The Royal Scientific Society / National Energy Research Centre organized an event at Park Innovation, Lebanon from 2-3 of August 2022 titled a “High-Level Policy Dialogue” at municipal level, in cooperation with As-Semqaneyyeh and Jdaidet el Chouf municipalities, and the presence of GIZ and United Nations in Lebanon.
The event focused on empowering and catalyzing the municipalities’ role to run environmental projects within the nexus framework through a decentralized scheme; allowing municipalities to generate funds in compliance with the local legislations so that to enhance livelihood in the community.
The event enabled the participants representing various entities, local government, NGOs, and UN from Lebanon to acquire information and knowledge on access to finance and the nexus approach from a variety of local/regional experts and to engage in enriching discussions that facilitate the sharing of experiences and initiatives both from a national and a regional perspective. These covered the challenges currently being faced by municipalities, the lessons learned from previous experiences and projects, and recommended solutions and suggestions.
The event concluded that municipalities in Lebanon currently do not play a core role in the management and governance of water, food / agriculture and energy. This role is restricted to providing services to their communities such as transportation, waste collection, licensing buildings, managing public parks, street lighting.
MINARET II initiative is implemented in the context of the Nexus Regional Dialogues Programme, which is implemented by RSS on behalf of GIZ, and co-funded by the European Union (EU) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
