The Level of “Multidimensional Poverty” Index of Lebanon in 2021: An Attribute of a Collapsed or a “NGOS State”?

Abstract

"Lebanon’s difficult financial and economic situation is making headlines around the world, evoking somehow the latest Greek government-debt crisis. The context appears to have become so acute in Lebanon starting in 2020, and it continues to worsen by the day, that the World Bank has recently described the economic crisis devastating Lebanon as one of the worst of its kind in the last 150 years, according to TRT WORLD. This research argues that the pandemic has strongly affected Lebanon’s economic equilibrium, since travel and tourism services contributed more than 60% to Lebanon’s exports in 2019 (Harvard’s Atlas of Economic Complexity, n.a.) and they decreased by 68% in 2020 (Global Blue), but there are other significant factors that have led to this condition in the long term, requiring to be analysed in order to answer the question mentioned in the title. In addition to analysing the financial meltdown, the dollarized economy etiquette, and the role of the international pressure on Lebanon to give up the banking secrecy, special attention will be given to this Levantine tiny state’s so-called Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) and to the relationship between the analysed dimensions and the existing NGOs in Lebanon, in order to be able to answer the research question."