Publication: Lebanon Poverty and Equity Assessment 2024 - Weathering a Protracted Crisis
Loading...
Date
2024-05-29
ISSN
Published
2024-05-29
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This report provides an assessment of the current state of poverty and inequality in Lebanon. It documents the impact of a protracted economic crisis on households, that is well into its fifth year, along with their responses and investigates how the crisis has potentially affected labor market dynamics in the country. The report aims to be a resource for policymakers, researchers, and organizations working to identify and address the multifaceted socioeconomic challenges in Lebanon.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2024. Lebanon Poverty and Equity Assessment 2024 - Weathering a Protracted Crisis. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/41619 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Argentina - Crisis and Poverty 2003 : A Poverty Assessment, Volume 1. Main Report(Washington, DC, 2003-07-24)Argentina has gone through a major crisis in the past year, resulting in severe social dislocations, and a reduction of welfare by its poorest. The collapse of the Convertibility Plan, the freezing of bank deposits and the default on foreign debts, and the resulting high inflation, falling output and exchange rate devaluation, carried with it severe consequences for the poor. The break with the Convertibility Plan also meant that the adjustment in the labor market, occurred more through wages, rather than by an increase in unemployment. Inflation reduced real wages substantially, and, unlike previous recessions, unemployment arose largely from the formal sector, with an increase in employment in the informal sector. Many of the middle class, faced with both declining wages and freeze on bank assets, moved into poverty for the first time, carrying characteristics somewhat different than the traditional poor, including higher levels of education. Households appear to cope through a variety of strategies, including the entry into the workforce of those not previously employed, and reduced consumption of food, and other products. The Government's response to move to a floating exchange rate, and the consequent reduction in real wages, has provided the basis for a potential recovery. The reduction in real public sector wages, and pension obligations with inflation, while nominal revenues increased, has temporarily provided for an improved fiscal balance. The government, however, still faces serious issues in fiscal, and financial sector management. And Government programs still do not provide an adequate safety net for the unemployed on a permanent basis. Safety net programs are costly and duplicate other programs. Smaller, inefficient programs should be combined. Educational services need to be maintained, particularly with regard to payment of teachers, as the welfare effects go beyond the immediate income levels of teachers; in the health sector, gradual implementation of an infant and maternal health insurance, and the definition of, and agreement on provincial health goals (with monitorable health indicators) seem to be two key initial steps towards more effective protection for the uninsured poor, including other chronic inefficiencies in the health sector. Longer term poverty reduction measures include policy reforms towards higher levels of employment, access to basic services by the poor by improving infrastructure, and, improved human capital, and their productivity.Publication Tonga - Poverty and Equity Assessment 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-10)Tonga’s economic growth, historically weak due to structural factors facing many Pacific Island countries, has been particularly sluggish in recent years due to several large shocks. Tropical cyclones in 2018 and 2020, border restrictions and surging inflation due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai (HT-HH) volcanic eruption all have battered the population and have potentially reversed previous welfare gains. This World Bank Poverty and Equity Assessment (PEA) report aims to fill critical knowledge gaps regarding the extent, nature, and drivers of poverty and inequality in Tonga. The report extensively utilizes the 2021 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) in Tonga and the official monetary poverty estimate from the survey. The 2021 HIES is the first survey containing significant welfare information that was entirely fielded after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and can more fully illustrate some of the pandemic’s impacts. To estimate the change in monetary poverty, the report utilizes the 2015/16 HIES to impute the monetary poverty estimate in that year given that the government did not report an official monetary poverty estimate from the survey. In addition to identifying poverty and inequality patterns, this report highlights several thematic topics to which information from the HIES can contribute and inform the ongoing policy dialog. These topics include vulnerability of the population to shocks, human capital development, and social protection systems.Publication Understanding the Poverty Impact of the Global Financial Crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014-06-18)Any time there is an economic crisis; there is the very real potential that its consequences for human welfare will be severe. Thus when the developed world plunged into such a crisis in 2008 and growth rates in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) began to plummet, fears rose that the region will suffer rising unemployment, poverty, malnutrition, and infant mortality, among other things. This study confirms and quantifies many of the sobering links between crisis and poverty, but it also shows how powerful good policy in stable times is in attenuating those links. It thus underscores the need for sound growth policies, good macro prudential care, fiscal balance, low debt, reasonably flexible exchange rates, and the like to help prevent and manage crises. It equally shows how effective social protection responses built on adequate existing programs can be. This study documents the effects of the 2008-09 global financial crisis on poverty in 12 countries in the LAC region, and it comes away with six big picture messages, each with much nuance and many caveats that are explained briefly in this overview.Publication Argentina - Crisis and Poverty 2003 : A Poverty Assessment, Volume 2. Background Papers(Washington, DC, 2003-07-24)Argentina has gone through a major crisis in the past year, resulting in severe social dislocations, and a reduction of welfare by its poorest. The collapse of the Convertibility Plan, the freezing of bank deposits and the default on foreign debts, and the resulting high inflation, falling output and exchange rate devaluation, carried with it severe consequences for the poor. The break with the Convertibility Plan also meant that the adjustment in the labor market, occurred more through wages, rather than by an increase in unemployment. Inflation reduced real wages substantially, and, unlike previous recessions, unemployment arose largely from the formal sector, with an increase in employment in the informal sector. Many of the middle class, faced with both declining wages and freeze on bank assets, moved into poverty for the first time, carrying characteristics somewhat different than the traditional poor, including higher levels of education. Households appear to cope through a variety of strategies, including the entry into the workforce of those not previously employed, and reduced consumption of food, and other products. The Government's response to move to a floating exchange rate, and the consequent reduction in real wages, has provided the basis for a potential recovery. The reduction in real public sector wages, and pension obligations with inflation, while nominal revenues increased, has temporarily provided for an improved fiscal balance. The government, however, still faces serious issues in fiscal, and financial sector management. And Government programs still do not provide an adequate safety net for the unemployed on a permanent basis. Safety net programs are costly and duplicate other programs. Smaller, inefficient programs should be combined. Educational services need to be maintained, particularly with regard to payment of teachers, as the welfare effects go beyond the immediate income levels of teachers; in the health sector, gradual implementation of an infant and maternal health insurance, and the definition of, and agreement on provincial health goals (with monitorable health indicators) seem to be two key initial steps towards more effective protection for the uninsured poor, including other chronic inefficiencies in the health sector. Longer term poverty reduction measures include policy reforms towards higher levels of employment, access to basic services by the poor by improving infrastructure, and, improved human capital, and their productivity.Publication Somalia Poverty and Equity Assessment(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-09)Somalia has made macroeconomic progress in recent years; however, the economy remains exposed to shocks, particularly climatic shocks. The economy has shown signs of recovery in recent years after exposure to many shocks. The country continues to work towards a political settlement and still faces high levels of insecurity and high exposure to climatic shocks. The Somalia poverty and equity assessment will focus on three deep-dive topics. The first will focus on Somali livelihoods, given its importance for sustainable poverty reduction. It will look at the type of income, type of employment, sector of employment, and household enterprises. The second deep dive topic will look at shocks, particularly climate shocks. It will focus on who is exposed, who is vulnerable, and what households typically do in response. Resilience to these shocks is essential for households to move out of poverty sustainably. The last deep dive will focus specifically on the nomadic population, given their high poverty rates, extreme poverty, and non-monetary poverty. The chapter will look at the small share of non-poor nomadic households to explore what can be applied to help the poorer nomadic households.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Improving Business Regulations to Support Productivity Growth in Viet Nam(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-16)To achieve high-income status by 2045, Vietnam must accelerate regulatory reforms to boost productivity. Vietnam’s stellar economic success story over the last 30 years relied on export-oriented foreign direct investment (FDI), but reaching high-income status requires accelerating productivity growth. Firm-level analysis points to misallocation as a critical constraint to productivity growth in Viet Nam. Regulatory reforms can create favorable conditions for reallocating resources from less productive firms to more productive ones. They can also reduce costs, lower business risks, and promote firms’ investment and productivity growth. Finally, they can encourage entry of new domestic and foreign firms, especially innovative, tech-based, green, and high-productivity firms, and exit of low-productivity ones as part of a creative destruction process. This report assesses the implementation progress at the mid-term of Viet Nam’s program to reform business regulations between 2020-2025, governed by Resolution 68/NQ-CP of May 12, 2020. The report identifies areas for improvement to achieve its objectives in the short term and shares policy recommendations on how to continue developing the regulatory environment conducive to business dynamism and productivity growth in Viet Nam in the medium term.Publication How to Unlock Pipelines of Bankable Renewable Energy Projects in Emerging Markets and Developing Countries?(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-03)The energy transition will require a major scale-up in the deployment of renewable energy with both public and private finance playing critical roles. Aligning with the Paris Agreement targets needs tripling of total renewable energy capacity in Emerging Markets and Developing Countries (EMDC) by 2030, significantly augmenting financing flows towards renewable energy projects. While the billions to trillions concept, which involves leveraging a small injection of public funds to unlock vast amounts of private resources is appealing, the current situation is far more intricate and demanding than often presented. Scarcity of financing is not an impediment to renewable energy deployment, but the limited availability of bankable projects is. Even under challenging environments, when bankable projects are tendered, investors actively respond to these opportunities and mobilize private investment. However, there is today a global shortage of bankable renewable energy projects available for private investment. Developing a pipeline of bankable projects requires coordinated interventions by governments targeting unique barriers and risks within a country. Governments must deliver the energy transition, while enhancing affordability and reducing poverty. To achieve this, governments with the support of Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and other development partners can address country and project-specific barriers to lower risk levels perceived by Independent Power Producers (IPPs), creating the environment necessary to develop a pipeline of renewable projects.Publication Cambodia: Geospatial Analysis for Resilient Road Accessibility for Human Development and Logistic Supply(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-30)The primary purpose of this report is to introduce a practical framework to assist the Ministry of Rural Development (MRD) of Cambodia to prioritize its investment and interventions for rural roads in order to achieve climate resilient rural accessibility for poverty reduction, human development, and logistic supply. The framework is based on two core geospatial models, namely the flood disruption model and the logistic supply chain model, to collectively identify the most critical and climate vulnerable road sections for prioritized interventions. The flood disruption model simulates the impact of flood disruptions to different rural roads under a 50-year flood scenario and identifies roads where the accessibility loss after flooding results in most damaging impact for rural communities to reach schools, hospitals, job opportunities, and for agriculture products to reach nearby markets. The logistic supply chain model simulates the disruption of Cambodia’s nodes and links and models how supply chain flows get rerouted or blocked, which leads to increase of product prices and shortage of product availability. It quantifies the relative importance of each logistics corridors as well as their rural feeder roads. Combining two models, the proposed framework enables MRD to deploy its limited resources to rural roads that matter the most. Section 1 gives introduction. Section 2 provides the basic context of Cambodia’s rural road network and the challenge imposed by climate change to rural road investment planning. Section 3 introduces the proposed prioritization framework and how it could assist better prioritization at MRD in practice. Section 4 elaborates how two underpinning geospatial models work, including the data, assumptions, and limitations of each model. Section 5 illustrates key results when the proposed prioritization is applied to Cambodia’s rural communes and recommends an indicative list of prioritized rural roads for illustration purpose. Section 6 provides a summary of the main recommendations, next steps for practitioners, and concluding remarks.Publication The Critical Link(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-29)As the conduit between power demand and supply, the utilities that operate the world's transmission and distribution networks will be the critical link in the energy transition. Utilities will need to expand and modernize their networks to integrate variable renewable energy sources and meet growing demands for cleaner and more flexible power. According to the International Energy Association (IEA), the equivalent of the entire length of the world's grid networks will need to be added or refurbished by 2040 if countries are to achieve their energy and climate goals: As the off-takers of power generation, utilities need to be financially viable to enable the coming massive scale-up of investment in renewable energy projects and grid infrastructure. Utilities will also need to lead the way in providing access to electricity to the nearly 700 million people who still lack it today, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, utilities will need to serve consumers with ever-more varied and complex power needs and an increasing range of distributed generation options, such as rooftop solar. In short, power utilities will be the critical enablers of the energy transition and achieving universal access. This paper aims to place the need for sustainable utilities in lower-income countries (LICs) and middle-income countries (MICs) at the heart of the energy sector dialogue. The focus of this paper is on the utilities that manage power transmission or distribution grids.Publication Viet Nam - Recommendations to the National Roadmap and Action Plan for the Electric Mobility Transition(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-04)In July 2022, the Prime Minister of Viet Nam approved the 'Action Program on Green Energy Transportation – Reduction of Carbon and Methane Emissions of the Transportation Industry' through Decision 876/QD-TTg, marking the country's first policy aimed at reducing the transportation sector's greenhouse gas emissions by 7.2 percent. This initiative is crucial for achieving Viet Nam's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement and the 2050 net zero target. The report provides policy recommendations to transition the road transportation sector to electric mobility (E-Mobility) with goals of having 50 percent of urban vehicles and all urban buses and taxis powered by electricity or green energy by 2030, and 100 percent of all road vehicles by 2050. The recommendations are based on quantitative analysis covering EV demand and supply, power sector upgrades, charging network development, and battery demands, highlighting benefits such as reduced gasoline and diesel demand, job creation, lower local air pollution, and significant contributions to emission reduction targets