USAID Mission Director Dr. Anne Patterson introduced USAID’s
newest assistance project in Lebanon, the Community Support Program (CSP) at the Le Royal Hotel in Dbayeh. The event was attended by more than 100 people, including U.S. Embassy officials, a number of governors and mayors, representatives from the Ministries of Interior and Water and Energy, Lebanon’s water establishments, international donors, as well as local and international development groups.

CSP, part of the robust $1.3 billion dollars in economic assistance that the U.S. Government has provided Lebanon since 2007, is an $80 million five- to seven-year project designed to improve the delivery of essential services and enhance the livelihoods of underserved and vulnerable communities primarily in Lebanon’s North, South, and Beqaa regions. CSP, in cooperation with local municipalities and communities, designs and implements a mix of short- and medium-term assistance interventions to address the lack of basic services and resources. CSP provides targeted technical expertise and institutional capacity building assistance to local partners to promote maintenance and sustainability.

In her remarks, Dr. Patterson noted that CSP represents a qualitative evolution in which USAID delivers development assistance in Lebanon. CSP combines speed and flexibility with sustainability, which permits USAID to quickly address immediate, small-scale needs. At the same time, CSP supports more complex interventions that address longer-term development issues. Dr. Patterson noted that CSP builds on a number of the lessons that USAID has learned from past and ongoing USAID projects, such as the Lebanon Water Project, the Building Alliances for Local Advancement, Development and Investment or BALADI Project, BALADI Capacity Building Project, and prior activities undertaken by USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives.
The event featured testimonials from a number of CSP partners, including the mayors of Arsal and Tripoli, who spoke about the challenges in their areas and the timely assistance provided by the project. A short video showcased CSP’s material support to two public schools in the Beqaa region where a large number of Lebanese and Syrian refugee students enrolled this year.

For more information on USAID’s Community Support Program, please contact info@lebanoncsp.org