Why direct support is more efficient than subsidies and how to transition

by Haneen Sayed October 28, 2020

written by Haneen Sayed October 28, 2020

Lebanese families in Tripoli waiting on NGO provided food-aid. Photo by Greg Demarque.

Before the Beirut port explosion, which took the lives of close to 200 people, injured thousands, and destroyed swaths of the capital, the Lebanese people faced a deteriorating economic and social situation: the banking crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and a 10-year humanitarian crisis caused by the unprecedented influx of displaced Syrians. The pre-explosion economy was already in a severe contraction, with real GDP growth in 2020 expected to be well into the negative double digits. Job losses were very high with more than 220,000 jobs temporarily or permanently lost between October 2019 and February 2020, according to local publisher Infopro. More recent results from web-based surveys conducted in April-May 2020 by the World Food Programme showed that one out of every three Lebanese has been pushed into unemployment, while one in five respondents faced income reductions. The severe contraction of the Lebanese economy is estimated by the World Bank to

Haneen Sayed

Haneen Sayed is an economic development professional who spent more than 25 years at the World Bank. She is currently a non-resident senior fellow at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center. Her sectors of expertise include social protection, labor and jobs, education, poverty, and gender, in addition to fragility and conflict. She is the author/co-author of multiple publications and articles, and an economist by academic training with undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford and Columbia Universities. Haneen serves on the Board of Directors of LIFE among other non-profit boards that aim to help preserve the human capital of Lebanon.

Why direct support is more efficient than subsidies and how to transition

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