Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in Tackling Corruption in Lebanon

As a series of lectures aiming at bringing the issue of corruption in Lebanon on the public agenda and speculating practical and concrete measures to the ever-growing endemic, LOST organized a roundtable entitled “Corruption in the Lebanese Medical Sector” at its headquarters in Baalbeck in the presence of NGO representatives, the media, and some social figures. The main lecturer, Ismail Sukkariyye, offered an extensive diagnosis of the problem and asserted that any feasible solution requires a bottom-up approach in medical reform since all initiatives conducted on the senior level, be it governmental or legislative, deems inefficient, unproductive and purely arbitrary.

The objective behind these activities, LOST believes, is to capitalize on the role of citizens in fighting corruption by insuring their right of access to information and providing them with the mechanisms to hold government accountable.  Thus highlighting the dire consequences of this problem at the grass root level is needed to restore interaction between government and citizens based on transparency and accountability.

To LOST, combating corruption is becoming a priority for Lebanon’s political, economic, and democratic development.  Although Lebanon ratified the United Nation Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) in 2008, the country is still ranked 134th among the 183rd counties on the Corruption Perception Index, the 14th among the Arab countries.