International donors and urban planning policy and practice : the European Union in Lebanon -

Abstract

Urban planners and scholars have developed an interest in regions as they have significant urban and economic roles. Regional planning is used as a tool to manage regions’ growth and development. Regional planning policies evolved in time from being infrastructure- and poverty-oriented to become inclusive of economy, governance, environment and social issues. Lebanon is an interesting case study to study regional planning as it has elected local and regional governments (Unions of Municipalities). Indeed, since the first post-war municipal elections of 1998, several municipalities and UoMs have been working on strategic urban planning projects. This has mainly been done with the help of international donors rather than the central government. The Lebanese national landuse plan, the SDATL, approved in 2009 calls for investigating means of implementation of its vision at the scale of regions and local authorities. Since the end of the civil war in Lebanon, development partnerships between local authorities and international donors have been exponentially increasing, especially in the field of promoting decentralization and regional development and planning. In my thesis, I examine the role of the EU’s development aid policies in initiating a discourse and a practice of regional planning in Lebanon since 2000. My hypothesis is that the EU’s development aid played a key role in consolidating a discourse and a practice of regional planning in Lebanon, and have also contributed to the creation of a network of experts knowledgeable in regional planning. I demonstrate these findings by focusing on two projects developed by the EU during 2000-2015 period: ARLA (2000-2006) and ADELNORD (2009-2015).