How homes for the displaced can lay the foundation for a more affordable, equitable, and resilient housing system
Articles tagged "Economic reform"
Postal Politics: The Battle for Lebanon’s Postal Contract
How the rivalry for LibanPost could decide the country’s financial future
Power Struggles: Lebanon’s Summer Heat Exposes Energy Divide
The crisis-ridden ownership of energy in Lebanon has created an energy divide of haves and have-nots and a system reliant on imports
Wired for Change: Privatization vs. State Control in Lebanon’s Electricity and Telecoms Sectors
Reform of state-owned enterprises is both possible and necessary, starting with electricity and telecoms
Lebanon’s Largest Employer, the Army, is Well-Respected but Needs Reform
Calls to defund it will grow louder if the institutional bloat, accusations of graft and political infighting aren’t fixed
Power to the People: It’s Time for Renewable Energy to Transform Electricity in Lebanon
The persistent failure to meet the country’s energy needs exemplifies state corruption and mismanagement
Why is Lebanon Facing a Food Crisis?
Lebanon’s Last Chance for Deposit Recovery
Flatline to Pulse: Prioritising Reform and Recovery in Lebanon’s State-Owned Enterprises
Reforming Lebanon’s state-owned enterprises is key for national recovery.
Running from Disaster: A Roadmap for Rescuing Lebanon’s Telecoms and Electricity Sectors
Reform of state-owned enterprises is both possible and necessary, starting with electricity and telecoms.
Lebanese State-Owned Enterprises: Navigating Reform and Recovery
A roadmap for state-owned enterprises reform in Lebanon, emphasizing transparency, good governance, and rejecting the controversial ‘Sovereign Fund’ to steer towards economic stability.
Redeeming Lifesavings: The Progressive Deposit Recovery Plan
The Progressive Deposit Recovery Plan offers an opportunity for accountability and the redemption of the Lebanese people’s lifesavings.
Lebanon’s New Deposit Recovery Plan
Rescuing What’s Lost: Progressive Deposit Recovery Plan
The Progressive Deposit Recovery Plan offers a lifeline for Lebanese depositors, aiming to recover and restore funds once deemed lost in the country’s financial turmoil.
Don’t Let It Burn: Lebanon’s Last Chance for a Progressive Deposit Recovery Plan
Reckless profiteering and the banking sector’s insolvency demand a bold deposit recovery plan to restore financial integrity in Lebanon.
Exchange Rate Mis-Regulation: A Nation Short-Changed
Exchange Rate Mis-Regulation: A Nation Short-Changed
The Lebanese financial crisis, driven by fiscal mismanagement and central bank interventions, has resulted in market distortions and multiple exchange rates, worsening economic disparities.
Onwards and Upwards? The Lira’s Treacherous Route Ahead
To restore stability and credibility, the government must reform the central bank’s governance, tighten fiscal policy, and ultimately execute a carefully managed float of the lira.
Currency Chaos: Lebanon’s Exchange Rate Policy
Assessing Lebanon’s exchange rate chaos: Sayrafa, monetary governance reforms, and the need for a managed float of the lira.
Sanction elites to stop Lebanon from becoming a failed state
Only coordinated US and EU sanctions may prevent Lebanese leaders from driving the country into the void.
Crude and Green: Energy Giants Scoop Up Lebanon’s Oil, Wind and Solar
Oversight absent as TotalEnergies and QatarEnergy take over the energy sector.
Houses Without Homes: Beirut’s Affordable Housing Crisis
How decades of real estate ‘financialization’ have built a city few can afford to live in.
Burnt Bulb: EDL Reforms Being Foiled From the Top
Electricity crisis set to worsen as caretaker energy minister stifles long awaited reforms.
Sayrafa Explained: How Lebanon’s Central Bank Quells Unrest by Subsidising Elites
“A weak and inefficient monetary tool”
Fanning the Flames: How Misinformation on Social Media Exacerbates Community Tensions
Social media enhances social connections on digital networks but has also facilitated the rapid dissemination of misinformation.
Public Disservice: Reforming Lebanon’s Regressive State Institutions
How politicians corrupted the civil service, and why now is the time for change.
Undermining Democracy: Lebanon’s Cabinet Violates Constitution To Protect Banking Elite
Lebanon’s cabinet violates constitution to protect banking elite.
Sign of the Times: The information That Tripolitans Need To Survive
Electricity timetables, roadcuts and the hourly exchange rate. This is information that Tripolitans – people living in Lebanon’s second-largest city of Tripoli – never thought they would have to rely on so dearly one day. Since the beginning of Lebanon’s financial collapse in 2019, considered by...
Sign of the Times: The information that Tripolitans need to survive
Since the beginning of Lebanon’s financial collapse in 2019, access to information has become more critical than ever.
‘They’ Have Names: Who’s Behind Lebanon’s Banks & State
An editorial investigation into how the vested financial interests of Lebanese bankers and politicians are one and the same.
‘They’ Have Names
Ending the anonymity surrounding bank ownership and management is the first step towards accountability for Lebanon’s financial crisis.
Shadow Trade: Smuggling’s Winners, Losers & Enduring Dynamics
Why illegal cross-border commerce is so hard to stop.
New EDL Tariffs: A Step Towards the Light or a Shot in the Dark?
Lebanon’s residents likely to keep paying for the chronic mismanagement of EDL.
Broken Bread: Lebanon’s Half-Baked Wheat Subsidy
Recent $150 million World Bank loan another step into the debt abyss without long-term food security strategy.
Rock Bottom: The Tax Reforms Lebanon Has to Have
The government’s inequitable revenue structures can no longer afford to keep burdening the poor while giving a free pass to those with the means to pay their share of taxes.
Uphill Battle: Lebanon’s Cholera Fight Not Over
Cholera likely to stay without serious reforms to Lebanese water sector
Lebanon’s 2022 Budget: Harsh Realities of Tax Reform and Government Intentions
Lebanon’s 2022 budget’s has a preference for regressive taxation, potentially shielding the wealthy while financially straining ordinary citizens.
Trick Not Treat: Lebanon’s banking secrecy law is more appearance than substance
Lebanon amends banking secrecy law to appease the IMF but leaves loopholes to protect politico-banking elite.
Bank Restructuring in Lebanon: Depositor Protection, Clawbacks, and Legal Loopholes
Addressing Lebanon’s banking turmoil through lirafication debates, accountability for large deposits, clawbacks, bankruptcy laws, and potential conflicts of interest in governance.
Rhetoric or Reform: Lebanon’s 2022 Financial Recovery Plan
Analyzing Lebanon’s 2022 Financial Recovery Plan, from its ambitious promises to critical flaws in depositor compensation, fund structure, wealth legitimacy checks, and the glaring lack of accountability.
Ministry of Finance Budget Circulars November – December 2022
Summary and analysis of circulars and decisions issued by the Ministry of Finance and Banque Du Liban from November to December 2022
Saade Chami’s Financial Reform Plan: Another Tool To Disregard Accountability
The Financial Recovery Plan appears to solve Lebanon’s financial crisis, but a closer look reveals it’s a tool to preserve elite interests at the expense of depositors’ savings.
Restructuring Lebanon’s Banking Sector And Financial System: A Long Way To Go
Lebanon’s draft laws aim to reshape its financial landscape, yet ambiguities may hinder complete restoration of confidence in the sector.
Short Circuits: Why Lebanon’s electricity sector is still broken
Infrastructure, political, and legal barriers to reforming Lebanon’s broken electricity sector.
The New Banking Secrecy Law: An Advance But Not A Victory
Lebanon’s updated banking secrecy law is progressing towards reform, yet riddled with ambiguities and potential for power abuse.
The Updated Banking Secrecy Law: A Step Forward with Lingering Loopholes and Challenges
Assessing Lebanon’s revised banking secrecy law and its progress, while pointing to its loopholes, need for independence, and effective enforcement mechanisms.
Unfinished Business: Distributed Renewable Energy in Lebanon
The MOEW’s latest renewable energy draft law faces criticism for consolidating power, with experts pushing for reforms to decentralize the sector and break the EDL monopoly.
Smoke And Mirrors: All that glitters is not (yet) gold with subsidized housing loan
Millions promised in housing funding would leave most vulnerable behind
Bogus Budget: Lebanon’s 2022 budget punishes the poor to protect the rich
By kicking the can down the road on comprehensive reform, the 2022 budget is just another power grab by the establishment.
Lopsided Fallout: The Crisis of Financial Loss Distribution
Exploring Lebanon’s loss distribution dilemma, focusing on banks using depositor funds to cover losses, evasion of accountability standards, and the urgent need for bank restructuring.
Faulty Foundations: Bedrock issues with Lebanon’s housing
Lebanese are being forced to live at risk in the name of private property
Morally Bankrupt: The legal solution to the banking crisis no one is talking about
Lebanese banks are avoiding the legal implications of declaring bankruptcy.
Ignore the Mirage: Oil and gas will not save Lebanon
News of expected windfall revenues from Lebanon’s potential offshore gas fields require contain many hidden caveats.
The Great Sell-Off: How Lebanon’s banking sector sold off the country’s financial future to foreign interests
An investigation by Badil reveals previously unknown details of Lebanon’s Eurobond default and how the banking sector manipulated it to facilitate billions of dollars in foreign transfers.
The First 100 Days: A plan of action for Lebanon’s opposition MP’s first months in office
As a minority, opposition MPs must take a strategic approach to cement their legitimacy and start to make real change in the country.
Open Secret: Lebanon moves to replace archaic banking secrecy, at first glance
While a step in the right direction, Lebanon’s draft banking secrecy law remains riddled with loopholes and avenues for abuse of power.
Battle Lines: Ten economic principles for Lebanon’s progressive opposition
Regardless of the election results, the progressive opposition movement needs to follow a clear set of economic principles to take to the people, and the IMF.
Double-Dealing: Financial elites loom over Lebanon’s proposed capital controls
These informal capital controls – which have no basis in law – facilitate rampant discrimination between well-connected elites and most other depositors.
Vague Intentions: IMF ‘deal’ skirts accountability for Lebanon’s elites
Without details, the IMF’s conditional staff-level agreement does more to entrench political and banking elites than to resolve Lebanon’s financial disaster.
Market Incorrection: New Competition Law Allows Status Quo to Continue
The law, which civil society groups and the international community have demanded for decades, purports to liberate Lebanon’s private sector from control by politically connected cartels.