October 28, 2020

Awarded: Technical Assistance and Support to the Reform of the Water and Sanitation Sector in Lebanon

Assignment location: Lebanon
Client & Origin of funding: French Development Agency (AFD)
Beneficiary: Regional Water Establishments (RWE)

Picture source: Arpad Benedek

Water resources are globally abundant in Lebanon, but they are largely under-exploited and the country cannot meet the water needs of its population. The public management of the drinking water service is characterized by a low rate of subscribers and a high percentage of unbilled water. Sanitation management is lagging even further behind despite the efforts and the investments made.

In this complicated context, AFD proposed a support project dedicated to:

  • Support to Lebanese sectoral actors in the effective implementation of the reform by focusing on strengthening their operational capacities and developing or strengthening sector and service management tools;
  • Implement and develop the tools for understanding the Capital Investment Program projects and to ensure that the proposed projects are anchored in an approach focused on sustainable access to services;
  • Support the strengthening of coordination and institutional dialogue to improve the coordination and visibility of the actions of the sectoral stakeholders and thus restore the confidence of the users, in particular by setting up autonomous and transparent bodies such as the Water and Sanitation Sector Observatory.

HYDROPHIL covers the aspects of financial planning and in particular:

  • Supports the preparation of activity reports for the financial planification
  • Supports the development of terms of reference for the diagnosis of the performance of RWEs
  • Conducts the diagnosis on accounting and financial aspects
  • Coordinates the studies on institutional capacity building in investment planning and programming
  • Develops the strategy for updating customer databases and pricing studies
  • Follows-up of tariff studies
  • Analyses the financial sustainability of Capital Investment Program projects and defines the needs for further studies
  • Supports the establishment of a sustainable framework for the management of services (coordination CDR/MEW/RWE)
  • Supports the implementation of a performance framework on accounting and financial aspects.