The French Development Agency (AFD) commissioned ITAR Consultants to conduct a case study on the effects of reduced U.S. aid in Lebanon, as part of a broader series of country reviews in Africa and Eastern Europe. The Lebanon case study aims to:
- Identify World Food Programme (WFP), UNHCR, and IOM programmes that were discontinued due to lack of funding and will not resume.
- Assess the impact of reduced U.S. aid on Lebanese civil society organisations, highlighting affected actors and suspended projects.
- Provide an overview of U.S.-funded projects halted in the sectors of water, health, education, and agriculture, and document their effects on final beneficiaries.
- Examine adaptation strategies adopted by beneficiaries of discontinued programmes.
- Review any compensatory measures taken by the Lebanese government and other donors in response to the reduction of U.S. aid and the downsizing of WFP, UNHCR, and IOM operations.
Using a progressive network-based sampling approach, the team engaged 37 organisations and completed 59 qualitative consultations, including 50 interviews with institutional and implementing partners and nine focus group discussions with aid-recipient communities.
In total, 140 participants were consulted across the Education, Health, WASH, Food Security and Agriculture, and Livelihoods and Economic Recovery sectors. Adaptive sampling and adjustments to the consultation design enabled robust sectoral and geographic coverage despite access constraints, ensuring the relevance and depth of the findings.
The findings will inform AFD’s strategy in Lebanon by shedding light on how the reduction of U.S. aid affects humanitarian assistance, economic resilience, education, water, nutrition, and health. At the same time, the study will contribute to AFD’s reflection at headquarters by providing insights into the broader consequences of abrupt donor withdrawals across different contexts.
