The international community, a longtime supporter of the Lebanese government, is adopting a new modality to channel reform-inducing aid to the country after the complete erosion of domestic and foreign trust in its state institutions. After the explosion at the Beirut port on 4 August 2020, the country’s largest donors rallied their support for the crisis-stricken country, but this time with a newly-minted framework. The 3RF, Recovery, Reform and Reconstruction, Framework goes beyond conventional conditionality and introduces a new model of institutional arrangements to govern the financing and disbursement of international aid and to oversee the implementation of the reforms required.
While the 3RF is limited in time and scope, being a two-year programme aimed at responding to the Beirut explosion, it is seen by the international community as a model that can be deployed to approach Lebanon’s biggest problem: a deep financial, economic, social and political crisis.
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