1.Promote local participation in managing the affairs of regions, cities, and villages and approve and implement the Decentralization Law, which:
- Achieves Administrative and financial decentralization, and bolsters the role of local councils in planning, implementing, and securing financial resources
- Abolishes the Qaimaqam position and establishes elected councils for Cazas
- Transfer some of the central authority powers, and the state budget provisions related to regions, to the Caza Council and its administrative body
2.Institute an efficient complaints mechanism whereby citizens can report municipalities for irregularities, lacking quality of services and corruption
3.Reform electoral laws so that citizens can vote where their main residence is located
4.Dedicate a special ministry to local governance affairs tasked with the provision of adequate monitoring and technical guidance. This dedicated Ministry for Municipal Affairs (MoMA) would act as a bridge between local authorities and the central government. This new ministry needs to have a much better understanding of the situation on the ground than the current MoIM, which is mainly focused on security issues
5.Revise the municipal taxation and finance system. A key reform is the restructuring of the Independent Municipal Fund (IMF). The governance of the IMF should be overhauled to ensure transparent, timely, and automated support payments to local authorities. The IMF needs to become an autonomous body, which allocates money to local authorities based on new criteria including the number of households (based on actual residents), the number of taxpayers, and the number of registered businesses
6.Establish an independent Municipal Credit Fund to develop Lebanon's regional economy according to local characteristics and foster cooperation between municipalities
7.Local authorities and the new MoMA should develop long-term economic development plans and policies with a focus on financial sustainability
8.Local authorities should be given the legal leverage not only to cooperate with each other but also to receive donations and loans and establish public-private partnerships to deliver their services cost-effectively
9.The administrative and technical capabilities of local authorities should be developed to improve the collection of municipal taxes and fees. Automated systems and e-governance can help increase efficiency, reduce corruption, and enable transparency.
10.Local authorities should also be granted legal leverage to curb tax evasion
11.Controls on local government expenditure above a certain threshold should not delay projects for long periods. Local government authorities should receive additional support for long-term development projects which have a certain level of income-generating potential
12.Local authorities should be allowed to set the rates of their own fees and/or service charges to ensure that their costs are recovered
13.Grant sufficient administrative capacity to municipalities in order to enable them to cope with new tasks and responsibilities that would come with more decentralization
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