Our development cooperation in the Middle East

We work on a range of issues in the region: public finance, the governance of strategic infrastructure, the fight against corruption, justice, defence and civil defence, digital economy, women’s entrepreneurship, water management, local agricultural development, and healthcare services, among others. Our work centres around the following focus areas:

• Support reform and good governance: We help stabilise economic and financial institutions by fostering budgetary transparency, promoting gender-inclusive national policies, and building internal capacity in public administrations through training, all of which improves financial governance.
• Promote early recovery and resilience in crisis-affected or fragile areas: We operate in crisis-affected or fragile zones to improve access to healthcare and rehabilitate essential infrastructure and basic services such as water, electricity, irrigation and schools.
• Strengthen social cohesion via government, civil society and youth dialogue: We support civil society organisations to foster local governance and facilitate long-term public policy dialogue.
• Prevent and manage natural and industrial disaster risks: We help improve the anticipation and response to disasters through support for civil defence and CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear) risk preparedness.
• Support the culture and film sectors: We help preserve and promote the region’s cultural heritage, particularly in cinema, by cataloguing, restoring and safeguarding the audiovisual archives of our partner countries and organisations.

Discover all our projects in the Middle East

The Middle East is one of Expertise France’s historic operation zones. We have been active in the region for several decades. Nearly 100 staff currently deliver 23 projects across six countries.

In response to growing project portfolios in Lebanon (5 projects) and Jordan (4), we made our presence official with the opening of a Lebanon/Jordan in-country office in December 2024, operational since January 2025. The country director is based in Amman, with approximately 70 personnel deployed on the ground.

In Iraq, our Erbil office oversees activities in Northeast and Northwest Syria, and we have personnel in shared offices in Baghdad, where we work on projects for peace, security and stability. In Palestine, our project offices are located in Ramallah and Jerusalem.

Seven ITEs are currently deployed in the region, with five additional posts being added to strengthen our technical capacity.

Our operations fully align with key French goals as set by the Presidential Council for Development (5 May 2023) and the Interministerial Committee for International Cooperation and Development (18 July 2023). Our work also adheres to the principles laid down by the  Presidential Council for International Partnerships (CPPI) with fragile countries.