Purpose

The RITE Report seeks to identify how international development funding can help stabilise Lebanon after the collapse of its infrastructure and economy. The international community has put on hold a $11 billion pledge to shore up the country pending its implementation of IMF reforms. The pace of reforms has been very slow while the needs of Lebanese citizens and the record number of refugees that they host have become ever more urgent. Using EU supported waste management facilities as an example of wider problems, RITE independently verified whether their failings were inevitable in the Lebanese context or whether funders could make systemic changes that improve results. Its findings and recommendations support ­­­the EU Parliament Resolution calling for improvement in how Lebanon is funded.

Conclusions

EU supported solid waste facilities in Lebanon were meant to provide environmentally friendly solutions that improve waste management for residents and have cost the EU at least €30 million. All sixteen facilities under-performed and caused health and environmental risks. The EU suffered reputational damage as a result and there has been no transparency and public accountability to help alleviate that perception. The EU denies responsibility and an assessment it commissioned praised its implementing partner OMSAR. However, the RITE Report shows in detail that wastage of funds was avoidable through better management by OMSAR and greater controls by the EU. Their acts and omissions resulted in badly designed and equipped facilities and poorly supported operations. RITE found that EU assertions that there was no corruption could not be sustained without further investigations. This is because risks of fraud were not sufficiently mitigated with poor selection criteria during the bidding process, insufficient support for performance monitoring, and record keeping that is so bad that an EU commissioned report likened it to the EU ‘losing its institutional memory’. The positive aspect of these findings is that poor management can be remedied, and better mitigation controls can be put in place despite the challenges of the Lebanese context. The RITE Report makes best practice recommendations that can be adopted across funders, sectors and implementing partners and that could result in better outcomes in future.

Outcomes and Next Steps

While the EU Parliament adopted an abridged version of the RITE Recommendations in its Resolution on Lebanon of 2023, the EU Commission has sought to sidestep the issues raised in the RITE Report and claimed that its approach to funding Lebanon had since become bullet proof. RITE has researched facts that show this not to be the case and was preapring to share its findings in order to ensure better funding for Lebanon that reaches beneficiaries and protects funds. However, the war that engulfed Gaza and Lebanon since October 2023 has shifted priorities towrads considering the role of the EU in that conflict and its impact on the rules based order and democracy.

Published: 5 May 2023.