Disaster Governance and Aid Effectiveness: Assessing Lebanon’s Reconstruction, Recovery and Reform Framework (3rf)

In the aftermath of the Beirut Port Blast of August 2020, the World Bank, the European Union, and the United Nations co-designed an aid response for Lebanon, named as the “Reconstruction, Recovery and Reform Framework.” The 3rf is akin to other frameworks produced in the aftermath of disasters and conflicts, also referred to as “country platforms.” This paper provides an assessment of the effectiveness of the 3 rf , underscoring its institutional architecture that seeks to engage a group of civil society organizations, in a context ruled by political unsettlement and dominated by a resilient political-sectarian ruling elite that has been capturing aid for decades. Findings highlight three interconnected sets of structural constraints that limit the performance of the 3 rf : donors’ competing agendas and the platform’s institutional incoherence; political stalemate and insufficient political settlement that enables elite capture; and an insufficient involvement of cso s in decision-making processes.