Pursuing Sustainable Development Under Sectarianism in Lebanon
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APRIL 2018 Pursuing Sustainable Development under Sectarianism in Lebanon MONA CHRISTOPHERSEN Cover Photo: Reforestation project in ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lebanon. © FAO/Clement Kanj. MONA CHRISTOPHERSEN is a researcher at the Fafo Disclaimer: The views expressed in this Research Foundation and was formerly a Senior Adviser at paper represent those of the author the International Peace Institute. and not necessarily those of the International Peace Institute. IPI welcomes consideration of a wide ABOUT THE PROJECT range of perspectives in the pursuit of a well-informed debate on critical IPI launched the SDGs4Peace project in 2016 to policies and issues in international understand how the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable affairs. Development is being rooted at the national and local IPI Publications levels and to support the implementation of the Adam Lupel, Vice President Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In its preamble, Albert Trithart, Editor the 2030 Agenda states, “There can be no sustainable Madeline Brennan, Associate Editor development without peace and no peace without sustain - able development.” The SDGs4Peace project asks how Suggested Citation: countries are operationalizing this link in practice to realize Mona Christophersen, “Pursuing the 2030 Agenda’s holistic vision. Sustainable Development under Sectarianism in Lebanon,” New York: The project focuses on five case studies: the Gambia, International Peace Institute, April 2018. Greece, Guatemala, Lebanon, and Myanmar. Each of these case studies is based on fieldwork, including interviews © by International Peace Institute, 2018 with representatives of governments, the private sector, All Rights Reserved academia, and civil society. While these countries are at www.ipinst.org different levels of development, each is going through a period of internal transformation. Implementation of the 2030 Agenda therefore provides them an opportunity not only to buttress existing aspirations but also to build new partnerships that transcend traditional approaches. As many countries are only just starting to implement the 2030 Agenda, this project also presents an opportunity to spread the word about the SDGs and why they matter to local leaders and communities. By bridging the local with the global, it can highlight ways of working toward shared goals and adapting them to specific contexts. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank all the people she met in Lebanon and elsewhere for generously sharing their time and insights and thus contributing to this report. The author would also like to thank those who took the time to read and comment on early drafts of this report, in parti - cular Jon Pedersen, Research Director at Fafo, Oslo, and Adib Nehme, Regional Advisor at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, Lebanon; their suggestions are much appreciated and have helped improve the report. The views expressed in this paper represent those of multiple interviewees, whom the author has tried to present as accurately as possible. The author takes full responsibility for any misunderstanding and incoherence in the report. CONTENTS Executive Summary . 1 Introduction . 2 METHODS AND LIMITATIONS Sectarian Power Sharing: A Challenge for Advancement of the SDGs . 4 Implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Lebanon . 6 THE SDG s AS A TOOL FOR DEVELOPMENT EFFECTIVE, ACCOUNTABLE, AND INCLUSIVE INSTITUTIONS: GOAL 16 PROVIDING CLEAN WATER AND ENERGY: GOALS 6 AND 7 ENSURING QUALITY EDUCATION FOR ALL IN A DIVIDED EDUCATION SYSTEM: GOAL 4 PROMOTING INCLUSIVE ECONOMIC GROWTH AND INNOVATION: GOALS 8 AND 9 ENDING POVERTY AND REDUCING INEQUALITY: GOALS 1 AND 10 ADVANCING ON GENDER EQUALITY: GOAL 5 Mitigating the Impact of the War in Syria and the Influx of Syrian Refugees . 24 Economy of War in Times of Peace . 27 Conclusions . 29 Recommendations . 30 1 Executive Summary little interest in losing their market share by building up better organized and more efficient The 2030 Agenda calls for inclusiveness, which can public services. Basic services are fundamental to a contribute to stability and peace as well as develop - social contract between citizens and the state where ment in Lebanon. However, while Lebanon’s the citizens can rely on stable service delivery as a power-sharing model was instrumental in ending measure of their trust and support of their leaders. fifteen years of civil war, it is outdated as the Education is often used as an important tool for country embarks on a process to achieve the 2030 nation building and is a key element of the state’s Agenda and advance the seventeen Sustainable service provision. Education is further seen as Development Goals (SDGs). An inclusive and just fundamental to future progress and development, society cannot be built on a political system that is and few are against education as a tool to achieve organized around patron-client relationships that prosperity. One of Lebanon’s challenges is that it generate and institutionalize dependency and has a dual education system where the majority of inequality. Efficient, resilient, and inclusive institu - students are educated in private schools, often tions are thus key for Lebanon’s sustainable organized along sectarian lines. Although all development. When all Lebanese start to receive schools, public and private, have to follow the protection, social services, and opportunities for curriculum of the Ministry of Education and education and public sector employment from the Higher Education, the division between public and state, they can become citizens of a nation instead private schools gives Lebanese children unequal of subjects of a sect leader. opportunities from the start. The challenge of Although sectarianism is impeding political accommodating Syrian refugee children has put processes in Lebanon, the SDGs can provide an additional strain on the public schools, which now opportunity for the country to address some of its operate in double shifts. Yet this challenge also gave political model’s limitations. The process of Lebanon an opportunity to improve its education implementing the 2030 Agenda will face system in advance of the SDGs, as it had to improve challenges, particularly from those benefiting from both the capacity and the quality of public the current system. Yet the SDGs could introduce education in response to the refugees. These crosscutting topics into the political dialogue that improvements are benefiting both Lebanese and are currently not viewed by the sectarian leaders as Syrian children and will continue to benefit legitimate or mainstream. As such, the SDGs give Lebanese children when the refugees return home Lebanon an opportunity for fundamental change in the future. in a wide range of areas. Lebanon is a conservative society on issues Lebanon is struggling with several environmental related to family and gender, and many laws challenges, from sustainably managing water and discriminate against women. That is why the new sanitation, including solid waste, to providing government has appointed a new minister for stable electricity. The influx of more than a million women’s affairs, who will start identifying these Syrian refugees has put additional pressure on the laws and trying to amend them to enhance the environment. Although awareness around these status of women and girls in the country. issues is emerging, Lebanon faces the classic Currently, personal status is not regulated by a dilemma of finding the balance between the three national civil code, but instead by codes orches - pillars of sustainable development: economic trated by each religious sect, resulting in different growth, raising the quality of life of its people, and regulations depending on sect affiliation. Some environmental protection. Further, the failure to personal status issues are controversial in Lebanon, develop stable electricity and water supply has and the new ministry has decided to advance step pushed Lebanese to resort to private backup by step. It will not make a mandatory civil code for solutions like water trucks and private generators personal status, which would meet resistance from when public services fail. A full-scale business religious leaders. Instead, it will put forward some sector has grown up around these alternative mandatory regulations, for example on the age for service providers and has become profitable for marriage, while going more slowly on the most influential business investors. These investors have controversial issues. The main priority is to allow 2 Mona Christophersen an alternative civil code to give people a choice to Introduction abandon the religious codes. This work is an important step toward enhancing the situation for Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing model was women and girls in Lebanon. instrumental in ending fifteen years of civil war. Lebanon’s economy has suffered from its However, it appears to be outdated as the country proximity to the war in Syria and the ensuing influx embarks on a process to achieve the 2030 Agenda of more than a million refugees and has slowed to and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 0–1 percent growth in recent years. Yet Lebanon’s This policy paper examines Lebanon’s capacity to main economic challenge is that it has a rentier achieve the 2030 Agenda and will address the economy that does not produce economic opportunities and challenges the country is opportunities for the majority. The priority of the encountering in implementing the SDGs. It also new government is thus to spur inclusive