Five years into the Syrian crisis during which more than 1 million refugees have flowed into Lebanon, two things are apparent: One, the Lebanese central government has been largely inept at dealing with the refugee crisis, as its policies have ranged from denial and indifference in the early phases of the crisis to forming a ministerial committee that has yet to develop a strategy to confront the problem head-on. Beside closing the borders and imposing legal restrictions on Syrian refugees, the government’s ineptness is largely due to bickering among political parties that has led, like other issues facing the country, to paralysis. Two, in the meantime and as a consequence of the first issue, refugees became de facto a local problem, leaving many municipalities with the tremendous challenge of not only governing for local Lebanese residents but also refugees.
Links
Resource collections
- UN Habitat - Urban Response Collection
- Urban Response - Urban Crisis Preparedness and Risk Reduction
- Urban Response Collection - Community Engagement and Social Cohesion
- Urban Response Collection - Economic Recovery
- Urban Response Collection - Environment and Climate Change
- Urban Response Collection - Housing, Land and Property
- Urban Response Collection - Urban Crisis Response, Recovery and Reconstruction
- Urban Response Collection - Urban Resilience