The National Anti-Corruption Strategy
Strategy Development Path.
In 2016, the Minister of State for Administrative Reform, established a Committee on the elaboration of a national anti-corruption strategy Pursuant to resolution No. 174 of 18 February 2016. Chaired by the advisor to the Prime minister, former judge Saeed Mirza, and including Judge Nada al-Asmar, representative of the discriminatory public prosecution, Judge Bassam Wehbe, representative of the Court of accounts, and Judge Carl Ayrani, representing the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities, as well as Dr. Walid al-Shaar, representing the Ministry of Finance, and Mr. Charbel Sarkis representative of the Ministry of State for Administrative Reform and Secretary of the Committee.
Strategy document
The mini-Committee on the Development of a national anti-corruption strategy has worked for more than 12 consecutive months to prepare the strategy document and has consulted with representatives from the public sector, the private sector and civil society and received technical support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
On 1 March 2017, the committee submitted the first draft of the strategy to the the Minister of State for Administrative Reform, who held two meetings of Committee members to adopt the final version.
On 27 March 2017, the strategy was presented to the head of government during a joint meeting of the members of the Ministerial Committee and the Technical Committee. The meeting ended at the request of the head of government establishment of a follow-up team to develop an operational plan for the strategy in preparation for submission to the Council of Ministers.
Executive Strategy
The Minister of State for Administrative Reform, and the Minister of Anti-corruption agreed to establish a joint team responsible for the development of the strategy's operational plan in consultation with stakeholders, including the members of the mini-committee, which mainly developed the strategy document.
The joint team, which includes representatives from the respective ministries, met several times and requested information and advice from UNDP, but was unable to make the required progress. As a result, the Minister of State for Administrative Reform requested in October 2017, the UNDP support to speed up the process and enrich it with successful experiences and lessons learned from comparative experiences.
Based on this request, the UNDP developed a team of experts which started their work in January 2018 and completed the preparation of the executive plan over a four-month period.
In 2018: the draft national anti-corruption strategy and its executive plan was finalized and launched under the patronage of the head of Government on 24 April 2018. The strategy comes as a result of the commitment to the Government's ministerial statement, which includes the government's pledge to develop a national anti-corruption strategy and to take fast and effective actions in the sectors most vulnerable to corruption, which is also the result of Lebanon's commitment to the UN Convention to combat corruption, which was acceded to in 2009, especially Article 5.