Lebanon is a mountainous country in the Levant with a coastline on the eastern Mediterranean Sea. It borders Israel in the south and Syria in the north and is the smallest nation on the Asian mainland. Nine years into the Syrian conflict, nearly 1.5 million Syrian refugees are currently living in Lebanon, of whom about 950,000. With a population of 6.1 million, Lebanon is host to the largest number of refugees per capita in the world.

On 4 August 2020, a warehouse in the Beirut Port – capital of Lebanon – exploded, causing widespread casualties and damage to infrastructure. The blast hit the country at a time of an unprecedented economic crisis at the same time as it tries to curb the spread of COVID-19. The economic situation has pushed tens of thousands of people into poverty.

The ETC has deployed a Sector Coordinator to Beirut to initiate coordination with partners and operators on the ground and to assess technology requirements. 

Additionally, the ETC has supported shared security telecommunications services in Lebanon since 2013 as part of the response to the Syrian crisis - a Whole of Syria (WoS) approach which comprises activities in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan for an effective humanitarian response inside Syria.