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11. Towards a Zero-COVID Lebanon: A Call for Action

Author:
Joelle M. Abi-Rached, Nahla Issa, Jade Khalife, and Pascale Salameh
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
In its first report, the Independent Lebanese Committee for the Elimination of COVID-19, a group of concerned citizens with various health-related expertise, addresses weaknesses in current government policy and highlights several directions and actions for a more coherent and sustainable national strategy.
Topic:
Security, Governance, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Middle East and Lebanon

12. Saving the Suffering Lebanese Healthcare Sector: Immediate Relief while Planning Reforms

Author:
Hussain Isma'eel, Nadim El Jamal, Nuhad Yazbik Dumit, and Elie Al-Chaer
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
Lebanon’s economic downfall had a crippling effect on all healthcare sectors, and COVID-19 has further aggravated the crisis. To save an already ailing health sector, this paper written by medical professionals calls for urgent measures to tackle the immediate crisis. Its focuses on maintaining access to healthcare for all, enhancing primary and urgent care centres, controlling readmission, and introducing telemedicine. It highlights needed measures to reduce the financial strain on hospitals and puts forward recommendations to support healthcare providers as well as the pharmaceutical and medical supplies industry.
Topic:
Health Care Policy, Reform, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Middle East and Lebanon

13. The Deteriorated Educational Reality in Lebanon: Towards “Another” Critical Approach

Author:
Suzanne Abdul-Reda Abourjeili and Seham Harb
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
Education in Lebanon was hit hard by the financial and economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. The sector’s structural weaknesses were brought to the surface by the shift to online and distance teaching. Teachers, parents, and students alike were left on their own to struggle through the school year. This has particularly affected the poorest segments of society, as well as parents and teachers with fewer technical skills to educate children. This paper analyzes the challenges that the educational sector has faced over the last year and presents immediate measures and some future strategic choices as a way forward.
Topic:
Education, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Middle East and Lebanon

14. One Year into Lebanon's “17 October Uprising”: Is There a Reason to Celebrate?

Author:
Jamil Mouawad and Paul Achcar
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
A year has passed since the Lebanese “17 October Uprising”. Just as with other Arab uprisings, the first anniversary raises many questions about successes and failures, the nature of the regime and the reasons behind its durability, the organizational requirements and mechanisms of a political transition, and about the despair or the hope that have been created. In this conversation, Paul Achcar and Jamil Mouawad address these different topics through a political analysis of the movement, its players, and the system and its components. The discussion is not limited to analysis, but also offers some ideas on how to move ahead. This will perhaps help in the transition from a state of contestation to consolidating an opposition that becomes a constant political player in the Lebanese scene.
Topic:
Social Movement, Reform, Protests, and Transition
Political Geography:
Middle East and Lebanon

15. Nizar Saghieh – No society disappears through bankruptcy: Its vitality alone can ensure accountability

Author:
Nizar Saghieh and Jamil Mouawad
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
This interview with lawyer and Executive Director of “The Legal Agenda” Nizar Saghieh addresses the most important dimensions of accountability following the economic and financial crisis that Lebanon is suffering. It expands the notions of justice, lack of trust in the judiciary, and widespread corruption while attempting to create hope by emphasizing the vitality of a civil society brought once more to the fore by the “17 October Uprising.” Rather than a mere uprising against power, this is now known as the revolution that revived and rebuilt society.
Topic:
Civil Society, Financial Crisis, Social Movement, Protests, and Accountability
Political Geography:
Middle East and Lebanon

16. A Syrian Perspective on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon: What Lessons to Be Learnt?

Author:
Mansour Omari
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
Along with the Lebanese, many Syrians were also closely watching the verdict of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. This is due in part to suspicions that the Syrian regime may have been involved in Hariri’s assassination but also because of the growing interest of many Syrians in international options for justice for the grave violations committed in Syria since 2011. This paper examines the lessons that Syrians can learn from the STL’s experience in their goal to hold those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity accountable.
Topic:
Genocide, Law, Judiciary, Humanitarian Crisis, and Tribunal
Political Geography:
Middle East and Lebanon

17. Solutions for the “Vanishing Drug” Conundrum in Lebanon: A Change in the Subsidy System Coupled with a Digital Prescribing Platform

Author:
Nadim El Jamal, Ulfat Usta, Mona Nasrallah, Elie Al-Chaer, Ghassan Hamadeh, and Hussain Isma'eel
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
The shortage of foreign currency caused by the multiple crises in Lebanon threatens the availability of pharmaceutical products, with patients experiencing shortages of many drugs despite an importation subsidy system for pharmaceuticals financed by the Central Bank’s foreign reserves. This paper describes Lebanon’s pharmaceutical supply chain and the Central Bank’s subsidy system and proposes recommendations to ensure the continuous availability of medication on pharmacy shelves.
Topic:
Health, Drugs, Medicine, and Pharmaceuticals
Political Geography:
Middle East and Lebanon

18. A Path for Political Change in Lebanon? Lessons and Narratives from the 2018 Elections

Author:
Nadim El-Kak
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
The latest Lebanese parliamentary elections took place a little over a year ago. In May 2018, eleven groups, comprised of 66 candidates (including 19 women) from independent and secular segments of civil society, formed a coalition called Kulluna Watani (we are all our nation) to challenge the hegemony of traditional political parties. Considering the increasing inefficiency and unaccountability of state institutions, and widespread public frustration with the performance of public institutions, one may have expected Lebanese voters to want to vote in a few fresh faces. Nonetheless, they overwhelmingly chose to re-elect the same parties and leaders. This paper examines why activists and progressive opposition groups who try to challenge entrenched sectarian politics have been failing. It analyses the institutional and repressive mechanisms, exercised by political elites, that determine patterns in voting behaviour and thwart the emergence of alternative forces. It also looks at shortcomings of political efforts by opposition groups and outlines recommendations for the future. The findings rely on fourteen original interviews with political activists conducted in December 2018 as well as a review of scholarship on sectarian politics.1
Topic:
Government, Political Activism, Elections, and Political and institutional effectiveness
Political Geography:
Middle East, Lebanon, and Beirut

19. Lebanon: Anger in Palestinian Refugee Camps Gives Rise to a New Mobilization for Dignity

Author:
Marie kortam
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
Those who visited Palestinian camps in Lebanon last month could not have missed a new upsurge in the popular mobilization on Palestinian streets. Their enthusiasm can be sensed in the spirits of the youth, their chants, and round-the-clock occupation of public spaces. This upsurge in mobilization was not only the result of the Lebanese Labour Minister’s implementation of his plan1 to combat businesses employing foreign labour without a permit – after giving them one month to regularize their situation.2 It was also the outcome of an accumulated sense of frustration, injustice, humiliation, indignation, deprivation and finally, anger that crystallized in these latest rounds of collective political action. The question then remains: why have Palestinians in Lebanon reached a breaking point at this stage, and why did the movement take this shape? There is no doubt that this anger accumulated gradually. First, it arose from the political-security arrangement for Palestinians in Lebanon, along with the historical absence of a socio-political contract with the Lebanese state. Second, it is the outcome of the deprivation, oppression, racism, and discrimination against Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, which was finally exacerbated by international resolutions hostile to the Palestinian cause, threatening the refugee cause and the right of return. Moreover, the economic situation of Palestinian refugees has deteriorated and was further compounded after the USA cut off its funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). However, alone these factors are not enough to fully explain this mobilization. These latest developments are also the product of a degree of practical awareness among the Palestinian youth and their discourse which explains their involvement in a movement demanding civil rights and an arrangement in which Palestinians are an agent of change against injustice. This movement is also proof of the existence of a new paradigm of the oppressed, who no longer identifies with the oppressors and becomes dependent on them, but instead seeks to break free from their oppression, and in so doing, spontaneously and effectively imposes a new social formula and project. This paper discusses the emergence of this popular mobilization and its transformation into a social movement, the challenges it has faced, and how its actors built a common framework for action to address their status as oppressed. It relies on field interviews – formal and informal – with actors and politicians, participatory observation, the analysis of organized groups, and contributions via WhatsApp and Facebook. The paper focuses on the movement in Ain al-Hilweh camp as one of the largest Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, with its political and security context that distinguishes it from other camps.
Topic:
United Nations, Diaspora, Social Movement, Refugees, Social Media, and Repression
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon

20. Twenty Days of Lebanese Protests: Between Continuity, Innovation and Uncertainty

Author:
Anis Chérif-Alami
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:
This paper examines the uprisings that have been taking place in different parts of Lebanon since 17 October relying on direct observation of the protests and interviews with various participants. Acknowledging that the protest movement and the situation in Lebanon remain highly dynamic, it proposes some elements to better understand and contextualize the movement. Although Lebanon generally avoided the wave of protests that swept the Arab world in 2011, there were early attempts to criticize the sectarian system and dysfunctional public services. The paper outlines what current events owe to a recent history of protests in Lebanon, in particular, the short-lived 2011 protests demanding the fall of the sectarian regime and the 2015 “you stink” movement (Tala’at Rihatkum) which denounced the public mismanagement of garbage and called for accountability for political corruption. While the current protests have some roots in past citizens’ activism, it is also clear that there are new aspects that continue to evolve as protesters experiment day by day with new ways of doing politics.
Topic:
Corruption, Social Movement, Political Activism, Arab Spring, and Protests
Political Geography:
Middle East, Lebanon, and Beirut