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The conference is taking place at the Rotana Gefinor hotel in Beirut. To attend in-person, please complete this form.
Lebanon’s water sector is facing multiple and interconnected pressures that increasingly threaten people’s livelihoods, health, and wellbeing. The effects of climate change on water resources, longstanding failures in governance and public service provision, and the inequities these produce, as well as the war-inflicted destruction and weaponization since 2023 to date, have driven what can only be described as a polycrisis.
Understanding this reality requires moving beyond narrowly technical approaches to water management and adopting a water justice perspective that examines how power, inequality, and accountability shape both vulnerability and recovery within the sector.
In Lebanon, the consequences of the financial collapse, the environmental stresses from resource mismanagement, pollution, and climate change, and especially the impacts of Israeli invasions can be seen: the destruction of water and agricultural infrastructure, and large-scale displacement.
The conference is therefore organized around three complementary sessions that focus on the principles of water justice. Rather than treating water as simply a resource to be managed, the conference approaches it as a public good and human right, where social justice is central to the discussion. Who has access to safe and affordable water? Who is excluded? Who bears the burdens of governance failures, conflict, and climate change? And how can Lebanon rebuild water systems that are socially just, publicly accountable, and environmentally sustainable?
Agenda
| 9:00 – 9:15 | Opening and welcoming remarks |
| 9:15 – 10:45 | Session 1: Water Governance in Lebanon: Understanding the Crisis Beyond Scarcity (1h30) |
| 10:45 – 11:00 | Coffee break (15 min) |
| 11:00 – 12:30 | Session 2: Water Under Fire: The Israeli Aggression and the Weaponization of Water (1h30) |
| 12:30 – 12:45 | Coffee break (15 min) |
| 12:45 – 14:15 | Session 3: Governing Water for a Fairer Future — New Imaginaries for Building Back Better (1h30) |
| 14:30 | Lunch |
Session 1 — Water Governance in Lebanon: Understanding the Crisis Beyond Scarcity
This first panel examines the state of water governance in Lebanon, providing the foundation for understanding the country’s broader water crisis through a governance and water justice lens. The discussion explores how institutional fragmentation, weak public service provision, inadequate regulation, unequal access, pollution, groundwater depletion, wastewater mismanagement, and limited public accountability have collectively shaped the sector.
It begins with a review of Lebanon’s national water strategy, assessing whether it responds to these structural challenges or continues to prioritize infrastructure development, cost recovery, and donor-driven reforms without adequately addressing equity, participation, and the right to water. A legal and institutional overview will examine the evolution of water governance in Lebanon, highlighting how formal legislation, customary practices, and the roles of state institutions, municipalities, international actors, and non-state actors have contributed to the current governance landscape.
The session explores how these governance failures are experienced in everyday life, examining the growing reliance on hybrid systems of public, private, and informal water provision and their implications for affordability, inequality, and the realization of the right to water. Bringing together legal, policy, political economy, and community perspectives, the discussion frames water not simply as a resource to be managed but as a public good and a fundamental human right that is central to dignity, public health, environmental sustainability, and social justice. It establishes the conceptual foundation for the conference by demonstrating that achieving water security in Lebanon ultimately requires governance reform, stronger public institutions, and a commitment to water justice.
Speakers:
- Habib Maalouf, Environmental Journalist and Coordinator, Climate Justice Working Group, ANND
- Georges Gharios, Water Consultant, UNESCO
- Jules Hatem, Water and Wastewater Specialist, Consultant, ARI
- Elias Kinab, Renewable Energy Specialist, Oxfam
Moderator:
Dr. Maya Nehme, Director of the Lebanese Reforestation Initiative (LRI)
Session 2 — Water Under Fire: The Israeli Aggression and the Weaponization of Water
This session examines how the Israeli aggression, from October 2023 through the 2024 escalation and the renewed full-scale war since March 2026, has transformed a chronic governance crisis into an acute emergency, and how water itself has been turned into a weapon and a target. It centers the experiences of the South and the Bekaa, with the Litani River basin as a connecting thread: from the Qaraoun dam and the polluted upper basin to the Qasimiya irrigation canals and the border villages.
The session documents a systematic pattern: direct strikes on pumping stations, reservoirs, networks, wells, and wastewater plants; the killing of water-sector workers; the destruction of irrigation infrastructure feeding thousands of hectares of farmland; chemical contamination of soil and water through white phosphorus and aerial spraying; and the severing of the South from the rest of the country through the destruction of bridges over the Litani. It asks what these attacks mean for farmers, agricultural workers, displaced families, and the communities of the South and the Bekaa — for whom the loss of water means the loss of livelihood, health, and the possibility of return.
Speakers:
- Yehya Daher, Former Head, Union of Municipalities
- Saada Allaw, Head of the Journalism Department, the Legal Agenda, writer of ‘’The Litani: The Killing of the River and its People (with Al-Safir)’’
- Ahmad Jammal, Engineer, Green Southerners
Moderator:
Dr. Rouba Ziadeh, Associate Researcher, National Center for Natural Hazards and Early Warning (CNRS)
Session 3 — Governing Water for a Fairer Future: New Imaginaries for Building Back Better
This session opens a space to discuss new principles, approaches, technologies, and governance practices that reconnect water management with urban planning, agriculture, food security, environmental protection, and social justice. The session aims at It looks exploring what a fairer and more adaptive resilient water future looks like for Lebanon. Bringing together practitioners, researchers, municipalities, farmers, and development partners, the discussion examines how rebuilding water systems requires new approaches that connect water governance with urban planning, agriculture, climate adaptation, ecosystem restoration, and social justice.
The discussion focuses on three interconnected pathways: restoring healthy watersheds, rivers, and freshwater ecosystems through nature-based solutions to improve water security and climate resilience; promoting sustainable water management for agriculture and food systems to strengthen livelihoods and resilience; and strengthening water governance through accountable institutions, community participation, and integrated planning. The session will conclude by reflecting on how these different approaches can inform a national strategy and finding localized alternatives, one that places water justice, climate resilience, environmental protection, and cross-sectoral coordination at the center of Lebanon’s water future.
Speakers:
- Dr Yaser Abunnasr, Director of the Nature Conservation Center at the American University of Beirut (AUB)
- Serge Harfouche, Expert in Agroecology, Seed Sovereignty, and Sustainable Food Systems, Co-founder of the “Buzuruna Juzuruna” Initiative
- Roula Majdalani, Expert in Sustainable Development Policy, Natural Resource Governance, and Regional Cooperation
- Faraj Al Awar, Founder and Executive Director, Awar Water
- Nadim Farajalla, Chief Sustainability Officer, Lebanese American University (LAU)
Moderator:
Roua Al Fares, Urban Planner and Project Coordinator, Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (IFI), American University of Beirut
