News and Events

UNRWA continues to steadily shrink its educational, health and in-kind services, in parallel with the international drive to write off the Palestinian cause which was already given up by most Arab and Palestinian political forces. In justifying the recent cuts in services, UNRWA once more invokes financial difficulties, resulting from the drop in international funding, while reflecting clear insensitiveness towards the social and humanitarian hardships of refugees caused by these cuts.

This year is witnessing significant changes within IRIS. The purpose is to be able to provide better services to our readers and followers as well as keep abreast on digital knowledge dissemination. These changes are informed by the internal review of our decade-long work and which we carried out over the last few months.

The paralysis that has hit state institutions in Lebanon, namely the presidency, the Cabinet and the House, has extended to reach other institutions namely the Civil Service Council which is a public outfit granted with wide prerogatives principally the appointment of civil servants. As a result of creeping confessionalisation within civil service which started back in the nineties, seemingly “civil” but in fact confessional outfits have emerged to overtake the role of the Council which in turn resulted in further strengthening the trend of “confessional recruitment” in the public sector.

Twelve years after the submission of the law proposal to reinstate Lebanese nationality to immigrants, and four years after its endorsement by the Cabinet during the mandate of former President Michel Suleiman, the House finally approved it during its session on 12/11/2015 after it was placed on the House discussion agenda following intense negotiations and following its endorsement by the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Movement MPs.

Four months after the onset of the waste management crisis and the failure of various band aid solutions put forward in providing appropriate health and environmental solution, the latest plan submitted by Minister Akram Chehayeb appears to be still pending as it awaits confessional political compromise on new dumpsites, a matter which was met with a wide local popular opposition.

In response to placing the law for reinstating citizenship to Lebanese descendants of immigrants on the agenda of the Parliamentary session for enforcement by necessity, following sustained pressure by the National Patriotic Front and the Lebanese Forces blocs, the ‘Nationality is a Right for Me and My Family’ campaign staged on November 4 a sit-in at the entrances of the Grand Serail and the Parliament in Downtown Beirut. Protesters expressed their opposition to any endorsement of above draft law until after Lebanese women gain their full rights in granting nationality to their families.

The latest civil and popular movement which recently erupted in protest to the garbage crisis, and which later expanded to include new slogans such as challenging corruption as well as the call for the downfall of the confessional system, succeeded indeed in rattling the political landscape already in crisis, and in upsetting the traditional political actors, who have been unable to guarantee the basic rights of citizens.

CRTD.A organized in support of the Nationality Campaign, the first part of a series of workshops entitled "Communication for Change". The event was held on September 3 and 4 at the CRTD.A premises and was attended by the 10 participants involved in the Nationality Campaign. During these two days, and using exercises and various other tools, participants sought to improve their communication skills so as to be able to communicate clearly and convincingly as well as craft compelling messages adapted to different audiences. The training was based on the WLP Multi-Media Training Pack.

The ways in which Lebanon is politically run on the basis of confessional divisions, in the absence of strategic visions, and with the inability of politicians to identify weaknesses in the political system, were all conducive to the interference of external parties, both foreign countries and international institutions, in setting the country’s priorities. This conclusion which in the past was confined to radical opposition milieus is now also recognised by international financial institutions.

Under the guise of reform and the salvation of the Lebanese economy, the process of privatization slowly gains ground in Lebanon unrepentantly, and with the blessing of the World Bank and the IMF. This is taking place in the context of failures of past policies, governmental practices, and the confessional system in resolving the different political, economic and social problems ailing the country.