Syrian Refugee Crisis: Impacts on Lebanon
Abstract
The Syrian refugee crisis, being a byproduct of the war in Syria, has turned out to be one of the most significant humanitarian catastrophes since World War II. How can we assess the impacts that these refugees had on Lebanon? Is the international community fulfilling his responsibilities, at least financially, towards Lebanon? A dominant narrative assumes that refugees levy excessive costs on hosting nations. Lebanon, with an already degraded economy, welcomed the most substantial amount of Syrian refugees compared to the size of the country. Throughout this paper, I find that although the Syrian refugees had negative impacts on some economic aspects, the criticisms are exaggerated. The Palestinian refugee presence, the civil war, the 2006 Israeli war, besides Lebanon's ongoing fragile and corrupt political system imposed massive burdens on the Lebanese economy and infrastructure, even before the initiation of the Syrian crisis. Furthermore, I discuss that some of the policies that Lebanon implemented to alleviate the impacts of refugees were counterproductive and politically biased, paying no attention to potentially positive impacts that Lebanon could have learned from previous Palestinian experience. Recently, the international community tied donations to necessary fiscal reforms in order to restore trust with the Lebanese officials.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 14, 2019
- Accession Number
- AD1108449
Entities
People
- Ali A. Mohamad
Organizations
- United States Army Command and General Staff College