Lebanon Infrastructure Projects Put Local Workers at the Heart of Recovery

Lebanon’s infrastructure needs extend beyond repairing physical assets. Communities also need employment opportunities that can provide income while supporting local recovery.

Infrastructure projects across Lebanon are creating short-term jobs while repairing roads, improving pedestrian areas, strengthening drainage systems and upgrading municipal facilities. The work is being carried out through the International Labour Organization's Employment Intensive Infrastructure Programme (EIIP), funded by the German Government through KfW Development Bank. The programme shows how infrastructure spending can address everyday community needs while directing more of the investment toward local employment and decent working conditions.

Infrastructure Spending Becomes a Source of Local Jobs

Lebanon's infrastructure needs extend beyond repairing physical assets. Communities also need employment opportunities that can provide income while supporting local recovery. EIIP connects these priorities by using employment-intensive approaches and Local Resource-Based Technology (LRBT), allowing infrastructure projects to employ local workers rather than relying mainly on highly mechanised construction methods.

Workers receive short-term employment under decent working conditions while carrying out practical improvements identified within their communities. The result is an approach in which public investment creates two benefits at once: better infrastructure for residents and immediate livelihood opportunities for people who need work.

A joint delegation from the ILO and KfW recently visited sites in Beirut and northern Lebanon to assess progress and see how this model is working on the ground. Projects cover pedestrian infrastructure, road maintenance, drainage channels, retaining walls, public spaces and municipal buildings.

In Beirut's Salim Slem area, rehabilitation work is improving sidewalks, public spaces and the wider pedestrian network. These upgrades are intended to make walking safer and more accessible, while the construction itself employs labour-intensive activities.

Roads and Drainage Works Support Northern Communities

The programme is also active in Kherbet Char and Ain Tanta in Akkar district, where workers are tackling infrastructure problems that directly affect daily life. In Kherbet Char, teams are conducting routine road maintenance, building retaining walls and carrying out town-clearing activities. These improvements can help protect roads and surrounding areas while making local infrastructure more reliable.

Ain Tanta has a different set of needs. Workers are undertaking excavation in preparation for a new canal while also completing town-clearing work. Improving drainage infrastructure is particularly important for communities where poorly managed water can damage roads, disrupt movement and place additional pressure on municipal resources.

At Wadi Mokhada in Minnieh, workers are rehabilitating infrastructure through the construction of reinforced concrete walls for a channel. The work includes steel bending and concrete activities, giving labour-intensive construction a central role in delivering the project.

These sites demonstrate how the programme adapts to local conditions rather than applying one standard infrastructure solution everywhere. Each intervention addresses a practical community need while creating opportunities for workers to earn an income through productive employment.

Better Municipal Facilities Leave a Longer-Term Benefit

The delegation also visited Deddeh in northern Lebanon, where rehabilitation of the municipal building has been completed, and the facility has been handed over. Unlike the active construction sites elsewhere, Deddeh offers an example of what remains once the employment phase is finished: a stronger public facility that can support better municipal services for residents.

This combination of immediate employment and lasting infrastructure sits at the centre of the ILO-KfW partnership. Workers gain short-term income and employment experience, communities receive improvements to roads, drainage, pedestrian spaces and public facilities, and municipalities are left with assets that can continue serving residents.

For Lebanon, where access to employment remains crucial for many communities, the programme offers a practical way to make infrastructure investment work harder. Money spent on construction does more than produce concrete walls, repaired streets or upgraded buildings; it circulates through local livelihoods by putting people directly to work.

The projects also show that labour-intensive construction can be more than a temporary employment measure. When decent working conditions, local resources and community priorities are built into infrastructure planning, the same investment can strengthen public assets, support household livelihoods and improve the places where people live.

Lebanon's EIIP experience presents infrastructure as both a physical and social investment, leaving communities with safer streets and stronger services while giving local workers a direct role in building those improvements.