Resources

Working Paper | October 2014
Operation Protective Edge & Legal Remedies by Noura Erakat, Bianca Isaias, and Salmah Rizvi
This briefing paper provides a non-exhaustive survey of the legal fora in which Palestinians have sought, or can seek, legal redress. These include international courts, in particular the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the International Criminal Court (ICC), and special tribunals; national courts under universal jurisdiction as well as the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) in US federal courts; and human rights bodies and mechanisms like the Human Rights Council, and human...

   As the Syrian crisis enters the fourth year, there is a timely need to reflect on the wider implications on Lebanon. The influx of over a million and half Syrian refugees brought a total of 400,000 school age refugees to Lebanon. This dramatic demographic shift posed a formidable challenge to an education system suited to deliver education to a national student population of just over 900,000. To date, the Lebanese Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) which only host 30% of the student population in Lebanon shouldered the burden of education service delivery with support from...

Widening Access to  Quality Education for Syrian Refugees: The role of private and NGO Sectors  in Lebanon Authors Maha Shuayb, Nisrine Makkouk and Suha Tuttunji   September 2014

The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is pleased to share with you the report:  “Responding to the Impact of the Syrian Crisis on Lebanon: Recovery Framework for Wadi Khaled and Akroum, Akkar”, March 2014. SDC facilitated a process to shed light on the impact of the Syria crisis at the national level but also on the local level. The formulation of a recovery framework for Wadi Khaled and Akroum is a process that can be replicated for other affected regions of Lebanon. The findings and recommendations are based on consultations (between October 2013 and January 2014) with...

This document represents the strategic plan of the Middle East and North Africa Harm Reduction Association,MENAHRA, for the period of July 2014 till December 2019. The development of a revised strategic plan was necessary due to the new challenges faced, and changing contexts in which MENAHRA has been operating in the past few years. Established in 2007 as a network of organisations with a central Secretariat in Beirut and three Knowledge Hubs in Iran, Lebanon and Morocco,MENAHRA has taken on additional roles over the past years, including the management of a large regional HIV grant. The...

This working paper analyzes the susceptibility of agricultural outputs to future climate change in Lebanon, and the extent to which it propagates to the economic system as a whole. A methodological framework in which physical and economic models are integrated for assessing the higher-order economic impacts of projected climate changes is used. The researchers then quantify the broader economic impacts in the country considering not only the temporal dimension but also the regional disaggregation of the results. The results show that there are potential high costs and risks associated with a...

Potential greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction and social welfare gains can be achieved from upgrading the bus service in the Greater Beirut Area through a bundle of realistic bus service improvements in the short term. Such improvements will need to be comprehensive in scope and include both improvements in bus level of service attributes (access/egress time, headway, in-vehicle travel time, and number of transfers) and the provision of amenities, including air-conditioning and Wi-Fi. Moreover, such a service needs to be cheaply priced to achieve reasonably high levels of switching...

Policy Brief | August 2014
Commuters’ Behavior towards Upgraded Bus Services in Greater Beirut: Role of Itinerary and Implications for Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Social Welfare and Transport Policy by Ali Chalak, Hani Al-Naghi,Alexandra Irani, and Maya Abou-Zeid
​Potential greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction and social welfare gains can be achieved from upgrading the bus service in the Greater Beirut Area through a bundle of realistic bus service improvements in the short term. Such improvements will need to be comprehensive in scope and include both improvements in bus level of service...

The current congestion levels in the Beirut Central District (BCD) are not acceptable. These levels are expected to get worse with further development proposed in the BCD and New Waterfront District. Beirut will not be able to economically compete with other cities as it is lacking a comprehensive multi-modal transport system. One way to improve this situation is by introducing a more sustainable transportation system. In addition to reducing congestion levels a sustainable transport system will generate benefits related to: travel time, fewer accidents, a decrease in operational costs of...

Policy Brief | August 2014
Economic Impacts of Adopting a Sustainable Transport System in Beirut by Mazen Omran, Johnny Ojeil, and Youssef Fawaz
​The current congestion levels in the Beirut Central District (BCD) are not acceptable. These levels are expected to get worse with further development proposed in the BCD and New Waterfront District. Beirut will not be able to economically compete with other cities as it is lacking a comprehensive multi-modal transport system. One way to improve this situation is by introducing a more sustainable transportation system. In addition to reducing...

Policy Brief | August 2014
The Experience of AUC and the Need for Public Transportation for New Cairo, Egypt by Richard Tutwiler, Hagar Eldidi, Yumna Kassim, and Andrew Petrovich
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IFI’s Climate Change and Environment in the Arab World Program, launched in 2008, has been tracking and framing climate change international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) - in particular to what pertains to Lebanon and Arab countries. Key members of the program have attended nearly all the Conferences of the Parties (COP) as part of the official Lebanese delegation since COP 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009. From this exposure, it has become apparent that literature on the history of the involvement of key Arab countries in the past 20...

Walking, it has been said, is the ultimate form of sustainable public transportation. Beirut, however, is one of the most pedestrian unfriendly cities in the world. Many streets do not even have sidewalks, and where they exist, they are often broken, or obstructed, or hazardous when wet. In 2010, two units at AUB, the Neighborhood Initiative and the Center for Civic Engagement and Community Service, joined forces to design Beirut’s first barrier-free walkway on Jeanne d’Arc Street, a major thoroughfare in the university’s neighborhood. For more information check out IFI's Sustainable...

Policy Brief | August 2014
Jeanne d’Arc Street; A Model Pedestrian-Friendly Street for all of Beirut by Cynthia Myntti and
Mounir Mabsout
Walking, it has been said, is the ultimate form of sustainable public transportation. Beirut, however, is one of the most pedestrian unfriendly cities in the world. Many streets do not even have sidewalks, and where they exist, they are often broken, or obstructed, or hazardous when wet. In 2010, two units at AUB, the Neighborhood Initiative and the Center for Civic Engagement and Community Service, joined forces to design Beirut’s first barrier-free walkway...

The world’s transport sector still suffers from unsustainable trends that lead to increased levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. There have been efforts, in the Arab world, the United States and Europe, as well as the rest of the world, to tackle the issue. Much work remains to reach a sustainable transport system in the Arab world, but the recommendations presented offer basic guidelines on how to proceed with any sustainable transportation initiative. For more information check out IFI's Sustainable Transportation Series

Policy Brief | August 2014
Sustainable Transportation in the Arab World: International Benchmarking on Sustainable Transport Policies and their Impacts by Issam Kaysi and Farid Chaaban
​The world’s transport sector still suffers from unsustainable trends that lead to increased levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. There have been efforts, in the Arab world, the United States and Europe, as well as the rest of the world, to tackle the issue. Much work remains to reach a sustainable transport system in the Arab world, but the recommendations presented offer basic guidelines on how to proceed...

Policy Brief | August 2014
Sustainable Transportation and Mega Sporting Events in Arab Countries: the Case of Qatar by Robert Wittkuhn and Danyel Reiche
​As a motive for hosting mega sporting events, Qatar is highlighting their catalyst effect for planned infrastructure developments. Qatar plans on building intra-city, inter-city and inter-state road and railway networks for the FIFA 2022 initially, and further national use. The planned transportation construction could potentially be sustainable, but the social and political buildup of Qatar hinders such a development; especially when...

The private sector has long been a major contributor to humanitarian action. At the community level, businesses frequently use their materials and resources to aid people affected by crises. As local markets recover and supply chains are repaired, crisis-affected people are once again able to access basic goods and, in some cases, resume livelihoods. Large national, regional and multinational firms are also closely involved in supporting humanitarian objectives, whether indirectly, by resuming operations in crisis affected areas, or directly, by providing cash and in kind donations of goods or...

The humanitarian aid system is growing and expanding, and so surely its capacity to meet these challenges should also be growing. Yet despite the enormous resources, in the more complex, less high-profile and difficult contexts, MSF teams in the field have seen that humanitarian responses to displacement emergencies have not occurred in a timely and effective way. This is especially the case in conflict areas. These observations have prompted MSF to conduct this review, to better understand how the humanitarian system is responding to acute displacement emergencies. The review is based on...

In May 2014 the Lebanese authorities put in place new requirements for Palestinian refugees from Syria trying to enter Lebanon. Many of the conditions are very difficult to meet and have the effect of denying people fleeing conflict the possibility of seeking safety in Lebanon. This briefing details the restrictions facing Palestinian refugees from Syria who try to enter or stay in Lebanon, as far as these are known. It describes some of the implications for refugees and includes the accounts of several Palestinian refugees from Syria who have been directly affected.