Poverty
in the Arab Region
The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies organized
a series of debates around the issue of Poverty
in Lebanon, as part of a general debate on Poverty in the Arab
Region organized by
the World Bank Institute (WBI) and the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP).(visit http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/devdebates/MENA/menahome.html)
The
goal of the five meetings about Poverty in the Arab Region,
within the Development Debates series, as proposed by the
WBI and the UNDP, was to raise consciousness about the gravity
of the poverty situation in the countries of the region, and to
initiate a process of learning from each other's experience in how
to redirect social and economic policy from a focus on the modern
sectors towards the poorer segments of society. The debates proposed
to achieve this aim by initiating a structured series of debates
on some of the key issues surrounding poverty, involving a group
of social actors, policy-makers,
NGOs, local leaders, researchers, private sector, media, donors,
and then by widely disseminating the results of this debate. The
first debates series took place in January/March 2002 in Egypt,
Jordan, Lebanon, and Morocco. There were local activities involving
local actors and dealing with local problems. By synchronizing the
local debates, the groups in the different countries tried to learn
from the work and deliberations in other countries. Connectivity
was achieved with the use of VC and the Web.
The
issues of poverty are not high on the poverty agenda in the Arab
region. However, poverty and inequality are widespread in many countries
of the region. This is due to low economic growth and the absence
of determined social and economic policy to address the needs of
the poor and equip them with the assets and capabilities that can
provide them with the opportunity of lifting themselves out of poverty.
Societies in the region have become more polarized with a rising
social gap between the urban and rural sectors, and between the
modern and traditional segments of society, making the passage to
participatory democracies more difficult, and taxing economic growth
and social stability.
Each session of the development debates was introduced by a brief
presentation by one Lebanese participant. In the first meeting,
on Tuesday March 5, 2002, Dr. Kamal Hamdan introduced poverty
issues in Lebanon, and made a diagnosis of the poverty situation.
In the second meeting, on Tuesday March 12, 2002, Dr. Charbel
Nahhas addressed the macro and microeconomic dimensions of poverty,
and the effects of the public indebtedness and the fiscal crisis
on the poorest categories. In the third meeting, on Tuesday March
19, 2002, Dr. Kamel Mehanna presented the innovations and
challenges of health service delivery, through the experience of
Amel Association. In the fourth meeting, on Tuesday March 26, 2002,
Mr. Reda Maamari and Dr. Joey Ghaleb presented the case study
of al-Majmou'a, a NGO working with the poor through a variety of
micro-credit initiatives. In the last meeting, on April 2, 2002,
Mre Georges Assaf focused on the relation of public institutions
for the poor and on the ways through which empowerment of the poor
could be achieved. Dr. Salim Nasr from LCPS led the concluding
debate.
Publication: expected
November 2002
