Justin Salhani
In the face of the the Syrian refugee crisis, Lebanon is failing to meet vital national development goals related to female empowerment, the environment and poverty, a report unveiled at the Grand Serail Monday showed.
“A third of the population is below the poverty line,” said Zeina Abla, who presented the Lebanon Millennium Development Goals Report for the years 2013-14. “[This statistic] increased under the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis.”
Since the start of the civil war in neighboring Syria over three-and-a-half years ago, more than 1.2 million refugees have resettled in Lebanon. Slightly smaller in size than the U.S. state of Connecticut, Lebanon now hosts more refugees per capita than any other country on earth.
“[The Syrian refugee crisis is] the highest burden on a country since the 1980s according to UNHCR,” Abla said. “It cannot be ignored.”
Abla also called for better integration of international aid with “self-aid,” saying Lebanon needed international help but also had to properly implement policies to help meet its developmental goals.
She highlighted strategies that could be used to achieve this, such as institution building, changing the current cliental and sectarian government policies, and increasing the accountability of all institutions.
It wasn’t all bad, as Lebanon has met its goals in literacy rates, family and universal education, and decreasing child mortality rates, the report noted, but the country has also fallen in many other areas.
Randa Hamade, representing the Health Ministry, noted a gap between local and international policy. She stressed that certain changes were needed with regard to health care, including an increase in the role of municipalities, community partnership and integration, wider access to medical centers, and greater local awareness of what is available.
Lebanon currently has 200 primary health care centers, of which 67 percent are run by NGOs, according to Hamade.
As with everything in Lebanon, the Syrian refugee crisis has also affected the ability of primary health care centers to function properly and provide full services as they struggle to deal with hundreds of thousands of extra people seeking medical assistance.
Hamade also mentioned the current security situation, which has led to a number of setbacks in all sectors as the country’s attention has been shifted to car bombs, rocket attacks, and border infiltrations.
“Security is always a concern,” she said.
To try and improve coordination between ministries and local communities in order to meet the country’s development goals, four ministries have signed a memorandum of understanding with the UNDP. The MoU was signed by the ministries of Health, Social Affairs, Education and Interior.
“[This MOU] is for places with needs,” said Helen Clark, visiting UNDP Administrator and former Prime Minister of New Zealand, during the event. She added that “strength in local government and community engagement delivers better results for people.”
Clark noted that before the Syrian war, around 28 percent of the population was living on below $4 a day – well below the poverty line in Lebanon.
Today, that figure is over 33 percent, largely due to the influx of refugees – an influx Clark noted was “the largest per capita host of anywhere in the world.”
Clark earlier met Prime Minister Tammam Salam at the Grand Serail, where she spoke of UNDP’s commitment to continuing and expanding its projects in the country.
According to a statement by the prime minister’s office, Clark talked about Lebanon’s serious need for structural development as a way to both enhance growth and reduce unemployment and poverty.
“Enhancing efforts in this direction has become an urgent need in light of the harsh challenges Lebanon is facing due to the Syrian crisis and the flow of refugees into its territory,” she said.
Salam echoed Clark, highlighting the importance of implementing projects that target Lebanon’s poorest areas, which are currently hosting a disproportionately high number of Syrian refugees.
The prime minister said his office had completed “a list of urgent projects submitted by several ministries that could be used to help and support Lebanon.”
During the meeting Salam thanked the UNDP for supporting Lebanon over the years with wide and effective projects in the areas of administrative reform, as well as social and economic development.
He also spoke of the need to establish a comprehensive approach to initiate sustainable growth for the country in harmony with the millennium goals set by UNDP.
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