Annual Report, October 2020 – September 2021: USAID/Lebanon Community Support Program

Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Chemonics International, CSP seeks to improve the delivery of essential services and enhance economic opportunities to improve lives and reduce tensions that contribute to conflict and violence, primarily in Lebanon's North, South, and Beqaa Valley regions. Through the IDIQ mechanism, USAID has issued Task Orders (TOs) according to the following components: 1) community stabilization; 2) community development; and 3) technical assistance and capacity building. CSP uses a fast, flexible, and participatory approach to address a broad range of needs in Lebanon's most underserved and vulnerable communities in response to evolving political, security, and economic conditions. To achieve its objectives, CSP is partnering with municipalities, regional water establishments (RWEs), civil society organizations (CSOs), technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, and the private sector, to implement four technical task orders: community support, workforce development, wastewater management, and technical assistance and capacity building. Fiscal Year 2021 (FY2021), spanning from October 2020 to September 2021, was characterized by the exacerbation of the country's multifaceted socio-economic crises as the local currency continued to plummet, and the country witnessed an unprecedented fuel and electricity crisis, prompting ongoing protests and roadblocks across Lebanon. Despite these challenges, CSP's management and technical teams maintained business continuity and advanced assistance delivery to underserved communities. CSP's community support component, also known as Task Order 2 (TO 2), focused on fast-tracking activity implementation while conceiving and finalizing new activity designs. During the course of FY2021, 95 community members participated in CSP's activity cycle, a total of 271,969 people benefitted from improved access to essential services as a result of TO 2 interventions, and ten local partners (including municipalities, civil society organizations, and cooperatives) were supported to provide residents with better services. Of note, TO 2's contract was extended by 12 months, from January 2022 to January 2023, which will allow for the design and implementation of an additional 15 to 17 community support interventions, benefitting an additional 150,000 people. CSP's workforce development component, also known as Task Order 4 (TO 4), falls under USAID's economic growth office and operates according to different development objectives and expected results than the rest of the IDIQ. As a result, the team prepares its own quarterly and annual progress reports that is unique to TO 4. In this IDIQ report, a summary of the team's key accomplishments during FY2021 is provided, including developing six new curricula to enhance the quality of technical and vocational education, providing capacity-building technical assistance to CSP's eight partner TVETs, awarding 209 technical and vocational scholarships, and placing 175 scholarship recipients in relevant internships. CSP's wastewater management component, also known as Task Order 5 (TO 5), faced a number of challenges relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing socio-economic crisis in Lebanon, especially the impact of the crisis on CSP's governmental partners and agencies such as the Ministry of Energy and Water (MoEW), RWEs, the Litani River Authority, and municipalities. Despite this, TO 5 pushed the program forward and met its main objectives for the year. Notably, TO 5 received USAID approval for the 100% design and bidding packages of its five originally selected wastewater infrastructure interventions and launched the design of three new interventions. The fourth quarter of FY2021 also marked the initiation of the bidding process for two interventions: 'Aaitanit Wastewater Treatment Plant Rehabilitation and Sludge Management Upgrade' and 'Nmairiye Pumping Station Rehabilitation and Access Road'. CSP's technical assistance component, also known as Task Order 3 (TO 3), continued to design and implement technical assistance activities for municipalities, CSOs, and community-based organizations (CBOs) to build the capacities of local partners and sustain the community stabilization and community development activities under CSP's other task orders. In general, capacity building trainings in FY2021 focused on organizational development, financial management, operation and maintenance, and social media management. By the end of FY2021, CSP's TO3 had trained a total of 1,034 people, well exceeding its target of 350 trainees, and had conducted 1,618 training days per trainee, against a cumulative target of 600.