Market brief
Lebanon
The authorities that procure water infrastructure in Lebanon, how the deals are put together, and what is in the pipeline.
Reference profile for LebanonMarket snapshot
The commercial picture in Lebanon: the scale of the economy and the water sector, the investment climate, and where the near-term activity is concentrated.
Political stability
World Bank Governance Indicators, 2024. Percentile among all countries; higher is more stable.
Investment climate
World Bank Governance Indicators, 2024. Regulatory quality for private investment; higher is better.
Financing & PPP
- PPP frameworkEmerging
- Tracked pipelineUS$ 1.1 bn in our projects register
- Active fundersWorld Bank, EU
- Climate adaptation planIn preparation
Opportunities
- Wastewater treatment roll-out
- Network rehabilitation & NRW reduction
- Hydropower & storage
Key challenges
- Chronic supply intermittency
- High non-revenue water
- Wastewater largely untreated
- Financing & governance constraints
Sources: FAO AQUASTAT / national reports (latest available); World Bank 2023–24. Non-revenue water: Ministry of Energy and Water, National Water Strategy 2024–2035 (June 2024), national estimate excluding water billed but not collected. Figures approximate. Governance indicators: World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators (2024).
Contracting authorities
The bodies that commission, regulate and operate water infrastructure in Lebanon. Ministries set policy and sign the offtake; utilities run the assets; regulators set the tariff and the service standard.
- Ministry of Energy & Water (MEW)Ministry
- Regional Water Establishments (4)Utility
- Litani River AuthorityBasin & resources authority
- Council for Development & Reconstruction (CDR)Infrastructure delivery
How deals are structured
The framework in Lebanon is Emerging, the schemes we track carry US$ 1.1 bn of disclosed value, and the funders most active in the sector are World Bank, EU, CDR.
Delivery splits by asset class across the region: dams and trunk conveyance are mostly engineering contracts carried by sovereign or development-bank finance; bulk supply increasingly uses build-operate-transfer concessions against a long-term offtake; and distribution work is let as performance-based contracts paid against measured leakage reduction. The Finance & Economics hub sets out each model and where it has been used.
How to bid
In Lebanon the water establishments operate; the body that signs donor-financed works is the Council for Development and Reconstruction, and the money is the lender’s. The clearest illustration is the Al-Ghadir treatment plant: a design-build-operate contract tendered by the council on 8 May 2025 under Islamic Development Bank financing of US$87.5 million, bidding conducted under the bank’s own international competitive bidding rules, with submissions closing on 24 June 2025.3
| Contracting authority | The Council for Development and Reconstruction for donor-financed works; the four regional water establishments and the Litani River Authority operate and maintain, under the ministry’s guardianship set by Law 221 of 26 May 2000 as amended.31 |
|---|---|
| Route | Pre-qualification, then international competitive bidding on the financier’s rules rather than the domestic code.3 |
| Fees and mechanics | Per tender rather than standing. The Al-Ghadir pre-qualification document cost US$300, non-refundable, payable into the council’s “fresh US dollars” account, and electronic bidding was not permitted.3 |
| Domestic preference | Under the 2021 procurement law, proposals of national origin may be given a 10% preference over proposals containing foreign supplies or services. That binds tenders run on Lebanese rules, not those run on a lender’s.2 |
| Language | Documents and decisions are in Arabic, and where the Arabic and a foreign text conflict, the Arabic prevails.2 |
| Complaints | To the complaints authority only, either before the solicitation deadline or within the ten-day standstill after the award notice.2 |
| Payment security | None beyond the financier. Payment risk sits with the lender’s disbursement pace rather than with the treasury, which is precisely why these contracts are biddable.3 |
The partnership statute is Law No. 48 of 7 September 2017, preserved by the 2021 procurement law.2 The sector strategy issued in June 2024 sets the direction: cost recovery through tariff adjustment, 80% collection and 75% subscription by 2028, and non-revenue water down 25 percentage points from a national average put at about 50% by 2035.4 What could not be established: the current subscription tariff, the design-build-operate term, dispute forum, ownership rules and tax.
Regulatory intelligence
| Regulation | Status | Year | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water Code | Partially applied | 2018/2020 | Modern framework awaiting implementation decrees. |
| National Water Sector Strategy 2024–2035 | Adopted | 2024 | Security, service delivery, utilities and governance. |
| Litani pollution-control programme | Active | 2016– | Court-backed clean-up of the national river. |
| Tariff adjustment | Adjusted | 2024 | Flat fee raised to about US$150 a year for 1 m³ a day. |
Institutional capacity is crisis-constrained and arrangements shift with the local situation.
Projects
Tracked schemes in Lebanon, largest first. Each has its own page with the parties, the finance and a dated history.
Track record
What has actually been signed in Lebanon, from the awards log and the major projects register.
| Year | Project | Winning firms | US$ m |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 on line | Zahle Wastewater Treatment Plant | SUEZ Environment | n/a |
| 1997 on line | Tripoli Wastewater Treatment Plant | Suez (treatment plant); Butec | 94 |
Years without a label are award years from the curated log; rows marked on line are dated by commissioning, from the projects register. 2 rows in total for Lebanon.
Pipeline & tenders
Structured procurements and live tenders in Lebanon, drawn from the same review that maintains the pipeline tracker.
Pipeline & awards
Tenders
Prices
What households pay
| Household tariff (US$/m³) | Cost of supply (US$/m³) | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| flat-rate | not published | 2024 | Ministry of Energy and Water, National Water Sector Strategy 2024–2035 |
Billed as an annual subscription per connection rather than by volume, so there is no meaningful per-cubic-metre tariff. The ministry’s own strategy says current levels, after the devaluation, do not let the water establishments break even, and targets cost recovery through tariff adjustment by 2028 against a national non-revenue water average put at about 50%.
Residential tariffs, and the cost of supply where a utility publishes it, are kept in one place for the whole region so the comparison holds: a tariff means little without the cost it is measured against.
Watch list
No dated items have been carried forward for Lebanon yet. This section fills from the monthly briefings as they are published.
Sources
9 references
Project, pipeline and tender records are compiled from procurer announcements, lender disclosures and trade reporting; each project page carries its own source and the date it was last checked. Institutions are from the decision-maker directory. Economic and water indicators are cited on the reference profile.
- Law No. 221 of 26 May 2000 on water sector organisation (Lebanon), English text with its amendments.
- Public Procurement Law No. 244 of 2021 (Lebanon), unofficial English translation, December 2024.
- Islamic Development Bank, specific procurement notice, Al-Ghadir wastewater treatment plant, 8 May 2025.
- Ministry of Energy and Water (Lebanon), National Water Sector Strategy 2024–2035, June 2024.
- FAO, AQUASTAT — Global Information System on Water and Agriculture: country water resources, withdrawals by sector and dam register. fao.org/aquastat. Latest country values as compiled at build.
- World Bank, World Development Indicators and country water-sector reporting. data.worldbank.org.
- Kaufmann & Kraay, Worldwide Governance Indicators (World Bank), 2024 update — political-stability and regulatory-quality scores, 0–100, shown in the market snapshot. worldbank.org/wgi.
- World Resources Institute, Aqueduct 4.0 Water Risk Atlas (2023) — the sub-basin risk, stress and groundwater-decline layers on the interactive maps. wri.org/aqueduct.
- MENA Water Review major projects register and PPP pipeline — compiled from procurer publications, development-bank project pages and trade reporting; each record names its source.
Numbered references are linked from the superscript markers in the text. Figures without a marker come from the sources above as compiled in the site methodology.