The United Nations: Lebanon needs to change course

The United Nations considered on Wednesday that the Lebanese state and the Central Bank are responsible for an unprecedented financial crisis that has led to “unnecessary impoverishment” of the majority of the population.

 

The international organization said in a report issued by UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Olivier de Schutter, after his visit to Lebanon in November 2021, that Lebanon needs to change course.

 

According to the report, the Lebanese State, including its Central Bank, is responsible for human rights violations, including the unnecessary immiseration of the population, that have resulted from this man-made crisis.

 

Since the start of the economic crisis, which the World Bank has ranked among the worst in the world since 1850, the number of people living below the poverty line has increased to eighty percent, and all prices have risen by more than two hundred percent. Furthermore, the Lebanese lira has lost more than ninety percent of its value.

 

“Nine out of ten people find it difficult to obtain an income, and more than six out of ten people would leave the country if they were able to do so,” according to the report.

 

The UN also considered that “the international community can and should provide support, but such support will only have an impact if structural reforms are adopted to put an end to the process of impoverishment.”

 

The United Nations report came days before the parliamentary elections scheduled for Sunday, the first since the start of the economic collapse in the country.