Lebanon’s economic collapse has slowly reshaped everyday life, but nowhere has the crisis felt more personal than in the price of food. For years, Lebanese households lived with relatively stable costs, where a grocery list looked more or less the same from one month to the next. But as the currency began losing value, that balance shattered, and the cost of essential goods started rising in ways no one could ignore.
To understand just how severe this shift was, I looked at the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from 2000 to 2024 – specifically comparing Food CPI with the General CPI. The visualization embedded below helps reveal the full story behind the surge.
For almost two decades, both lines lie nearly flat. Prices were predictable. Inflation existed, but it was slow and manageable. Then, around 2019-2020, everything changed. As the Lebanese pound depreciated, overall inflation began climbing steadily. But food prices did not simply follow that upward trend – they broke away entirely and started rising at a much steeper, more dramatic rate.
In the highlighted portion of the visualization, the gap between the two lines grows quickly and aggressively. General CPI increases significantly, but Food CPI skyrockets. This divergence reflects more than numbers: it captures the moment when essential goods became unaffordable for many families. Imported food items, already sensitive to exchange-rate fluctuations, adjusted more slowly at first and then surged as sellers fully priced goods in dollars. What used to be routine purchases suddenly became financial shocks, forcing households to change diets, reduce quantities, or shift to cheaper alternatives.
This widening gap explains why the crisis is felt most intensely in the supermarket aisle. Food, being a daily necessity, exposes the full weight of inflation in a way other categories cannot. The data reveals that while inflation affected every part of life, it was food prices that redefined the crisis for Lebanese people.
Understanding this pattern is crucial because it highlights where intervention is most needed. Transparent pricing, stable exchange rate mechanisms, and stronger support for local production can reduce vulnerability to future shocks. The visualization makes one thing clear: when food prices rise much faster than everything else, the impact is immediate, widespread, and deeply human.
Lebanon’s inflation story is still unfolding, but recognizing how and why food prices broke away from the general trend is an important step toward rebuilding stability. The gap in the chart is more than a statistical difference – it represents the lived reality of households trying to keep up with a crisis that reshaped even the most basic necessities.
For years, Lebanon appeared to be defying gravity. As we rebuilt from the civil war, our external debt climbed steadily, reaching over $70 billion. But look closely at the blue line in the chart below.
Our reserves (the blue line) seemed to keep pace with our debt (the red line). This created a sense of security; for every dollar we owed, we seemed to have a dollar in the vault. But this correlation was an illusion. The reserves weren’t built on productivity; they were built on the very debt we were accumulating. We were borrowing to pay the interest on what we had already borrowed.
The Turning Point (2018–2019)
The story takes a dark turn in 2018. Notice the divergence in the first chart: Debt continued its upward march, hitting nearly $80 billion, while reserves began a steep decline. The “leakage” had begun. Money was flowing out faster than it could come in.
But where was the money coming from, and why did it stop?
The Tap Runs Dry
The bar chart below reveals the culprits behind the crash. For nearly a decade, commercial banks (the green bars) were the engines of this debt machine, pouring billions into the system.
Then came the shock. In 2019, the green bars didn’t just shrink—they flipped. Commercial bank lending turned negative, representing a massive contraction and capital flight. At the same time, the bond market (orange bars), which had been a steady source of cash, flatlined.
Conclusion
The data tells a tragic 3-minute story: A decade of debt-fueled growth created a fragile bubble. When the banks pulled the plug in 2019, the illusion shattered, leaving a nation with $70 billion in debt and a reserve tank running on empty. As we look to the future, any recovery plan must start by acknowledging these red and green bars—the undeniable accounting of a system that consumed itself.
You inhale 22,000 breaths a day. How clean are they?
Air pollution is invisible, yet it is one of the most harmful elements we are exposed to every day. A major contributor to this pollution is PM2.5 — fine particulate matter that measures 2.5 micrometres or smaller. These particles are small enough to reach deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, posing serious risks to heart and respiratory health. PM2.5 levels are measured in micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m³), the global standard for assessing air quality.
In this analysis, I explored how Lebanon compares to its neighbouring countries and to global regions from 2009 to 2019. The findings tell a decade-long story of stagnation and persistent pollution.
Lebanon vs its Neighbors: A Decade of Stagnation
Over the past decade, Lebanon’s PM2.5 concentration has fluctuated between 23 and 25 µg/m³. While these values place Lebanon below Syria and Turkey, they remain significantly above Cyprus, which consistently records some of the cleanest air in the region. Jordan, though varying slightly year to year, also remains well above safe limits.
Despite these differences, all five countries share one concerning trend: no noticeable improvement over ten years. Lebanon’s air has remained essentially unchanged, offering no signs of meaningful progress in pollution reduction.
How the Middle East Compares to the World
When placing Lebanon’s situation into a broader context, a clearer imbalance emerges. The Eastern Mediterranean region, which includes Lebanon, records an average PM2.5 concentration of 43.33 µg/m³—almost nine times higher than the WHO annual guideline of 5 µg/m³. Only South-East Asia performs slightly worse.
Regions such as Europe and the Americas fall between 12 and 15 µg/m³, much closer to safer exposure levels. This highlights a stark contrast: the Middle East is one of the most polluted regions in the world, and Lebanon sits within this larger environmental challenge.
Why This Matters
A decade with no improvement in air quality means long-term exposure to harmful particles. PM2.5 is linked to respiratory diseases, cardiovascular complications, and reduced life expectancy. Lebanon’s stagnant pollution levels—paired with its region’s exceptionally high averages—underline the need for stronger environmental policies, emission control strategies, and long-term monitoring.
Conclusion
You inhale 22,000 breaths every day. If the data tells us anything, it is that the air behind those breaths is far from clean. Lebanon’s pollution levels remain elevated, unchanged, and embedded within a regional landscape that struggles with some of the highest PM2.5 levels globally. Understanding these patterns is a first step toward addressing them.
The Long Climb: How External Debt Built Lebanon’s Financial Cliff
Lebanon’s economic crisis didn’t erupt suddenly in 2019. It built up slowly—quietly—over years of borrowing. Every year added a little more pressure until the numbers turned from warning signs into weight, and that weight eventually buckled the country’s financial foundations.
To understand how early the signals appeared, I visualized Lebanon’s external debt from 2002 to 2022, using data from The World Bank. This dataset captures Lebanon’s total external debt (in USD) year by year—essentially recording the country’s financial pulse over two decades.
What the Data Reveals
When we look at the timeline, a clear pattern emerges:
2002–2006: A steady but noticeable escalation.
2008–2011: Debt doubles within a decade, marking the first major alarm.
2015–2018: A sharp spike pushes debt levels to their peak (≈ $80B).
A second visualization examining year-over-year changes shows the most dramatic jumps happened in the mid-2000s and again just before the collapse, highlighting long-term structural vulnerability.
Why These Trends Matter
Lebanon’s external debt did not explode overnight—it grew in phases, accelerated by structural weaknesses, and slowed only briefly. The crisis was not a sudden event; it was a pattern, visible long before it reached bank withdrawals, street protests, and currency freefall.
When visualized clearly, the message becomes unmistakable:
The crisis wasn’t unexpected.
It was written in the data years before it became visible in daily life.
In Heart Attacks, Every Minute Lost Reduces Survival
Heart attacks don’t negotiate. Once symptoms start, the countdown begins and survival depends on how fast a patient reaches a hospital that can intervene. This makes geography a health factor.
In Lebanon, where hospitals are not evenly distributed across districts, access time can vary sharply from one place to another. The question isn’t only “how many heart cases do we have?” but also “how close is care when those cases happen?”
Akkar vs. Baabda: A District Size Contrast That Matters
Akkar and Baabda illustrate Lebanon’s geographic contrasts clearly. Akkar spans 788 km², making it one of the largest districts in the country, with wide and spread out communities. Baabda, by comparison, covers just 194 km² nearly four times smaller.
This difference isn’t just a cartographic detail; it fundamentally shapes residents’ access to services. In a district as large as Akkar, simply reaching a hospital can take significantly more time, while Baabda’s compact size naturally supports quicker, more concentrated access to care.
Mismatch between burden and capacity
Akkar also shows a high cardiovascular case load
In other words:
Big territory → longer distances by default
Low hospital density → fewer nearby entry points for emergency care
High cardiovascular cases → more people needing urgent access
That combination is a red flag. It implies that when heart attacks strike in Akkar, residents are more likely to face delayed arrival to care compared to smaller, better served districts.
What could realistically improve this?
This isn’t about building a hospital in every village. It’s about optimizing emergency reach. Lebanon already has health infrastructure, the strategic gap is spatial coverage and speed.
A practical way forward is to reduce time to care in high burden, low coverage districts through targeted interventions such as:
Upgrading/expanding emergency-capable units in under-served districts
Deploying advanced ambulance hubs positioned for maximum coverage
Formalizing rapid transfer pathways to the nearest cardiac-capable hospital
The goal is simple: even if a hospital isn’t next door, the system should behave like it is by cutting delays.
How to prioritize smartly?
The visuals naturally suggest a prioritization logic:
Identify districts with high cardiovascular cases (large bars / darker heat).
Among them, flag those with low hospital density (lighter color).
Cross-check physical area (larger districts imply longer response routes).
Districts like Akkar fall into the high-priority quadrant: large area, high burden, low coverage. These are the districts where a marginal improvement in access time could prevent disproportionately more deaths. That’s high ROI health policy.
Align capacity with need
If we reduce time in districts like Akkar, through more emergency nodes, better equipped local units, or faster transfer networks, we align capacity with need without requiring unrealistic nationwide hospital expansion.
Next Steps?
Lebanon should treat emergency cardiac access as a geographic equity issue. Health planning must go beyond counting hospitals, it should measure how fast people can reach lifesaving care, especially in high burden districts.
Because in a heart attack, there’s no such thing as an average patient. There’s only the patient who needs help now, and whether help is close enough to arrive in time.
Farid’s weekly trip from Yammoune shows how distance can stand between a patient and lifesaving care.
“For many in rural Lebanon, the first battle isn’t the illness—it’s the road.”
Farid’s weekly journey
Farid lives in Yammoune, a mountain village in the Beqaa (Baalbek District). He travels to the nearest hospital about 28 km away, a trip that takes roughly 40–45 minutes—and he does this two to three times a week for cancer treatment. The drive, the weather, and the rough roads make every visit heavy and exhausting
The geography problem
Rural communities in Lebanon face long distances to care, limited transport options, and winter closures on mountain roads. When the nearest hospital is far, time lost on the road can mean care delayed, especially for urgent cases like chemotherapy, dialysis, emergencies, or childbirth.
“Every kilometer matter, especially when minutes do too.”
Why nearby hospitals matter
Faster treatment: Shorter trips mean earlier interventions and fewer missed appointments.
Less strain on families: Reduced travel costs and stress for caregivers.
Health equity: Brings rural patients closer to the standard of care found in cities.
System resilience: Local facilities ease congestion at major urban hospitals.
What we can do
Invest in satellite oncology units and urgent care centers in rural hubs.
Strengthen referral networks so stabilization happens locally before transfers.
Mobile clinics & telehealth to bridge gaps while facilities are built.
Reliable transport support (subsidized rides/ambulances) for critical patients.
Data-driven planning to prioritize locations with the highest access gaps.
A human ask
Farid’s story is not unique. For patients like him, a nearby hospital isn’t just convenience, it’s dignity, energy, and a real chance to keep fighting.
