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Lebanon: Longstanding support for institutions and civil society
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On Friday 17 January, the French President made a visit to Lebanon. The first country for our agency’s operations in the Middle East, Expertise France has been taking action since 2016 as part of the major support to Lebanon from the community of development partners, especially France with Agence Française de Développement (AFD), and the European Union.
For almost ten years now, in the context of regional instability and faced with the multidimensional crisis in Lebanon, Expertise France has been providing ongoing support to the Lebanese people. The agency implements projects with its partners in the fields of democratic, economic and financial governance, social cohesion, health, security, and sustainable economic development. This diversity of thematic areas illustrates Expertise France’s ability to operate at various levels and interact with multiple actors to address the country’s many needs.
In Beirut, a team comprising almost 40 people, the majority national staff, is working alongside our partners to implement a portfolio of 5 national projects and 1 regional project on behalf of the European Union, Agence Française de Développement (AFD), and French ministries. In October 2024, the agency opened a country office, enabling it to increase its presence, with a close management of projects in the field.
Supporting reforms and institution building in Lebanon
Lebanon has engaged in major reforms and needs to strengthen its institutions.
Expertise France is assisting the country with this plan, through the implementation of the project to support the reform of Lebanese public administration, financed with €12 million by the European Union.
A programme on behalf of AFD aims to stimulate demand from civil society in terms of budgetary transparency, and improve the availability of information provided by public authorities. Its objective is to improve the existing citizens budget and train civil society organisations (CSOs). It also aims to improve economic forecasting and cyclical monitoring tools, as well as the quality of budget and accounting information.
Disaster prevention and response is a major focus of the agency’s action in the Mediterranean region. As part of French aid in response to the Beirut Port explosion in Lebanon on 4 August 2020, France took swift action and put together a multidisciplinary team of experts, including from France’s main seaports (Marseille, Le Havre), which was coordinated by Expertise France.
Expertise France is also providing assistance for firefighting and crisis management in Lebanon, with financing from the French Crisis and Support Centre (CDCS) of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.
In addition to the coordination of projects, Expertise France is also deploying five international technical experts in the fields of health and education, with financing from the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.
Supporting Lebanese civil society, instrumental to building a new social contract
Expertise France has been supporting Lebanese CSOs for many years. This ongoing support is more essential than ever for addressing the recent political and economic crises in the country, exacerbated by the Beirut Port explosion and the escalation of the war in 2024.
One of the agency’s flagship projects involves working with Lebanese CSOs to improve crisis prevention and management. The first project called Shabake (“network” in Arabic), which started in 2019, involved building the capacities of CSOs to address crises in general, and more specifically the Syrian refugee crisis, which had a major humanitarian and socio-economic impact on the country. Building on the first project’s concept of stabilisation and resilience, Shabake 2, which started in 2022 and will continue until 2025, aims to work with CSOs in Lebanon to implement projects to reduce vulnerabilities, strengthen aid localisation for vulnerable population groups, and provide an effective response to the current emergency situations and crises in Lebanon. Shabake 2 is implemented by Expertise France and financed by Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and the Crisis and Support Centre (CDCS) of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. The project has been designed so that it can be continuously adapted to the local and regional situation. This was the case with the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, when AFD and Expertise France reallocated its components to strengthen the assistance to civil society.
Read the interview with Eva Homsi, Director of the “SHIELD” Protection Programme (interview from the agency’s 10th anniversary book)
Supporting women’s economic empowerment is a key focus for the agency’s action. Following on from the European Union for Women Empowerment (EU4WE) project, the Women Empowerment Hub in Lebanon (WE-Hub) project aims to promote the advancement and empowerment of women to ensure the effective achievement of gender equality. It will thus contribute to increasing the representation and participation of women in the public and political spheres. It will also strengthen the framework for the promotion of women’s employment and the key legislative reforms to protect them in the event of violence.
In addition, L’Initiative is working with Solidarité Sida and the Marsa Sexual Health Center to reduce barriers to access to sexual and reproductive health services for vulnerable people and decentralise them. It is also contributing to the acceleration of the HIV response in the MENA region.
Meeting with Lebanese stakeholders working in the responses to HIV and tuberculosis (September 2022 – website of L’Initiative)
On the same area
Our projects in Lebanon
