“The best thing a government can do when things are going well is not to do anything,” says Salam Yamout, national information and communication technology strategy coordinator at the Council of Ministers. “Governments move when markets fail,” she says. Yamout’s attitude reflects Lebanon’s laissez-faire economic style when it comes to matters of government intervention in the private sector. But with an economy ravaged by domestic and regional tensions, paired with a growing unemployment rate, the country could use some government intrusion. Nowhere is this more true than in the budding entrepreneurial ecosystem, which has seen the creation of several successful startups but is still facing many barriers. Lebanon’s score on the World Bank’s “Doing Business” report for 2014 underlines the need for some government action to bolster the business environment for entrepreneurship. Out of 189 economies, Lebanon ranked 120th for starting a business, 109th for getting credit, 98th for protecting
