Lebanon has been living one of the worst economic crises that a country has lived in the modern era. According to the World Bank , it is likely to rank among the top 10 most severe crises experienced globally since the 1850s. In this article, we will explore the impact of Lebanon’s economic collapse on the mental health of the Lebanese people, their productivity, and their forecasts of the country’s future. We will also try to discuss two potential measures that could mitigate its severe economic crisis.
The following graphs plotted in the dashboard were based on the UN World Indicators dataset. These graphs reflect the severity of the Lebanese collapse. The bar chart of Lebanon’s GDP per capital for the last ten years demonstrates that the country’s GDP has shrunk by 43% in two years only! To make things worse, the inflation rate line chart show that the country’s inflation rate has skyrocketed by 2724% in two years only! An item that cost 1000LBP in 2018 cost almost 27,240 LBP in 2020! For further details refer to the “Lebanon’s Economic Collapse in Numbers” dashboard.
These shocking numbers have motivated us to study the effect of the economic collapse on the Lebanese people’s mental health and productivity in addition to explore their insights about the future. Therefore, we designed a survey in which 370 people of different age and employment groups participated. The results were extremely alarming: 61% of the surveyed people said that their mental health was affected by the economic collapse while almost 60% of them revealed the negative impact of the crisis on their productivity. To make things worse, 69% of the respondents said that they wanted to leave Lebanon while 62% of them were pessimistic about the country’s future! Almost 1 in every 5 Lebanese said that there is no hope in Lebanon. On the other hand, almost half of the respondents said they would stay in Lebanon if the situation improved. The “Survey Dashboard” summarizes the survey’s results.
The Currency Board:
As Lebanon’s economy has been in crisis for almost two years now, ranked in possibly the top three most severe economic and financial crises since the nineteenth century, an ultimate solution does exist but is nearly impossible to achieve, replacing the ruling political parties. As ambitious young minds, we looked for practical solutions that we can possibly push for to help our country. A suggested solution from an economic perspective would be a currency board, a solution that has been implemented in countries that were facing a similar crisis to Lebanon such as Lithuania and Bolivia. A currency board is an entity separated from the central bank that is given the authority of managing the country’s currency reserves and fixing exchanges rates, it is regulated by law and not the government, hence limiting any pressure from political parties. Having a currency board would fix the inflation rate and trigger a domino effect on the economy by improving GDP, growth, and many other factors.
The “Currency Board Solution” dashboard below shows that there is a prompt decrease in the inflation rate after applying the currency board solution in the late 90s in Bulgaria, Estonia, and Lithuania, who’ve faced severe cases of hyperinflation just like Lebanon. Alongside the stability of the inflation rate over 20 years, GDP has shown a steady increase since the setup of the board as a result of inflation being stabilized. This shows how this solution has an immediate impact and could help Lebanon start the recovery process directly.
Obtaining then Commercializing IP to boost GDP:
Another solution for Lebanon’s current problem is obtaining then commercializing intellectual property; Given Lebanon’s rich human capital this seems like a reasonable solution. Also, by patenting Lebanon’s ideas, they can offset copycat competitors thus preserving Lebanon’s newly found income source, for a reasonable timeframe [till the patent expires]. Some of the metrics to measure a country’s participation in intellectual properties, at least from the World Bank World Development Indicator dataset are:
– Patent application, residents and Patent application, non-residents
o These were summed to a new metric: Patent Applications, Total
– Industrial design applications, resident by count and Industrial design applications, nonresident by count
o These too were summed to a new metric: Industrial design applications (Total)
– Trademark applications total
o No summing of several metrics was needed here
Besides generating high-value, and off-setting copycat competitors, plenty of the high-value wages in many fields are not energy-intensive; for instance, consider the designers of the iPhone package boxes at the Apple headquarters; these box designers literally sit in a room designing carton boxes, and these designers make more money than the overseas employees working in the energy-intensive factory manufacturing these boxes. This is a model that Lebanon who has high creativity but is experiencing an energy shortage can pursue.
And as the “Potential Solution: Patenting” dashboard demonstrates, we’re able to see that these three Intellectual property metrics are positively-correlated with GDP – so it is something that we believe Lebanon as a society should consider as a route to follow.
Conclusion:
To conclude, it is true that Lebanon’s economic crisis has merged us into a dark tunnel from which it is not easy to get out of. However, with conscientious diligent ethical work, we can accelerate the recovery process. At the end, it is in our hands to decide whether we shall stay this obscure tunnel for a long time or encounter the light of salvation at its end as fast as possible.
NO to child labor, YES to safe and quality education
Growing up in Lebanon has been a challenge for all of us. We went through wars, political instability, economic crisis, and many more shocking events. Nevertheless, we are considered lucky enough to have a safe space to go back to; we went to school where we forgot our problems and had continuous support to continue our studies and live a “normal” life.
I met Samir 4 years ago on a random Tuesday morning, I was sick and didn’t go to school that day, but he had no excuse to be out of school. I was walking down the street and saw a kid around 11 years old smoking. I approached him and told him to put down the cigarette and asked him why he was crying. Samir explained that he didn’t want to go to work. He had to go against his will, because he needed to provide basic needs for his family. “If it was up to me, I would rather be at school learning and playing with friends. But this is my life.” said Samir.
Throughout my childhood in Tripoli, I always felt that it is not fair that I am going to school while other children my age dropped out of school and worked every day under harsh conditions.
Samir is not the only kid prevented from living a normal life, more than half of kids living in Tripoli are forced to go to work.
The Tripoli municipality and the Lebanese University- Social and medical work department with technical support from UNICEF collaborated in order to prevent Child Labor. Students from the Lebanese University conducted a Rapid Need Assessment (RNA) focusing on Child Labor aiming to give evidence on the conditions of the working children. The RNA targeted 500 working children involved in different types of work.
After analyzing the data collected, it is clear that these children need all the help they can get in order to get out of the conditions that they are living in. They have the right to education and to feel safe. They are working under harsh conditions, with the knowledge of their parents.
As a first step, the municipality of Tripoli created a safe room where kids can spend time without worrying about other responsibilities.
The next steps are:
-Raising awareness for Kids and their Parents through activities, plays and others.
-Creating a board of NGO and municipality representatives in order to decrease the percentage of school dropouts.
– Municipality should not allow kids to work.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. – Benjamin Franklin
Education is the pillar of society. Education is the only way to a good life. Education is the future.
But do it smartly.
With every generation coming on, every aspect of life is changing whether it’s the way you communicate with others, how you move from one place to another, EVERYTHING. Continuous learning will always show good results, either in the short term or the long term. However, one must not overdo it. Looking back at the last two decades, humanity has experienced several major events, COVID having the biggest impact. As businesses shut down, lockdowns and social distancing imposed, numerous people found themselves jobless, regardless what their experience or level of education is.
We can see on the map how unemployment rates have been increasing around the world in the last decade, especially in the last two years when COVID had a heavy impact. To dig deeper into the level of education of unemployed individuals, we can see in the second graph how individuals with basic, intermediate, and advanced education faced an increase in unemployment rates between 2019 and 2020. This graph shows had advancement in education has led to lower unemployment rates, hence showing the impact that higher education had during the COVID crisis where firms were cutting down on expenses by keeping individuals who can handle a heavier load. In the Education graph, we can see how figures for most educational levels have increased in 2020. This shows how the pandemic has reminded people of the importance of continuous education, however, the impact of this increase was not seen directly.
Continuing education is definitely a great plan for people to follow in order to keep improving and moving forward in their careers, lives, or personal growth. However, one should allocate enough time and effort to decide on the next step they are planning to take as the pandemic has shown us how some people with specific levels of education in certain fields are irreplaceable. More awareness should be shared with people of all ages, to show them the importance of education, and more importantly how to decide the optimal path for them.
This is Hamisi, an 11 year who has a career as a miner.
Hamisi dropped out of his third year of primary school and left his home village after his father was unable to pay for his uniform and school fees. Although Hamisi’s parents have their own half-acre coffee farm, their income fell sharply because of the decline in the market price for coffee throughout the world. Hamisi works up to 18 hours and earns between 60 cents to $ 1.2 a day.
The health of the children like Hamisi is very poor, as they breathe in the harmful graphite dust found in the mines and have poor nutrition, surviving on 1 meal a day.
Child slavery in big industries such as agriculture and manufacturing is an ongoing issue, and they are slowly being resolved by governments and organizations fighting child labor. Stories such as the ones mentioned above are common scenarios in developing countries where there are large sections of the population who are still deep in poverty.
Facts:
+ 8.4 M in the last 4 years alone. According to a report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF, the number of children in labour has increased to 160 million worldwide.
72.1 M are estimated to be in child labour in Africa. 9% of African children are in hazardous work – the highest of all the world’s regions representing 31.5 million.
1 in 5 children in Africa are employed against their will in farms and mines.
Recommendations:
Increase the number of years for compulsory education.
Create more job opportunities with higher salaries for parents.
Set a minimum age at which people can legally be employed.
Around the world, we’re seeing clear evidence that our climate is changing. Floods, drought, heatwaves, and forest fires have all become more extreme in recent years.
As CO2 emissions in the atmosphere increase climate change increases.
One billion children are at ‘extremely high risk’ of the impacts of the climate crisis – UNICEF.
Over time, CO2 emissions have kept on increasing, and there are many reasons behind it. Between 1960 and 2020, CO2 emissions grew by over 90%, with emissions from liquid fuel consumption, electricity and heat production making up to 80% of CO2 emissions
This increase in CO2 emissions has led to a serious issue leading to Climate change and making life harder for all communities around the world, especially communities who struggle in finding clean water and it has impacted different aspects of their lives.
Every day, fragile water supplies are at even greater risk of disappearing completely. Drought or floods can damage water supplies and spread disease at the other extreme.
Belita in Malawi would agree. She relies on open water sources like Lake Chilwa for her livelihood. But the lake is prone to the whims of changing weather patterns.
“Due to drought last year, I was not able to produce enough food for my family,” she told us.
“However, I was determined to save my life and that of my children by cultivating a small garden.”
Lake Chilwa is the second biggest lake in Malawi.
Belita and her community rely on it for transport, fishing, and doing business.
At some points of the year, the lake suffers from extreme flooding. At other times, it dries up. Some years, the lake evaporates completely, devastating the community.
In 2019, Cyclone Idai struck, scarring the lake and land further. Leaving the community benefiting from the Lake suffering to find clean water, and continue working in their businesses.
“It used to take 25-40 years for natural drying cycles to occur.
“But now, every three to five years there is an extreme recession in Lake Chilwa.
“This is the impact of climate change.”
– Environmental scientist, Professor Sosten Chiotha
Action Needs to be Taken!
As climate change impacts our planet’s health and ecosystems, we all must do our part to reduce its negative effects. One way to help lessen the effect of climate change is to reduce our carbon emissions.
Countries like the United States, European Union, and the Arab World need to take initiative in decreasing their CO2 emissions through:
Governmental regulations forcing companies to lower their carbon footprint
Reducing air travel
Switching to clean energy through solar panels, wind turbines, and geothermal energy
Initiating projects to help communities affected by climate change and finding innovative ways to lessen the impact of climate change on their lives.
In the 21st century, most citizens across the world have access to electricity. According to The International and National Law Policy, access to electricity is considered as a human right. However, there are still countries far from having electricity. The World Energy Outlook in 2016 reported that around 1.2 billion people (16% of world population), where 90% of those live in Africa, have no access to electricity. The population of the African continent is a home for almost to a fifth of the world population, whereas it accounts to less than 4% of global electricity use.
Lack of electricity hinders the provision of basic services. More than half of schools and clinics in Africa remain without power or reliable electricity. In addition, electricity is essential since in numerous cases it means the difference between life and death. For example, hospitals need electricity to activate respiratory machines for people with respiratory illnesses. A research reports that around 4 million women and children die because lack of electricity every year compared to 1 million by HIV.
Moreover, a study reports that the number of people with access to electricity has increased worldwide, yet in Sub-Saharan Africa the number of people without access increased from 74% to 77% before 2019. Through out the 21st century, non-African countries that had low access to electricity for their citizens had an improvement and increased its percentage, whereas African countries remained with low access showing no improvement.
The African continent has the ability to generate solar electricity for the whole world in only a small portion of its land, almost a small part in the Algerian desert. Therefore, it is easily possible to increase the access to electricity for all African citizens, however it only needs some radical reforms. This is a long process due to the control of EU colonizers and the presence of corrupt politicians in almost all African countries.
