Lebanon’s governance crisis

Abstract

Lebanon is experiencing an unprecedented economic crisis that has caused inflation to rise and basic public services to be cut dramatically. This has led to social unrest and worsened the country’s governance problem. The economic model that arose after Lebanon’s civil war, which relies on debt held by domestic banks and the Central Bank of Lebanon, is no longer sustainable, and the country’s political elite have shunned reforms urged by the World Bank and the IMF. The current government, led by Najib Mikati, is facing elections scheduled for May 2022 and will probably prove unable to improve the country’s dire economic circumstances before then, with poverty and unemployment rates expected to rise even further.