In Lebanon, poverty levels tripled in a decade, says World Bank

• According to the World Bank, poverty in Lebanon has tripled in 10 years.
• The percentage of people living below the poverty line in Lebanon rose from 12% in 2012 to 44% in 2022, according to a World Bank report.
• In 2019, Lebanon’s currency collapsed, inflation soared and gross domestic product (GDP) plummeted, effectively erasing many Lebanese’s retirement savings.

Poverty in Lebanon has tripled in the tiny Mediterranean nation’s decade-long financial crisis, the World Bank said on Thursday.

The proportion of people living below the poverty line in Lebanon will rise from 12 percent in 2012 to 44 percent by 2022, the bank said in the report, based on surveys in five of the country’s eight governorates.

The data provided the most detailed snapshot yet of the economic situation of the country’s population since the crisis that began in late 2019, but World Bank officials acknowledged that it was incomplete because researchers were not given access to the governments of the three global southern and eastern countries.

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The findings showed significant differences in poverty levels between different regions of the country and between Lebanese citizens and the country’s large population of Syrian refugees.

In Beirut Governorate, in contrast to the rest of the country, the poverty rate fell from 4% to 2% of the population over the decade studied, while in the largely neglected Akkar region in the north, the poverty rate fell to 22%. % to 62%.

Among Lebanese surveyed, the poverty rate in 2022 was 33%, while among Syrians it reached 87%. The survey found that the proportion of Lebanese working in unskilled jobs such as agriculture and construction is increasing, but the majority of Lebanese still work in skilled jobs, while Syria It was found that the majority of people were engaged in unskilled labor.

The report also measures “multidimensional poverty,” which takes into account not only income but access to services such as electricity and education, with approximately 73% of Lebanese and 100% of non-Lebanese residents of the country living in poverty. It was found that this index qualifies people as poor.

Since late 2019, Lebanon’s currency has crashed, inflation has soared and the country’s GDP has plummeted, with many Lebanese finding the value of their retirement savings wiped out.

Initially, many thought a bailout from the International Monetary Fund was the only way out of the crisis, but since reaching a tentative agreement with the IMF in 2022, Lebanese officials have been trying to rebuild their ailing banking sector. Limited progress has been made on the reforms needed to reach an agreement, including the

An IMF delegation that visited Beirut this week confirmed that “some progress has been made on monetary and fiscal reforms,” ​​including “lower inflation and more stable exchange rates,” the international financial institution said in a statement. But, he added, “this measure… We have fallen short of what is needed to enable recovery from the crisis. ”

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The report said that reforms in “governance, transparency and accountability” remain “limited” and that without fundamental reforms to the banking sector, “the cash and informal economies will continue to expand and regulation and “This raises serious supervisory concerns.”

The World Bank estimates that the cash economy accounts for 46 percent of the country’s GDP as Lebanese, distrustful of banks in the wake of the crisis, seek to make transactions in hard currency.

A thriving cash economy has created a breeding ground for money laundering, leading to concerns that Lebanon could be placed on a “grey list” of countries at high risk of money laundering and terrorist financing, set by the Paris-based watchdog Financial Action Task Force.