Back in 2002, the Ministry of Energy and Water and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) signed a joint 5-year project to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy in Lebanon with funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF). One major objective of this project was “to create the Lebanese Center for Energy Conservation (LCEC)”.
In 2007, the Ministry of Energy and Water and UNDP signed an agreement to continue their cooperation towards the setup and institutionalization of LCEC. Following this agreement, the LCEC was created as an independent not-for-profit organization within the Ministry of Energy and Water in 2011. UNDP continued the financial and administrative support of LCEC until 2013. During that same year, the Ministry of Energy and Water committed to sustain the LCEC financially for the future. The European Union (EU) also offered its support to LCEC through the Prime Minister Office with a grant to “Support LCEC to Strengthen its Role as the National Energy Agency for Lebanon”.
Today, LCEC is a sustainable organization having a total of 20 team members, including a number of part-timers, consultants, and advisors. The LCEC also welcomes interns who join the team for short periods of time (click here for internship opportunities). The LCEC is financially healthy and the organization works according to a 5-year business plan that is continually updated. LCEC main sources of funding come from a variety of national and international institutions and partners, namely the European Union (EU), the Italian Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security (IMEES), and the Central Bank of Lebanon (BDL). For more information on the work of LCEC with partners, check the link.