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Paul Noumba Um is the Regional Director of the World Bank’s Infrastructure Department in the Middle East and North Africa region. He is an infrastructure (energy, transport and water), telecommunications, and private sector expert with over three decades of experience in infrastructure policy regulation and finance. He has advised governments, utility companies and private sector partners on energy security and efficiency, transportation, telecommunication, good governance, PPP and Privatization. Dr. Noumba Um has held technical and leadership roles within the World Bank – most recently as the Country Director for Southern Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) and previously as the Country Director for Mali, Chad, Guinea, Central Africa Republic and Niger. He also served as the practice manager for private sector development and finance for Western and Central Africa.
Power sector reforms are new Lebanese governments’ ultimate test
The formation of a new government in Lebanon — after more than a year of political deadlock and amid an economic crisis of dizzying severity — is a positive development. The scale of Lebanon’s economic challenges, however, requires a new government capable of breaking with its predecessors’ deliberate inaction. It necessitates strong and genuine political leadership, will, and action to tackle the country’s many pressing challenges, especially in its dysfunctional energy sector.
