السياسات العامة والخصخصة
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The fiscal predators of Beirut
How asymmetric debt settlement and predatory extraction are suffocating Lebanon’s future
After the 2019 collapse, large borrowers repaid dollar debts in devalued pounds, draining the banks while depositors lost their savings. The paper traces how that asymmetric settlement, opaque public finance and a new wave of regressive taxes form a single loop of extraction that suppresses productive capital, and links the way out to privatisation, deposit recovery and a rigorous categorisation of the economy.
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The Lebanese inverted pyramid
The normal versus the distorted socio-economic model
In a functional economy, merit-based public servants govern a broad productive base of entrepreneurs, professionals, workers and SMEs. The paper contrasts this model with Lebanon’s inverted structure, in which exclusive-agency cartels and allied political elites dominate, a compliant intermediary layer serves them, and the productive middle and base are compressed, impoverished or driven to emigrate.
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Lebanese privatisation
Redeeming the sovereign debt and rebuilding the capital ecosystem
Lebanon’s recovery requires two tracks: a state monopoly on arms and an economic transformation away from its oligopolistic model. The paper places privatisation at the centre of the second track — not a fire sale, but a way to repay depositors, corporatise state assets under independent management, deepen capital markets and rebuild infrastructure — and rejects the argument that assets must be kept “for our children”.
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National water governance and the privatisation paradox in Lebanon
A strategic analysis, 2005–2026
This paper traces the evolution of Lebanese water governance from Law 221/2000 to the 2020 Water Code and the National Water Sector Strategy 2024–2035. It argues that formal privatisation never materialised; instead, the 2019 collapse of the tariff model and the electricity grid produced a costly informal privatisation through water trucking, bottled water and unlicensed wells, with severe social and groundwater consequences.
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Water privatisation in Lebanon
A broad view of the socio-political ecosystem around a long-due initiative
This paper revisits the case for privatising Lebanese state-owned enterprises in light of the post-2019 financial collapse, sovereign default and the 2024 conflict. It argues that privatisation under crisis conditions risks fire sales, private monopolies and elite capture, and sets out prerequisites: independent regulators, banking resolution, debt restructuring, governance reform and social protection, followed by selective, case-by-case transactions.
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Privatisation in Lebanon: long overdue
A political tool, socio-economic effects and the privatisation commission
This issue argues that privatisation in Lebanon is long overdue, blocked by a political class that treats public institutions as clientelist fiefdoms. Citing EDL subsidies of up to US$2 billion a year and US$40 billion of related debt, it values publicly held assets at US$12–22 billion, including MEA (US$600–740 million) and the central bank's stake in Casino du Liban. It recommends prior deregulation, eight independent regulators and an IMF-backed programme.
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Privatisation: a forgotten dysfunction
This issue examines exclusive agency arrangements as a neglected economic dysfunction. Tracing them to Ottoman-era supply privileges perpetuated under the French mandate, the report argues that exclusive agents, banks and politicians form a triangle restricting competition, illustrated by banks refusing to finance Chinese car imports. This cartel-like structure blocks new entrants, makes antitrust enforcement impossible, and turned the banking sector into a retail lending hub.
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Sovereign wealth funds
Characteristics, classes and the Santiago Principles
This issue asks whether a Lebanese sovereign wealth fund would be a burden or a solution. Reviewing the five SWF types and the Santiago Principles, it argues that ownership is the decisive problem: government is divided along confessional lines, the central bank faces a US$60–70 billion loss gap and conflicts of interest, and the finance ministry risks political capture. It proposes structured privatisation of state assets instead.
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A strategy on Lebanese water
This paper presents water as an under-exploited strategic sector for Lebanon, citing favourable rainfall, potential water exports and hydroelectric generation. Given the state's lack of funding capacity, it recommends long-term concessions of 25 to 40 years managed by experienced multinational operators, with assets remaining in public ownership, revenue risk borne by the concessionaire, and robust, internationally vetted concession agreements preferred over short-term BOT schemes.
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