In its efforts to achieve the government’s aspirations of having a modern and efficient administration that can contribute to downsizing the public sector and reducing its costs, provide high quality to citizens and create the conditions for economic recovery and enhanced development, OMSAR has formed several committees to re-consider present structures of public administrations and agencies and to propose legal texts that include the general framework and the main topics related to goals and functions of public administrations and agencies and their basic units.

Taking into account the modern requirements related to youth and sports, it was necessary to reorganize and restructure the Ministry of Youth and Sports after its creation.   The proposed draft law includes a new organization for the Ministry of Youth and Sports that takes into consideration its role in providing development opportunities for young people and filling in their leisure time, supervising sports and scout-related affairs, and encouraging the activities of clubs, unions, and sports associations. The draft law also suggests the establishment of a public institution for the management and exploitation of sports, youth, and scout associations on the level of the mouhafazat, including the Sports City in Beirut.

  According to law nº 248 of 7/8/2000 which is concerned with the creation, merging, and annulment of ministries and councils:

• The Ministry of Energy and Hydraulics was created.
• The Ministry of Hydroelectric Resources was annulled by virtue of law nº 20/66 of 29/3/66 and its units were annexed to the Ministry of Energy and Hydraulics.
• The Ministry of Petroleum was annulled by virtue of law nº 9/73 and its units were annexed to the Ministry of Energy and Hydraulics.

The annulment and merging processes required a revision of the objectives, tasks, and structure of the new ministry as well as the development of these tasks according to modern data and technical concepts. A draft law was developed with the collaboration of the Ministry of Energy and Hydraulics, the Civil Service Council, and the Directorate of Research and Guidance, and its final version was discussed before the Higher Council of Structures before being sent to the concerned party and submitted to the Council of Ministers.

  Ten years after the creation of the Ministry of Social Affairs as an independent ministry, and 44 years after the introduction and dissemination of social welfare services to the citizens by the public sector, and in light of the evolution related to social work and development, new work notions and methods, modern administration, and information technology, the current structure of the Ministry of Social Affairs had to be revised in order to help it perfect its role in supervising social development and presenting high quality service to citizens. The Higher Council of Structures has approved the final version of the proposed draft law that aims at reorganizing the Ministry of Social Affairs. After receiving the approval of the Civil Service Council and the Directorate of Research and Guidance, the final version shall be submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval before being referred to the Parliament.

  After issuing law nº 221 of 29/5/2000 and its amendments that stipulated the establishment of four public water companies, it was necessary to organize these companies and merge their independent departments and committees. These public water agencies are: The Water Authority of Beirut and Mount Lebanon, the Water Authority of North Lebanon, the Water Authority of Bekaa, and the Water Authority of South Lebanon. Committees that included the general directors of the water authorities and specialists in the public administration and water sectors drew up draft decrees that specified the comprehensive general structure for the agencies, with small particularities related to each company. As a result, four draft decrees were submitted to the Ministry of Energy and Hydraulics that unified the provisional regulations. These decrees will be submitted as one complete set of regulatory texts to the Council of Ministers in the near future.

  The National Agency of Litani River was established according a law issued on August 14th, 1954 which gave, in its sixth article, the board of directors the authority to issue decisions that specify "the civil servants employed at the service along with their position, salary, and indemnities…" This resulted in an organizational structure updated by the decisions issued by the board of directors and lead to the necessity of reorganizing the agency and specifying the prerogatives of its different units as well as its civil servants and the conditions of their employment.  The result of the project was referred to the National Agency of Litani River in order to be presented to its board of directors for examination and approval before being submitted to the supervising authority and giving it the appropriate legal framework.

The Ministry of Tourism has modified its old organizational structure and added new functions in order to better plan for tourism development and ensure tourism promotion and marketing thus keeping up with the international developments taking place in the field of tourism. The Draft project that was referred to OMSAR included the justifications that necessitated all the amendments. The central committee gave its final comments and the Ministry of Tourism is currently in the process of modifying the suggested law accordingly.

The committee that was established to re-organize the Directorate General of urban planning presented its work to the Minister of State for Administrative Reform in December 2003.  The basic amendments that were included in decree no. 10490 date 21/6/97 (Re-organizing and re-identifying the Cadre of the Directorate General of Urban Planning) were related to decreasing the number of staff in the central and regional offices and the establishment of the Classification and Amalgamation Service: previously a department in the Studies Service.  The Draft project that was referred to OMSAR includes the justifications that necessitated such amendments.

After a series of periodical meeting at the office of the Directory General, The committee has prepared the final report and is going to submit it to the Central committee to study it.

  The joint committee reviewed the organization and roles of the various units within the ministry in light of emerging needs and trends. Taking in consideration the various constraints and realities of the health sector the committee drafted a new law for the ministry which included the merger of a number of bureaus that had redundant functions in addition to a redefining some of the existing roles for several units in order to reflect emerging trends in the realm of healthcare such as preventive medicine and disease prevention. A joint meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Social Affairs permitted the removal of redundant activities carried out in the regions by both Ministries.

The Public Agency for Consuming markets was established by decree number 5735 dated 29/9/1994 and it acquired its actual name by decree number 6790 dated 20/5/1995. However, no decree was ever issued that determines its different functions, organizational structure, cadre and recruitment conditions. Such a decree would otherwise allow the agency to recruit competent human resources to practice health audit on all nutritious commodities available on the market and to create a laboratory for that purpose. A committee was formed that drafted two decrees: the first one related to modifying decree number 5735 dated 29/9/1994 related to determining the agency’s functions, and the second one related to the organizational structure of the agency and its recruitment conditions. The Agency’s board of directors approved the two decrees and these were submitted to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers for approval. Establishing a Ministry of Planning  Background: A quarter of a century after the annulment of the Ministry of General Planning, it has become necessary to give the priority to policy planning in the concerned ministries and to establish a Ministry of Planning capable of coordinating sectoral planning and suggesting the appropriate priorities and programs to the Council of Ministers. With the participation of the general director of the Central Statistics administration, a committee at OMSAR worked on setting the main objectives and tasks for the new ministry as well as proposed a draft law of 13 articles that specified the structure of the ministry and the tasks of its main units. The draft law specified the establishment of the following two directorates: The general directorate of planning and the general directorate of central statistics that is to be separated from the Cabinet and annexed to the Ministry of Planning. Valuable remarks, received from the Civil Service Council and the Central Inspection, were integrated into the draft law and the final version of the project shall be submitted to the Cabinet in the near future.