How decentralization could succeed where the State failed

For more than 35 years, administrative decentralization has remained one of Lebanon’s most widely supported yet unimplemented reforms. Preserved in the 1989 Taif Agreement and incorporated into the Constitution in 1990, the principle was intended to strengthen local governance, promote balanced development, and bring decision-making closer to citizens.

Yet despite repeated political commitments, multiple draft laws, and broad consensus across the political spectrum, Lebanon continues to operate under an extremely centralized administrative system.

The urgency of reform has only intensified following the country’s financial collapse in 2019. Municipalities struggle to finance even basic services, infrastructure projects remain stalled, and citizens increasingly face weakened public administration. Simultaneously, the central government and its local constituencies have continuously traded blame over the responsibilities for crisis, mismanagement, and negligence that have impacted the security, safety, and prosperity of the Lebanese people.

A centralized system that has reached its limits

According to senior governance and public policy expert André Sleiman to The Beiruter, Lebanon’s greatest governance problem is not merely excessive centralization but the concentration of financial resources within the central state.

Before the economic crisis, approximately 75% of Lebanese municipalities were already financially incapable of independently financing development projects or maintaining essential public services. Today, following years of financial collapse and currency depreciation, he estimates that figure has reached 95%.

This financial weakness affects municipalities across the country despite the fact that Lebanese law grants them broad responsibilities over local affairs. Under the Municipal Act (Legislative Decree No. 118 of 1977), municipalities are legally empowered to oversee public works, local infrastructure, sanitation, roads, markets, public spaces, environmental management, and numerous development projects. Yet in practice, many simply lack the resources to exercise those powers.

Lebanon currently has 1,138 municipalities, 57 municipal unions, 8 governorates, and 26 districts, with roughly 75% of municipalities belonging to municipal unions. Despite this extensive local administrative network, most public revenues remain centralized through the Ministry of Finance, leaving municipalities dependent on transfers from the central government.

Sleiman argued that this fiscal model has prevented municipalities from building capable administrations. Many local authorities lack engineering departments, financial units, municipal police, technical staff, urban planners, or digital management systems. In some municipalities, one or two employees are expected to perform responsibilities that elsewhere require entire professional administrations.

He also believed Lebanon’s municipal landscape has become excessively fragmented. For a country covering only 10,452 square kilometers, maintaining more than 1,100 municipalities has produced hundreds of local administrations that are too small to generate sufficient revenues or attract qualified personnel. Instead, he proposed gradually consolidating municipalities into approximately 200 to 250 stronger local authorities, while reducing the number of municipal unions from 57 to roughly 20 to 25 more capable regional entities able to pool expertise, resources, and infrastructure planning.

Instead of dozens of weak municipal unions, Lebanon needs fewer and stronger structures built around fewer and more capable municipalities.

Moreover, Sleiman stressed that Lebanon’s centralized model has also shaped the political structure of local governance. According to him, the current system has often preserved local influence through nationally connected political figures rather than empowering independent elected local institutions. “Centralization created a situation where local references remained linked to national leaders rather than genuine local governance,” he noted. Reform therefore requires not only changing administrative structures but also reducing the dependence of municipalities on central political networks, allowing citizens to hold local authorities directly accountable for decisions affecting their daily lives.

Decentralization needs money, institutions, and technology; not just legislation

While administrative decentralization is often presented as a way to accelerate government services, Sleiman argued that this misunderstands the reform’s true purpose.

The speed of administrative procedures has nothing to do with decentralization.

Instead, he pointed to countries such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Qatar, where highly centralized governments nevertheless provide most public services digitally through integrated government platforms and national digital identity systems.

In his view, obtaining official documents, registering property, or completing public transactions depends primarily on digitization, electronic government, and integrated databases, rather than transferring administrative authority to municipalities.

Faster transactions are not a decentralization issue; they are a digitization issue.

The real objective of decentralization, he explained, is to redefine the role of the state itself. Central ministries should concentrate on policymaking, national strategies, legislation, regulation, and oversight, while local authorities become responsible for planning infrastructure, managing development projects, delivering services, and responding to local priorities.

Such a model, however, requires much more than passing a law. Sleiman identified four essential preconditions: full digital transformation, modern tax administration, sound public financial management, and monetary stability. “Without them,” he asserted, “decentralization cannot function.” Sleiman added that “everything needs to be digitized, including financial flows,” warning that transparency and accountability cannot exist in a system dependent on manual procedures and cash transactions.

Without a stable currency, transparent fiscal transfers, electronic payment systems, and reliable local revenue sources, municipalities cannot finance infrastructure, hire qualified personnel, or deliver sustainable services. Likewise, transparency and accountability increasingly depend on digital procurement systems, electronic auditing, and real-time financial reporting rather than traditional paper-based administration.

For Sleiman, discussing decentralization without first addressing Lebanon’s financial collapse and outdated administrative systems risks reducing an important reform to little more than political rhetoric.

A reform promised since Taif but still awaiting implementation

Administrative decentralization has occupied a central place in Lebanon’s reform agenda since the 1989 Taif Agreement, which called for “expanded administrative decentralization” to promote balanced development while preserving the country’s unitary political system. Unlike federalism, decentralization does not redistribute political sovereignty or create autonomous regions. Instead, it transfers administrative responsibilities to locally elected authorities operating under national law.

Since the early 1990s, successive governments and members of parliament have introduced multiple decentralization proposals, including legislative initiatives in 1995, 1999, and 2007. The most comprehensive effort came in 2012, when a special committee under former Minister of Interior and Municipalities Ziad Baroud prepared Lebanon’s first official draft law on administrative decentralization. After holding 47 working sessions, the committee produced a 147-article draft, officially presented in 2014, proposing elected district councils with financial and administrative autonomy, a decentralized development fund, expanded local powers, greater transparency, and stronger digital governance. Despite broad recognition of its importance, the draft has never been adopted by Parliament.

More than 30 years after Taif, meaningful decentralization is not simply about transferring powers away from Beirut. It requires financially capable local governments, professional administrations, digital public services, and a stable economic framework capable of sustaining them.