Lebanon launches new simplification drive in 4 ministries

For several years, the office of the minister of State for administrative reform (OMSAR) has been conducting simplification projects, with the objectives of raising the efficiency of the administration and making life easier for citizens. See for instance a presentation made at OECD in 2012, with earlier stages explained in a 2008 contribution to an OECD MENA workshop. Now with the support of funding from the EU, things are expected to accelerate. In April this year, EuropeAid issued a service contract notice EuropeAid/134308/D/SER/LB (with OMSAR as contracting authority).

The contract - "Technical assistance to the administrative simplification in selected ministries in Lebanon (Ministries of Social Affairs, Tourism, Public Health and Industry") - was awarded in August 2014 to a consortium composed of ACE International Consultants (leader), the Swedish Institute for Public Administration (SIPU), Aldar Consulting (Lebanon) and the Lithuanian Institute of Public Administration (LIVADIS). See the decision reported by dgMarket. Work is expected to start by the end of the month of November.
The project aims to improve the responsiveness of the administration to the demands of the general public and business community by streamlining and simplifying/re-engineering administrative procedures and business processes at four beneficiary ministries: the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Industry. The project shall focus on complex, non-transparent, time consuming, and vague administrative procedures that result in low quality of public services and in inefficiency in the public administrations. It will allow the beneficiary ministries to operate in a more transparent, efficient, cost effective, and timely manner and reduce Administrative Burdens on citizens and businesses.
ACE had proposed a Technical Assistance Team (TAT) composed of the following experts:

• Charles Henry Montin, team leader
• Tareq Touqan, regulatory reform expert (right on photo)
• Tullio Morganti, Business Process Re-Engineering expert
• Zouha Sakr-Vayanos, Expert in Lebanese Law (second from left)
• Imen Dridi, Project Assistant