Regulatory Impact Analysis

– Lebanon

Working Group IV: Focus Group on

Public Service Delivery, Public-Private
Partnership and Regulatory Reform
Amman , 28, 29 & 30 April 2008
By Ms. Rita Chidiac
The Prerequisites for Introducing RIA in
Lebanon

 Political Commitment to RIA :

 Through the issuing of a decision from both the prime
minister and the house speaker that enforces better
regulations and RIA.

 Both The Council of Ministers and Parliament to

maintain high political support by issuing a law that
commits both the legislative and executive to the RIA
project.
Responsibility, Management & coordination
of RIA programmes

 The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) could have the

leading role in the adoption of RIA. It would be
useful to have an inter-ministerial committee
where concerned ministries will be represented
under the leadership of the MOJ

 the Ministry of justice and the inter-ministerial

committee, as mentioned in the answer to the
previous question, adopt a regulatory policy
program for better regulations
 Responsibility, Management &
coordination of RIA programmes

 There are mechanisms that regulate the flow

of communication between the various
legislative, judicial and ministerial entities.

 However, we suggest to create a legal and

judiciary central body with broad responsibilities
for regulatory reform and associated
procedures similar to that in Tunisia and linked
to the MOJ with a mandate to monitor the
quality of RIA
 Needed Skills and Training for
Regulators
 No training for officials carrying out impact assessment . However The National School of
Administration (ENA) can develop a training program to train public officers applying RIA.
 Who are the persons – besides those
carrying out the RIA pilot projects,
who would need such training?

 The concerned officers in such training are:

 heads of legal bureaus in the administration.
 the legal department staff at the office of the
prime minister.
 MPs members of parliamentarian committees in
charge of studying and approving law proposals.
 Resent situation analysis and
Preparation
 The RIA model: structure and analytical
method
 There is a department for legislation and consultation
in the MOJ, and a consultative panel to review
legislations in the parliament for law updating, both
can play a major role in adopting and applying RIA.
 Law projects usually include the motives behind them,
only these do not involve RIA.
 Lately the council of Ministers issued a decree that
requires all law projects to include an environmental
impact assessment.
 There does not seem to be detailed guidelines as to
how environmental impact assessment is carried out.
Budgetary impact is not included in the said decree.
The RIA model: structure and analytical method

 The decree involving environmental impact

assessment should be complemented with a
wider approach that includes budgetary impact.

 To date there are no criteria to apply for RIA

model. Existing criteria are still too general.
 Data collection
 In the process of reviewing a draft law the
government consults with the concerned authority and
requests data from it. This requires a more rigorous
approach and the appointment of specialists to analyze
data.
data however data needs constant development .

 Institutions that could be sourced for data include:

MOJ, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economy and
Trade, Ministry of Labor, Central Statistics Agency, as
well as all other ministries each within its own field.

 The responsibility for supplying data is incumbent to

the unit within the institution that is most concerned
with required data. In addition, these units will
probably require training and the assistance of experts
 Target RIA efforts and prioritisation

 The most challenging regulatory sectors in

Lebanon are: telecommunications, Electricity ,
SME’s, and investment sectors.

 Targeting sectors for RIA depends largely on

the Government policies and priorities. In this
regard, RIA needs to target business
investments whether large or medium.
 RIA in the policy-making process:
integration as early as possible

 The adoption of RIA allows decision makers

to make appropriate choices based on data
that identifies the real costs and benefits of a
law project.

 RIA can be adopted as soon as a law project

is initiated. to integrate RIA early helps
prevent unnecessary expenditures.
 Communicating the results

 Once the RIA project is adopted the government

needs to publish all related studies and make it
available to the public.

 The audiences for governmental publications

include the citizen at large, members of the
public sector, the business community, the
banking sector, the business and industrial
sectors, the executive branch, the court of
account etc…
 Consultation, Participation and
Transparency

 Consultations are usually conducted after the law

project has been drafted in details.

 Involved in consultations are professionals and

labor unions, NGOs, the private sector and
specialists of various trades.

 The consultations are not formally publicized, only

the media related these in details including the
various comments and counter-comments. Also
the involved parties make their views public using
the media.
 Consultation, Participation and
Transparency
 Consultations is part of the law making process in
Lebanon, only it is more of a tradition than dictated
by a law.
 All types of public consultations are used including
meetings, referrals. Informal consultations are
conducted by the ministerial or parliamentary
committees. For example a special committee was
created to draft a new election law; the committee
publicly requested input from all political parties
and NGOs to input its projects or thoughts on the
issue involved
 Apply RIA to existing as well as new
regulation
 There are guidelines and principles on how to develop
laws and regulations, only these are not well developed
and do not match international standards.

 The parliamentary committee for updating legislations is

reviewing outdated laws and putting a program or
timeline for carrying out the review.  Also each ministry
can request the review of its own legislations when
required or when these are becoming obsolete.

 The Office of the Minister for Administrative Reform is

reviewing many existing laws, particularly those related
to ministries structures and organization and others
(e.g. the ombudsmen law, right to information law, the
Anti corruption law, modifying the illicit enrichment law
etc…).
 Next Steps

 Invite key players to a workshop to increase their

awareness to RIA
 Seek the support of OECD to help organize the workshop
and provide expert lecturers to participate in it.
 The workshop to generate specific recommendations for
the adoption of RIA, and develop a legal and structural
framework and secure high political endorsement
 Need for coordinated efforts by both HE the ministers of
Justice and Administrative reform to rally political support
for the development and ratification of a legislation to adopt
RIA
 Implement the RIA legislation soon after its dissemination
and develop implementation mechanisms for it, including
the training of HR in the legal departments of various public
institutions.