Humanitarian aid alone cannot save Lebanon
Nadine Francis-Pohle/ aljazeera:
With the world’s attention focused firmly on Ukraine, countless other countries in crisis have been forgotten – left to fend for themselves with not enough support from the international community.
Lebanon is one of these countries. Decades of corruption and excessive spending by the ruling elite ran Lebanon into the ground. Since 2019, the Lebanese pound has lost 98 percent of its value, rendering salaries worthless. More than 80 percent of the Lebanese population is currently living in poverty. Public services and major infrastructure have collapsed, and households are suffering from an acute electricity shortage.
On top of all this, Lebanon is facing a massive exodus of mainly young, educated citizens. In the past few years, and especially since the devastating Beirut explosion, many in Lebanon have lost all hope for the future. Emigration in search of a better tomorrow has always been in the Lebanese psyche. But today, young people in Lebanon are more eager to emigrate than ever before.
This status quo, where precarity is the norm and everyone is looking for a way out, is not maintainable. The ever-deepening humanitarian crisis in Lebanon requires an immediate response from the international community.
In March, the European Union announced 60 million euros ($65m) in humanitarian aid for “the most vulnerable people” in Lebanon. At a time when Lebanon’s crisis is rapidly moving down the global priority list, and most international aid money is being redirected towards Ukraine, this gesture of goodwill was more than welcome. But the offered amount is not nearly enough to lift out of poverty the estimated four million people in the country who rely on humanitarian aid for their most basic needs.Sending humanitarian assistance to Lebanon is like putting a bandage on a bullet wound. It can provide some short-term respite, but cannot stop the bleeding – or save the patient.
What Lebanon needs today, alongside humanitarian aid to meet people’s immediate needs, is political stability. Only when political stability is achieved can the country start to heal its deep societal wounds and resolve its chronic economic crises.
One of the main obstacles to political stability in Lebanon is sectarianism. Sectarian divides have long decided the course of Lebanon’s history and are still preventing the country from reaching its full potential, and overcoming the many political and economic challenges it is facing.