How AI Is Helping Government Companies in Lebanon Cut Costs and Improve Efficiency

Lebanon's public finances and services can tap AI for fast, measurable savings by cleaning and sharing data, digitising IDs and payments, and using predictive analytics to target welfare, maintenance and reconstruction spending - a compact, practical agenda championed by the new AI ministry and outlined in reporting on Kamal Shehadi's plan that says a $30–50M push could “transform the way the government does business” (The National News: Lebanon's AI minister on national ID and digitised payments).

Academic work from AUB stresses the same levers - open data, a Data Science Hub, and stronger governance - as the route to evidence-based cost savings (Research Features: How data science can transform Lebanon's public sector).

Practical skills matter too: Nucamp's 15‑week AI Essentials for Work bootcamp teaches prompt writing and tool use so public servants can turn policy ideas into operational savings (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp syllabus).

“With a budget of $30 to $50 million over the next two years, I can transform the way the government does business and deals with its citizens … in a way that is more accountable, more transparent, seamless.” - Kamal Shehadi

Lebanon's AI and digitisation landscape is evolving fast around a practical, government-led agenda: OMSITAI, the new Office of the Ministry of State for Technology and Artificial Intelligence, is pushing core projects - national digital ID, digitised payments and the “data backbone” that lets ministries share cleaned, labelled data - while courting international partners to move from plans to pilots.

A high-profile MoU with Roland Berger brings strategy and governance know‑how to the table and signals that technical assistance will be run alongside policy design (Roland Berger–OMSITAI partnership), and Minister Kamal Shehadi's estimate that $30–50M could kickstart a transparent, accountable digital state frames the scale and urgency of early wins (Shehadi on the $30–50M plan).

The picture is both ambitious and concrete: targeted investment, regulatory scaffolding and talent pipelines (LEAP and university courses) aim to turn fragmented services into a more efficient, auditable system - imagine replacing stacked paper files with searchable, shareable data pools that save time and cash at every step.

Initiative	Focus / Lead
National digital ID	OMSITAI – priority for payments & service delivery
Digitised payments	OMSITAI – reduce cash friction, improve accountability
Roland Berger partnership	Strategy, technical know‑how, governance frameworks
LEAP initiative	Tech hub, infrastructure and talent development
Data backbone	Cleaning, labelling, and cross‑ministry data pools

“Our collaboration with Roland Berger, leveraging its extensive international expertise, will accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence across vital sectors and support our plans to build a sustainable knowledge economy that strengthens Lebanon's position in this critical field.”

Digitised IDs and payments offer Lebanon some of the fastest, most tangible cost savings on the table today: by replacing paper-based verification, outdated NID checks and manual stamp workflows with biometric-backed authentication and a payments layer, ministries can cut fraud, speed benefit delivery and slash the time citizens spend travelling and queuing - Finance already plans to

“shelve manual stamps”

when the government Super App rolls out, linking services to a secure digital ID and payment stack (BiometricUpdate: Lebanon's Super App and digital payments).

World Bank diagnostics and use-case reports spell out quick wins - 2D barcode readers for existing NID cards, selective attribute sharing and initial biometric authentication - that reduce verification costs immediately while laying the foundation for legal and technical reforms (World Bank: Digital identity and DPI in Lebanon).

Central-bank and international experience also shows that a robust digital ID drives financial inclusion and lowers per‑transaction KYC costs for banks and remittance channels, turning previously informal cash flows into traceable, cheaper digital payments that put more money in families' pockets and less in administrative overhead (UNCDF: central bank-led digital ID and payments).

The

“so what?”

is simple: a functioning digital ID plus payments can turn days of bureaucratic delay into a one‑tap interaction, saving the state money while improving trust and access for millions.

Routine administrative work in Lebanon - think permit data‑entry, benefit eligibility checks, license renewals and FOIA requests - is precisely the kind of high‑volume, rule‑bound work RPA can eat up so civil servants can focus on higher‑value tasks: municipal pilots have reported dramatic wins (Sea Girt, NJ saw an ~80% time‑saving on zoning permit entry) and government playbooks show processing time cut by up to 80% across benefits and records workflows, while large deployments have migrated hundreds of thousands of files in weeks not years (GovPilot RPA case study for local governments, MCC Innovations guide to implementing RPA across government agencies).

RPA bots - alone or paired with OCR and NLP - can auto‑fill forms, validate IDs against digitised records, route applications and maintain auditable trails that slash errors and speed up collections, inspections and court‑document requests; practical blueprints and industry case studies help ministries pick the fast wins that pay back in months, not years (Blue Prism common RPA use cases and automation journey).

The vivid payoff is simple: tasks that once ate whole workdays can become one‑click, traceable actions that lower costs and rebuild public trust.

“We are immensely proud of our digital transformation journey as it has enabled us to deliver better customer service by building rewarding digital engagement through considerate and effective use of innovation, digitization and customer data.” - Old Mutual

Predictive analytics can turn fragmented data into a force multiplier for Lebanon's strained public services by forecasting where scarce resources - cash transfers, medicines, hospital beds and staff - will be needed most, so limited budgets buy the biggest health and social returns; the recent BMC scoping review flags chronic stockouts, workforce shortages and widening access gaps (including a ~60% decline in availability of some critical drugs since 2021), making targeted forecasting and strategic purchasing urgent (BMC scoping review of Lebanon's healthcare delivery systems).

In practice this looks like using DAEM's registries and transaction traces to predict which areas will require emergency cash or vaccine outreach next month, or blending hospital admission trends with supply-chain signals to preempt drug shortages and redeploy nurses where surges are likely - an approach already possible because DAEM was built as a modular, cross‑ministry system that sped payments and joined education, health and social-protection data during crisis response (CGAP podcast “Coding Through Crisis” on Lebanon's DAEM digital social protection system).

The “so what” is tangible: forecasting can convert chaotic shortages and long queues into a predictable calendar of need, cutting emergency procurement premiums and getting help to families before a crisis becomes a catastrophe.

“DAEM is more than just a registry; it's a fully localized social protection system that provides a lifeline to Lebanese families hit by crisis.”

Predictive maintenance can turn routine breakdowns into planned, low‑cost interventions that matter in Lebanon's cash‑strained public sector: IoT Analytics estimates the global market at $5.5B in 2022 with about a 17% CAGR, and notes that a single correctly predicted major failure can be worth more than $100,000 while median unplanned downtime across industries can cost roughly $125,000 per hour - numbers that make even modest PdM wins pay fast (IoT Analytics predictive maintenance market brief (2022 market size and CAGR)).

Cost‑effective approaches such as indirect failure prediction and anomaly detection can reuse existing sensors and telemetry (reducing new instrumentation needs), while RUL models support longer‑term replacement planning; roughly 95% of adopters report positive ROI and about 27% amortise investments in under a year, so pilots at ports, water networks or public transport hubs could rapidly free up operating budgets.

Practical deployment requires an assessment framework, careful data governance and secure edge/cloud design - points explored in LMI guidance on IoT for infrastructure management (assessment, governance, secure edge/cloud design) - and proven, asset‑specific solutions like ES Systems' Smart Tunnel show how vibration, humidity and air‑quality sensors plus real‑time analytics spot issues before they become crises (ES Systems Smart Tunnel predictive maintenance solution).

The practical “so what?” is simple: a few accurate predictions reduce emergency repairs, stretch equipment life, and turn costly outages into scheduled, budgeted work.

Lebanon's disaster and refugee challenges show how practical, low‑friction AI and drone tools can save money and speed aid: post‑blast teams used high‑resolution drone photogrammetry to produce shareable 3D maps in hours (Pix4D Beirut drone mapping post‑blast response: Pix4D Beirut drone mapping post‑blast response); practitioners on the ground described launches from urban helipads and fast, safe surveys that would have been costly or impossible by helicopter or foot (FEDS case study: Beirut disaster recovery drones: FEDS case study: Beirut disaster recovery drones).

Pairing these geospatial layers with AI dashboards and logistics planners turns messy incident reports into real‑time routing, shelter‑capacity and supply‑prepositioning recommendations, so scarce relief budgets buy the most impact and families aren't left waiting in long queues (Urban SDK AI real‑time data disaster response: Urban SDK AI real‑time data for disaster response).

The memorable payoff: thousands of images stitched into a single online model let responders see who needs help first - and act before a temporary crisis becomes a long‑term displacement.

Metric	Value
Area surveyed	2.88 km²
Number of images	4,306 (20 MP)
Flights	6
Total flight time	4 hours
Dataset size	35 GB

“What we do is, we create a digital twin of the disaster site, a virtual replica fed with various data types.”

Lebanon's tax and revenue agencies can capture quick wins by adopting the same machine‑learning playbook that recent research recommends: boosting‑based models to spotlight probable income‑tax evasion, large‑scale analytics to screen VAT and procurement flows, and automated agents that turn noisy ledgers into prioritized investigation queues (IEEE paper on boosting methods for income‑tax fraud detection).

A broad review of digital tools - e‑invoicing, e‑procurement, big‑data screening and predictive analytics - shows how governments convert intermittent audits into continuous, data‑driven compliance programs that recover revenue and shrink avoidable manual work (SSRN review of AI, machine learning, and big data for tax compliance).

Practical deployments in the region increasingly pair Robotic Process Automation with autonomous AI agents that not only flag anomalies but also trigger reminders, draft audit briefs and route high‑risk cases to specialised teams - raising collections while reserving scarce inspectors for complex cases (CIAT analysis of AI agents for intelligent tax management).

The so‑what is memorable: a single, well‑tuned model can turn millions of routine filings into a short list of high‑impact leads, increasing recoveries and freeing staff to focus on policy and taxpayer service rather than sifting paperwork.

Data governance and privacy are the guardrails that will determine whether Lebanon's AI-driven cost savings actually win public trust: Law No. 81 (the Electronic Transactions and Personal Data Law, 2018) gives a legal backbone for electronic signatures, individual rights (access, rectification, objection) and criminal penalties, but several practical gaps slow progress and raise real risks for ambitious digitisation projects (Lebanon Law No. 81 (Electronic Transactions & Personal Data Law) overview).

Implementation has lagged - required circulars and registration procedures remain thin, there is no independent national data protection authority (the Ministry of Economy and Trade handles permits), and the statute is silent on breach notification and cross‑border transfer rules - creating uncertainty for ministries rolling out national IDs, payment stacks and shared data backbones (DLA Piper summary of Lebanon data protection law).

Civil‑society reporting warns that weak oversight and concentration of power have already produced damaging outcomes (for example, public release of voters' data), underlining the “so what?”: without clearer procedures, stronger oversight and published standards, efficiency gains from AI risk being offset by misuse, lost trust and costly legal disputes (Euro‑Med Monitor critique of Lebanon data protection law and privacy).

Item	Fact from sources
Law	Law No. 81 (Electronic Transactions & Personal Data), 2018
Regulator	Ministry of Economy and Trade (no independent DPA)
Key gaps	Weak implementation, missing circulars, no breach-notice rule, silence on cross-border transfers, no defined DPO
Citizen rights	Access, rectification, objection; judicial recourse (Judge of Urgent Matters)
Sanctions	Fines and/or imprisonment for unlawful processing or disclosure

“Lebanese legislative authorities view people's personal data as an “economic opportunity” rather than a sensitive component and a recognised right that requires extra protection.” - Mohammad Moghabat

Implementation hinges on three practical enablers: trusted partnerships to design strategy and governance, targeted capacity‑building to turn tools into savings, and a visible Data Science Hub to anchor talent and datasets - exactly what OMSITAI is doing by signing a strategic collaboration with consulting firm Roland Berger to bring strategy advisory, technical know‑how and governance frameworks to Lebanon's AI agenda (Roland Berger–OMSITAI partnership advancing Lebanon's AI agenda).

Rapid upskilling matters just as much: short, applied courses and prompt‑based templates help civil servants move from theory to one‑tap services, as shown in Nucamp's practical AI prompts and adaptation roadmaps for government teams (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus: practical AI prompts and use cases for government teams).

Finally, policy and governance templates - municipal AI policies like the City of Lebanon's ADM‑143 - offer a compact playbook for risk assessment, review committees and transparency that a Lebanese Data Science Hub could adopt and adapt, turning scattered pilots into an auditable national capability where Beirut‑based experts and regional partners rapidly scale pilots into savings.

Item	Detail
Signing party	OMSITAI & Roland Berger
Objectives	Digitisation, national ID, digitised payments, AI infrastructure & governance
Roland Berger role	Strategy advisory, technical know‑how, governance frameworks
Engagement details	Beirut office leads; experts mobilised from the region and Europe

“Our collaboration with Roland Berger, leveraging its extensive international expertise, will accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence across vital sectors and support our plans to build a sustainable knowledge economy that strengthens Lebanon's position in this critical field.” - Kamal Shehadeh

Local, ready‑to‑use examples and templates are already available to help Lebanese ministries move from idea to impact: Nucamp's Top 10 AI prompts shows how policy drafting using Gemini templates produces plain‑language memos and stakeholder analyses in Arabic and English (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work - Top 10 AI prompts with Gemini templates for policy drafting in Arabic and English), while the Top 5 Jobs brief offers a practical Six‑month adaptation roadmap for public servants - complete with skills checks, priority courses and micro‑projects tailored to Lebanon (Nucamp Job Hunt Bootcamp - Six‑month adaptation roadmap for public servants with skills checks and micro‑projects).

For what to emulate (and what to avoid), the Complete Guide collates Global lessons for Lebanon from AI leaders so pilots use proven governance and scaling patterns rather than reinventing the wheel (Nucamp Complete Software Engineering Bootcamp Path - global lessons and governance patterns for AI pilots in government).

Together these case‑based tools turn abstract promises into concrete templates that ministries can test, adapt and audit quickly - a pragmatic route to savings that keeps citizens front and centre.

Turn strategy into savings with a short, practical roadmap: first, lock the basics - clean shared registries and a secure Digital ID as the foundation for faster, auditable payments (see the World Bank Lebanon Digital ID use cases World Bank Lebanon Digital ID use cases); second, tackle procurement with a light, rule‑bound framework and quick wins - centralise contracts, automate P2P, adopt three‑way matching and supplier portals to cut repetitive admin and email overhead (procurement best practices guide); third, digitise procurement workflows and dashboards so spend data becomes a live control tower (short projects delivering immediate visibility are well documented in digital procurement quick‑wins guidance digital procurement quick wins guidance).

Parallel pilots should prioritise high‑volume, high‑cost processes - benefits payments, spare‑parts sourcing and maintenance contracts - so AI and RPA return measurable savings in months, not years.

Pair each pilot with partner support, targeted training and a public dashboard to preserve trust; the memorable payoff is simple: days of paper approvals shrink to same‑day, auditable actions that free staff for oversight and policy work.

Phase	Next Step
Plan	Assess data, governance gaps and priority workflows
Pilot	Digital ID + P2P automation for one high‑volume service
Scale	Roll out dashboards, procurement framework and capacity building

The bottom line for Lebanon is straightforward: practical AI deployments can turn visible efficiencies into real fiscal relief if paired with clear governance and focused upskilling - examples on the City of Lebanon AI Registry show tools already shaving administrative load (EMSReports.ai cut EMS documentation from 40 minutes to 10 minutes, a 75% reduction) and rolling out productivity platforms like ChatGPT for Teams across multiple departments (City of Lebanon AI Registry).

Those concrete wins - faster reporting, automated forms, smarter routing - scale when ministries lock in a secure digital ID, shared data backbones and trained teams able to turn models into policy; short, applied courses such as Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work give public servants the prompt‑writing and tool‑use skills needed to convert pilots into same‑day, auditable services (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus).

The memorable payoff is simple: a few focused pilots, governed and staffed correctly, can turn days of paperwork into one‑tap outcomes that save money, reduce fraud and restore trust - making AI a practical lever for Lebanon's fiscal and service recovery.

Item	Fact (from City Registry)
EMSReports.ai documentation time	Reduced from 40 minutes to 10 minutes (75% reduction)
OpenAI ChatGPT for Teams	Implemented 1/10/24 across multiple departments
Replit AI	Beta, implemented 1/2/25 for low‑risk custom tools