The Distribution Service Provider project aims at consolidating a number of outsourced tasks at “Electricité Du Liban” (EDL) in a new contractual framework to acquire a number of local operators, the ‘Service Provider’, highly professional and financially strong, able to invest, mobilize, initiate large-scale activities in networks operation and maintenance, design and engineering, network extension, installation of remotely controlled and automated metering, billing and collection services. The project will lead to substantial reduction in capital expenditure and investment, and significant improvement in the efficiency of network operation, maintenance, and services, through the involvement of the private sector in the process, ensuring a breakthrough in customer services, considerable reduction of technical and non-technical losses, and full correlation of energy distributed, billed and collected for EDL debt minimization and elimination. The DSP project will be co-executed with the Monitoring Center (AMI Project), with complete Billing and Customer Relationship Management systems. The operators will be assigned to well-identified areas that could be joined as Lots per operator in line with the current EDL structure. NEEDS handled the project through four major tasks as the initiation phase to prepare EDL’s infrastructure for this new plan. NEEDS services focused on all the required tasks starting from bidders prequalification, to the integration of all relevant materials of the previous project ‘Closing the Financial Gap - Phase II’, to the regional area subdivision, to the issuance of the tendering documents, to the technical and financial evaluation process, and contract awarding. nnName of Contract: Contract for Consultancy and Advisory Services – “Closing the Financial Gap in the Distribution of Electricity – Phase II” nCountry: LebanonnName of Employer: Ministry of Energy and Water (MEW) and Lebanese Electricity Company (EDL)nMain Contractor: NEEDSnDate of award/completion: Jan 2006- December 2008