane and Lawson, 2020) ¹⁴ – are clearly aimed at keeping people away from Europe. Even refugee status hardly ever results in resettlement to Europe: most of the recognised refugees remain in Libya with little improvement of their condition, while some refugees and asylum seekers are evacuated to Niger and Rwanda (others, again, only manage to reach Europe with the help of smugglers). ¹⁵

While some initiatives were being planned, no legal advice or support was provided to migrants at the time of fieldwork. More broadly, fundamental rights exist only in theory for both detained and non-detained migrants. This is no surprise, given the unsympathetic attitude of Libyan formal and informal authorities towards migrants and pro-migrant activities, and the fact that law in Libya “is created and used more than elsewhere in the region, but it serves to dismiss rights” (Perrin 2018: 78) rather than support them. In the current Libyan political context, there don’t seem to be the necessary conditions for any non-governmental initiative to go beyond a mere legalistic approach to human rights, one that sticks to those human rights that are codified and recognised by states (Perolini, 2022) – which is the approach typically promoted by externalisation (Stock, 2021). This is obviously the case for the human rights workshops held for Libyan DC guards (by CIR in a Tripoli hotel in 2018; by CEFA in Tunis in 2019), where beneficiaries were trained about the rights of refugees and detained migrants in Libya according to national and international law, also including international human rights conventions in the field of migration and asylum. But this is the case for NGOs’ activities for migrants as well. These only support a limited number of rights: the right to life, to healthcare, to asylum and to return to one’s own country. These rights all serve the goal of ‘keeping them there’ and ‘letting them live’. Other rights, which may empower them and possibly encourage the sea-crossing, such as the right to a fair trial, the right to self-determination or even that to leave any country, are not supported.

In sum, the Libyan context leaves I-NGOs only little autonomy. While some I-NGOs are happy with the status quo, advocacy is supposed to be an important component of other I-NGOs’ work. However, not even these organisations – with the notable exception of MSF (Médécins sans frontières) – have enough autonomy from donors, so they “do not speak out” (an NGO representative), neither by publishing reports, nor in the framework of multilateral fora with other actors: “they filter themselves a lot when donors are there” (a donor representative). ¹⁶ There seems to be some more leeway for negotiation at the bilateral level, at least with some donors who consider themselves, and are considered by NGOs, as more enlightened because they acknowledge – and try to prevent – the risk that humanitarian funding for migrants ends up being detrimental rather than beneficial to the beneficiaries. However, there is broad consensus from both donors and I-NGOs that “most NGOs are donor-driven” and could be “more creative and vocal” towards European policy-makers, making governmental cooperation policies in Libya less prone to containment objectives. The only I-NGO that dares to speak out is MSF, which regularly publishes reports, updates and press releases on the conditions of migrants in Libya, denouncing abuses from Libyan formal and informal authorities, as well as the European policies that create the conditions for such abuses. Since it does not accept governmental funding for their migration-related activities, MSF can be bold enough to speak out with the representatives of European governmental authorities, as donors confirmed in the interviews. MSF’s advocacy work is possibly the only example of a continued, systematic attempt to counter externalisation trends in Libya. However, such attempt is limited to voicing criticism, denouncing abuses and trying to prevent further ones. Thus, its effectiveness can hardly be measured.

I-NGOs also interact with Libyan governmental and non-governmental actors. As far as the Libyan authorities are concerned, capacity-building (e.g. the above human rights workshops for DC guards) is very limited, but other kinds of formal and informal interaction are frequent. These may regard negotiations on how to implement certain activities (e.g. access to DCs) or on what kind of projects to implement: some I-NGOs only agreed to support Libyan medical centres on the condition that services be opened to migrants, whereas others had to accept “to do something for the Libyans” in order for them to be allowed to provide healthcare for migrants.

These interactions with donors and Libyan authorities can be read through the lens proposed by Lavenex (2016) for IOs. Lavenex, in analysing the external dimension of EU migration policies, argues that IOs act simultaneously as counterweights, subcontractors and rule-transmitters. I-NGOs in Libya surely serve to a large extent as subcontractors, while their role as counterweights seems to be quite limited. Finally, their role as rule-transmitters is surely not as strong and direct as that of IOs. However, it goes beyond the isolated workshops on human rights for DC guards to include more tenuous, often informal but stable relations, which keep reminding the Libyan authorities of the differences between the legal and moral norms inspiring their own policies and practices towards migrants and those inspiring other international actors.

Support to Libyan civil society

After Gaddafi’s fall, Libya’s “vibrant civil society” (Romanet Perroux, 2015: 4) could finally enjoy the right to freedom of association. Since then, around 5000 NGOs have been officially registered. However, mainly because of the ongoing civil war, just few hundreds of them were actually active as of 2020.

In the migration field, many small NGOs only work on a volunteer basis, with hardly any external financial support. Others are implementing partners of IOs and I-NGOs instead: besides carrying out project activities, Libyan partners can play a crucial role as mediators with local formal and informal actors, e.g. to gain access to the field.

Some Libyan NGOs have grown to large enterprises, and are seen with suspicion by small and more principled ones, who think they are “not an authentic expression of civil society”, and “ready for anything” (two interviewees about the largest IOM partner). However, most are small-sized and still have only limited experience. Their efforts may be “a first step towards improving the situation of migrants in Libya, but are still very much tied to a general system of migration management that is abusive and focused on cordoning migrants off from society” (El Kamouni-Janssen et al., 2019: 60).

All in all, a widely shared opinion among my interviewees is that Libyan NGOs/CSOs are “not well developed” (a donor) and basically “unreliable” (an IO) because of their “very limited capacities” (an NGO representative) or “lack of independence” (another NGO representative) from political actors or fighting parties. In sum, it is difficult to find suitable (i.e. professional, reliable and loyal) non-governmental local partners in Libya. Therefore, not only donors and I-NGOs but also local NGOs/CSOs themselves (Altai Consulting, 2015) think that the Libyan civil society needs to be ‘professionalised’.

Accordingly, IOs, the EU and national cooperation agencies launched several projects to support the development of Libyan CSOs in recent years. The French NGO ACTED for instance was carrying out an EU-funded project in over 15 Libyan municipalities in 2020, whose aim was for Libyan CSOs to “better understand the system of international cooperation” and be “more able to access available funding” (ACTED, s.d.). ACTED also established an online platform to facilitate exchange between Libyan CSOs and increase their visibility. Further projects to strengthen Libyan civil society were initiated by UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) and the UNSMIL (United Nations Support Mission in Libya) Human Rights Division. Last but not least, two migration-related IOs, namely IOM and ICMPD, were running one professionalisation project each at the end of 2020.

At least some of these projects may also foster the development of a critical Libyan civil society, engaging itself for the migrants’ right to self-determination and against the indiscriminate expansion of the European externalisation process. However, they may end up reproducing Western canons of civil society and privileging bureaucratic and utilitarian interpretations of the ‘professionalisation’ concept (Le Naelou, 2004). In projects such as those by IOM and ICMPD, ‘professionalisation’ is the acquisition of the capacities needed to become competitive in the global marketplace of international cooperation: how to develop a proposal, apply for funding, manage the resources, monitor the project, report to the donors etc. This reflects the idea of professionalisation shared by donors and I-NGOs.

EU engagement in the development and professionalisation of NGOs/CSOs in neighbouring countries is not new (O’Dowd and Dimitrovova, 2011; Dini and Giusa, 2020), and may be seen as part of an ongoing post-colonial process of re-territorialisation involving the entire EU-neighbourhood. Bürkner and Scott (2019: 26) note that this kind of support “appears to be targeted at specific actors with whom the EU deems it can work: […] these include well-established, professionalized non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and westernized elements of national civil societies”. Where such elements are scarce, like in Libya, the EU steps in to fill the gap through initiatives such as professionalisation projects.

Interestingly, projects may be embedded in control-oriented institutional/political contexts which may significantly limit the NGOs/CSOs’ autonomy. The ICMPD initiative to support Libyan civil society, for example, is part of a broader project called “Strategic and institutional management of migration in Libya” and carried out in cooperation with the Libyan National Team for Border Security and Management, a state authority tasked with establishing a national strategy for controlling borders (with a specific focus on irregular migration). Consequently, representatives of several ministries, as well as the Commission for Civil Society (the authority responsible for the NGO’s registration), participate in the project workshops (and, despite their observer status, they influence the workshops’ agenda, according to some interviewees). This caused unease among a number of NGO representatives. Indeed, Libyan authorities are famous not only for abusing migrants’ rights, but also for their widespread suspicion against NGOs/CSOs (especially if foreign-funded), and, more broadly, for hindering rather than supporting civil society (Altai Consulting, 2015), with recent NGO legislation that looks like “a punitive instrument rather than an enabling instrument to allow civil society to thrive in this country” (an IO representative). As a result, as I learnt during interviews with representatives of the relevant organisations, some CSOs decided to step out after the first meeting, while others only reluctantly decided to continue.

In the ICMPD project, Libyan migration-related CSOs are trained on how to identify funding opportunities from donors, engage with authorities, establish relations and networks with other CSOs, draft projects, apply for funding and manage a project. Training also includes the international and national legal framework on migration and human rights, as well as the humanitarian principles that should guide NGOs/CSOs’ action. Finally, CSOs may be given small grants to conduct projects.

Professionalisation, then, means producing a shared (technical, but also political) knowledge of what migration is and how it should be dealt with, a shared vocabulary and a common understanding of the objectives of non-governmental action, as well as of human rights (focusing on the ones that should be prioritised, insofar as they help keeping people away from Europe, while ignoring others), and, finally, transferring the know-how for participating in the international marketplace of cooperation. Thus, Libyan NGOs/CSOs are trained to get involved in global migration management (Geiger and Pécoud, 2010), and to become state partners in the worldwide disciplining of human mobility (Geiger and Pécoud, 2013).

During the interviews, all Libyan NGOs/CSOs representatives participating in the ICMPD project expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the networking opportunities provided, as well as with the training received on how to draft, submit and manage projects. Moreover, even representatives of more principled and possibly radical voluntary organisations said they would be happy if they had the chance to earn some money, at least to “find a kind of stability”, rather than keeping “struggling with resources”. This suggests that professionalisation projects may end up co-opting even more critical, pro-migrant Libyan NGOs into the global marketplace of international cooperation, whose rules are mainly written by the donors.