Lebanese caretaker Environment Minister Nasser Yassin (left) shakes hands with World Bank's director of operations for the Middle East department, Jean-Christophe Carret, on Dec. 20, 2022. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — The World Bank awarded an $8.86 million grant to Lebanon on Tuesday to launch a project on waste management. The grant announcement comes as Lebanon continues to struggle with an unprecedented economic crisis and against the backdrop of the yearslong mishandling of waste management in the country.
The grant agreement framing this donation was jointly signed by caretaker Environment Minister Nasser Yassin and the World Bank's director of operations for the Middle East department, Jean-Christophe Carret, at the Environment Ministry, the state-run National News Agency reported.
"Despite the accumulating challenges, Lebanon is making progress and establishing a legal and stable basis for waste management," Carret said on the sidelines of the agreement signing. The project funded by the grant aims to limit greenhouse gases resulting from the incineration of waste and to "clean up the management of this waste at the level of municipalities as well as its recycling and use as fertilizer," the NNA added.
Yassin, for his part, said that "through this agreement, we will implement projects to combat illegal dumping in specific regions of the north and south" of the country.
In the absence of a sustainable solid waste management plan, garbage pileups were a recurring issue in Lebanon even before the onset of the present economic crisis in 2019. Authorities have resorted to filling and then expanding garbage dumps beyond capacity. The waste management crisis has only been exacerbated by the country's economic collapse as the government struggles to pay for basic services such as garbage collection.