LAGUNA HILLS, CALIFORNIA…DECEMBER 1, 1999…Once considered the Paris of the East, Lebanon fell off the tourist map when it disintegrated into civil war in 1975. Surviving the past two decades of conflict, Beirut, the country’s capital, has earned the right to call itself, "the city that would not die". As if to demonstrate this resiliency, the Lebanese have launched a great rush of building activity to restore their historic areas and to modernize its infrastructure, a plan which is projected to take 25 years to complete. To aid in the economic rebirth of the nation, the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR) is charged with the rebuilding including planning, construction, infrastructure management and land ownership. A key technology which encompasses and can coordinate all of these domains is geographic information systems (GIS) - a computerized system for the compilation, access, retrieval, analysis and display of geographic and graphic related data.

GPC, a US-based GIS consulting firm and K&A, a Beirut-based engineering firm have been awarded a grant by the US Trade and Development Agency to assist with the planning and design of a National GIS Center (NGISC) in Beirut. The purpose of this center is to develop and promote GIS standards and guidelines, and to establish an organizational unit to support the coordinated development of GIS technology and geographic databases across all relevant Government Ministries.

The NGISC will support the restoration of the public services and the stimulation of the private sector economic activity. In addition, the technical standards and guidelines developed by the NGISC will influence private sector development throughout the country. It is estimated that the potential government and commercial GIS market is USD $14-20 million over the next 2-6 years.

The task of identifying and sourcing financing for the eventual implementation of this high-profile project has been left in the hands of Pacific Genesis, a firm specializing in carrying through the financing of international projects with international lending institutions including the Multilateral Development Banks.

Pacific Genesis is a project development/project finance firm specializing in assisting engineering, construction, design, transportation, GIS, computer hardware/software and environmental firms find and establish new markets for their products and services. This includes an extensive background in the Multilateral Development Banks (World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, U.S. Trade & Development Agency) and other international financing agencies. With offices in California and Washington DC, Pacific Genesis is currently engaged in projects in over 15 countries across the world.

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