BACKGROUND
	PROJECT OBJECTIVES
	CURRENT STATUS

The mandate of Mr. Giantris related to this task was covered by his participation in the Round Table Discussion that took place on June 19, 2003, where he presented his first, in a series of presentations, on PPP aiming at building a knowledge base among key stakeholders at the national level.

Task 4: Develop a framework for the National Tariff Strategy

Further to the initial fact finding phase that Melki was undertaking during the month of June, the presence of both Ahmad Al-Azzam and Philip Giantris contributed strongly to the thinking process and understanding of this task by Mr. Melki. He met with them on more than one occasion and was especially helped by Mr. Giantris. Melki also attended the Round Table event and participated in the discussions.

Task 5: Build Collaborative Planning and negotiation skills among key stakeholders

Based on the discussions held with Oussama and Monir Bu Ghanem, mentioned in our previous report, the first training to take place in August 2003 will concentrate on collaborative planning techniques with senior ministry and water establishments officials.

Task 9: Facilitate the creation and support of operations for the Technical Working Group:

The technical working group was involved in two tasks during this reporting period.

The first one was the event organized on June 12, 2003 in Saida to present both the“Financial modeling” and the “Hydraulic Assessment Survey” whereby Ahmad El-Azzam and Jean Chatila presented the scope of their work in an attempt to share the progress and the results reached so far and get the Technical Working Group’s comments. This involved an intensive introductory session on PPP describing all the steps leading to it, as well as the different types of PPPs that are delivered.

Task 11: Conduct Hydraulic analysis and asset assessment

The LAU team is reporting on daily basis to the LWPP office the progress of each day and the obstacles, if any, faced. Consequently, the LWPP team is taking the necessary measures and making the contacts to facilitate the LAU team mission. It is worth mentioning that all the Water Authorities headed by their Directors and the SLWE Director General are very supportive of the LAU mission and are providing the necessary logistic support and collaboration.

The survey, so far, covered the complete jurisdiction area of both Saida and Sour Water Authorities as well as the majority of Nabeh El-Tasseh. Progress now is very quick in order to finalize the Nabeh El-Tasseh area during the first week of July, to be immediately followed by the Jabal Aamel Water Authority area, after which the survey will be reviewed and most probably fine tuned through few field visits to cover the missing parts where and when assessed.

Task 18: Design a Sidon Model for pricing water services

Another major activity covered during this visit was to review the support being provided to Al-Azzam by Nabil Chemali giving him further orientation on how to proceed. The time spent with Chemali was also dedicated to building his capacity in preparing for financial models. More time should still be spent to guide Chemali through the process of building and designing the model.