Just go

When the Investment Development Authority of Lebanon was first created in 1994, hope for the economy to flourish was not such a wild concept. Lebanon was being rebuilt after the war. Times were changing. There was enthusiasm for a reconstructed Lebanon with shining new infrastructure. IDAL was to be one of the institutions spearheading the project of rebuilding the economy by marketing Lebanon abroad and attracting foreign investment. Twenty years later, it has become obvious that the hope couldn’t have been more misplaced. As our investigation reveals, IDAL has abjectly failed to deliver (see “Shattered dreams“). Foreign direct investment has been middling at best; at some $2.8 billion in 2013, inflows were roughly the same as a decade earlier, and that’s without adjusting for inflation. This failure can be attributed to a number of reasons. Economic decisions, decreasingly a priority for the cabinet, were ultimately relegated to the back burner.