Lebanon must move toward universal social protection

ENAR

Decades of social and economic injustice were a driving factor in the social unrest that burst onto Lebanon’s streets in mid-October 2019, unfolding into a revolution. Lebanese had been pushed to breaking point by the effects of a longstanding economic malaise that has since worsened into a ongoing financial crisis with job losses, lowering of wages, and informal capital controls preventing people from accessing their money. But while the immediate, painful effects of the crisis are being debated widely in the Lebanese discourse, less attention has been paid to long-term risks. Most significantly, the impacts on the levels of poverty in the country and the state’s ability to care for those left behind. Lebanon has long been an unequal country in terms of wealth. A study covering 2005 to 2014 by Lydia Assouad, a fellow at the World Inequality Lab, found that 10 percent of the Lebanese adult population had