Project name:                               Supporting anti-corruption efforts through processes' reforms and digitalisation of high-impact public services

Donor:                                            European Union

Implementing agency:                 Consortium: Expertise France lead-agency and e-Governance Academy                           

                                                         As Partner

Beneficiaries:                                Office of the Minister of State for Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence (OMSITAI), and pilot administrations

Duration of the project:              36 months

Duration of the assignment:      12 months (full time), renewable

Assignment location:                  Beirut, Lebanon

Job title:                                         Project Manager

Contact persons:                          samar.sabbagh@expertisefrance.fr

1.      DESCRIPTION OF THE AGENCY

Expertise France is the French public agency responsible for designing and implementing international technical cooperation projects. The agency operates around four priority areas:

• Democratic, economic and financial governance;
• Peace, stability and security;
• Climate, agriculture and sustainable development;
• Health and human development.

In these areas, Expertise France provides project engineering and implementation support, contributes to capacity-building initiatives, mobilises technical expertise, and acts as a project integrator bringing together public expertise and private-sector know-how.

The Lebanon-Jordan Country Directorate, established on 1 January 2025, provides the strategic and operational framework for managing Expertise France’s activities in both countries. Led by a Country Director based in Beirut, the Directorate brings together approximately 70 staff members across Lebanon and Jordan. In Lebanon, the team includes around 30 staff members, including 4 project-based expatriates and 5 International Technical Experts (ITEs).

2.      PROJECT BACKDROUNG AND DESCRIPTION

Lebanese citizens routinely face administrative procedures that lack transparency, traceability and predictability. Many services involve significant administrative discretion, weakly documented and hard to audit. This opacity feeds informal practices: reliance on intermediaries (wasta), informal payments, and access to information that depends on personal connections. The reliance on physical stamps and paper-based authentication further weakens the integrity of public documents, which can be falsified, lost or contested without effective recourse.

Lebanese public administrations face a severe capacity deficit, deepened by the prolonged economic crisis. The departure of qualified staff, the erosion of salaries and the limited renewal of the workforce have left many institutions structurally weakened. Internal processes are often outdated, training in digital tools and modern management is uneven, and change management capacity is limited. These administrations therefore need sustained external support to design, deploy and operate digital services that are genuinely user-centered and integrity-driven.

In this context, AI-assisted public services respond directly to the human resources constraint. By compensating for the shortage of qualified staff, taking over repetitive high-volume tasks, and improving the efficiency and responsiveness of service delivery, they free up administrative capacity for higher-value work while improving the citizen experience.

Digitalization has emerged as a strategic priority across government reform agendas. Efforts are underway to modernise public administration through the adoption of digital tools, the development of e-government platforms, and the introduction of more efficient and transparent service delivery mechanisms. Key areas of focus include the digitization of core administrative processes, the expansion of online public services, and the strengthening of digital infrastructure and connectivity across institutions.

Within this framework, the initiative led by the Office of the Minister of State for Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence (OMSITAI) plays a central role in advancing Lebanon’s digital transformation agenda. OMSITAI is actively supporting the development of national digital government priorities, promoting interoperability between public institutions, and guiding the rollout of key e-government services aimed at improving accessibility, efficiency, and transparency. OMSITAI has developed Lebanon’s Digital and AI Roadmap and identified a portfolio of priority e-services to be digitalised in pilot administrations.

Despite a vibrant technology sector in Beirut, the Lebanese GovTech ecosystem remains underleveraged in the public sector transformation agenda. Incubators, accelerators and start-ups hold strong technical skills and entrepreneurial energy, but their engagement with public administrations on service delivery is limited. Access to financing is constrained, particularly in the post-crisis context. As a result, opportunities to mobilise local capabilities for public services digitalisation are missed, and the ecosystem’s potential to anchor a sustainable transformation - including through viable, revenue-generating models - is not yet realised.

To address these challenges, the proposed action intends to support the deployment of user-centred digital public services designed to improve accessibility, transparency, and efficiency for citizens and businesses. Adopting a “quick wins” approach, the action prioritizes the digitalisation of high-impact services capable of delivering tangible benefits within a short timeframe, while demonstrating the value of digital transformation and building momentum for broader reforms.

Accordingly, a new EU Action, starting in September 2026 (to be confirmed) will be implemented to support anti-corruption efforts through processes' reforms and digitalisation of high-impact public services.

The Action is implemented by a consortium led by Expertise France, acting as the pillar-assessed entity and the e-Governance Academy (eGA) is the consortium partner responsible for leading the trust services component.

The action is structured around four complementary outputs, each led by one of the two consortium partners with cross-contributions where the complementarity of expertise adds operational value:

1.       Output 1 (EF lead). Accessible, user-centered and integrity-enhancing digital public services developed and deployed.

2.       Output 2 (EF lead). Pilot administrations' capacities strengthened for transparent and integrity-driven service delivery.

3.       Output 3 (eGA lead). Cybersecurity frameworks, European trust services and integrity standards implemented for digital public services.

4.       Output 4 (EF lead). Lebanese GovTech ecosystem strengthened and mobilised in support of public services digitalisation, towards the long-term financial sustainability of digitalised services.

3.      MISSION DESCRIPTION:

For the implementation of the project, Expertise France is currently recruiting a Project Manager.

The Project Manager will be responsible for ensuring the effective implementation of the three project outputs under the responsibility of Expertise France. The Project Manager will report to the Governance Portfolio Manager and will work in close coordination with the e-Governance Academy (eGA) team to ensure alignment between the different components, maximize synergies, and support the overall successful implementation of the Action.

The Governance Portfolio Manager provides the strategic oversight of the action, ensuring its overall quality, coherence and alignment with Expertise France’s governance portfolio in Lebanon, particularly the Public Administration Reform (PAR) programme.

He/she will be responsible for the following tasks:

3.1. Project Leadership and Management

• Provide overall leadership, strategic guidance, and operational oversight for the successful implementation of the project.
• Ensure effective planning, coordination, implementation, and monitoring of project activities in line with the work plan, budget, contractual obligations, and expected results.
• Anticipate implementation challenges, identify risks and opportunities, monitor the political, institutional, and regulatory context, and recommend appropriate mitigation measures.
• Provide timely strategic alerts and recommendations to the Portfolio Manager on key risks, delays, or issues affecting project implementation.

3.2. Technical Supervision, expert management and Quality Assurance

• Provide technical leadership and supervision to the Project Officer, Long-Term Experts (LTEs), and Short-Term Experts (STEs).
• Lead the preparation of Terms of Reference for project experts, ensuring alignment with project objectives, contractual requirements, and expected results.
• Ensure effective coordination of experts’ contributions and alignment with project objectives.
• Guarantee the quality, relevance, consistency, and timely delivery of project outputs and key deliverables.
• Review, provide guidance on, and validate key technical documents, including work plans, reports, dashboards, and communication materials.
• Support, together with the Project Officer, the planning, coordination, and follow-up of expert missions to ensure their effective implementation and alignment with project objectives.

3.3. Stakeholder Engagement and Partnership Coordination

• Establish and maintain effective working relationships with project partners (eGA), beneficiaries, institutional stakeholders, civil society organisations, development partners, and other donor-funded initiatives.
• Facilitate coordination, dialogue, and synergies among stakeholders to maximize project impact and sustainability.
• Represent the project in strategic meetings, conferences, workshops, technical working groups, and other relevant forums.
• Support the Portfolio Manager in maintaining effective communication and coordination with the European Union representatives and relevant donor counterparts, including through the provision of timely updates on project progress, implementation challenges, and key risks.

3.4. Project Planning, Monitoring, and Reporting

• Under the supervision of the Governance Portfolio Manager, lead the coordination of internal project planning and operational management processes, including work planning, budget forecasts, project reviews, dashboards, and management reporting ; and the preparation, consolidation, quality assurance, and timely submission of donor reports in compliance with contractual requirements and Expertise France procedures.
• Coordinate with the MEAL Officer on the implementation of the Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) system and ensure regular analysis and reporting of project progress, results, risks, and challenges.
• Ensure that monitoring findings inform decision-making and support continuous improvement of project implementation.