Evolution of the Number of Municipalities

The first nationwide municipal elections were held in Lebanon in 1963 with the participation of 339 municipalities. During the 1998 elections, the number of municipalities stood at 700 while it rose to 904 in 2004 and further to 964 during the fourth local elections in 2010. Lebanon’s municipalities have been growing steadily in number until they reached 1003 in June 2013.

Number of Municipalities by Mohafaza and Qada’a

Lebanon’s municipalities are distributed by Mohafaza and Qada’a as illustrated in the following Table 1, which reveals the following:

• All 36 towns in the Qada’a of Bint Jbeil have municipal councils. The same applies to the 3 towns of the Tripoli Qada’a and the 26 towns of Rashaya.
• In Nabatieh, Bfarwi is the only town lacking a municipality.
• In proportion to the number of towns in each Qada’a, Jbeil is considered the Qada’a with the fewest municipal bodies as 43 of its towns still lack local governance. The Qada’a of Batroun ranks second and the Qada’a of Baalbeck third with municipalities being inexistent in 39 and 31 towns respectively.

Source: Interior Ministers’ decisions stipulating the formation of municipalities.

NB: If the difference between the number of towns and that of municipalities varies from the result shown in the last column, this means that 2 or more towns are governed by 1 municipality.

Revenues of the Independent Municipal Fund

The 2011 revenues of the Independent Municipal Fund assigned for distribution to municipalities by virtue of Decree No. 10234 dated April 8, 2013 stood at LBP 417 billion compared to LBP 468 million in 2010 and LBP 400 billion in 2010.

The Decree divided the IMF revenues as follows:

• LBP 50.040 billion or 12% were allocated to 51 municipal unions.
• 4.4% or LBP 18.348 billion for the Civil Defense Independent Fund
• 83.6% or LBP 348.612 billion were allocated to municipalities and were in turn assigned as follows:
• 90% amounting to LBP 313.750 billion based on the registered population and the actual direct revenues collected by municipalities during the two years prior to distribution.
• 10% amounting to LBP 34.861 billion were distributed equally to the municipalities having no more than 4000 registered people for the purpose of development projects

Shares of Municipalities

As is the case every year, Beirut received the largest share of the IMF transfers at LBP 61.2 billion, while Tripoli ranked second. The following Table 2 illustrates the major allocations channeled to municipalities.

The smallest shares were transferred to the municipalities detailed in the following Table 3 with the municipality of Shaqdouf in Akkar receiving the lowest allocation.