CPI The Lebanese Center for Public Information
PARTICIPATIVE
GOVERNANCE
GOVERNANCE
| PARTICIPATIVE GOVERNANCE |
Most national and international observers tend to agree that Lebanon is confronted with three major social and economic issues: 1. The absence of a coordinated social policy, particularly as regards health, education, social security and the fight against poverty. 2. Poor budgetary procedures leading to a recurrent annual deficit amounting to around four billion US dollars per year and an inflated national debt that has grown to $52.6 billion in the space of twenty years. 3. A near total lack of planning in managing our national infrastructure. According to the present Minister of Economy the country needs to spend some twenty billion US dollars to overhaul the technical structures that support our society, such as roads, water supply, sewers, energy generation, power grids, telecommunications, and so forth. The new government should not try to meet these huge challenges alone. Rather they should seriously contemplate associating the citizens to the entire reform process.
to all these challenges. The government should allow, rather they should encourage the citizens to play an advisory role in the reform of our social policy and monitoring the results of its implementation, assisting in setting up and monitoring a national budgetary policy and procedures, and participating in the adoption of a planned approach to the overhaul of the country's infrastructure leading to the creation of a National Five Year Plan. Such an approach is strongly supported by many prestigious world institutions, like the World Bank, and The Social and Economic Council, as well as by a number of well known advisory and consultative groups in the United States and in Europe. We have include in this web site some extracts of their reports that strongly recommend the introduction of participative governance and provide some clear evidence of its benefit in the countries where such an approach was used. We are also of the opinion that, associating the citizens to the task of governance, will lead to better mutual understanding between them and the Authorities, improved performance all round, lower levels of corruption, and reduced risks of confrontation between the citizens and the State.
world famous think tank, the Middle East Research and Information Project, that attributes the major cause of the grievances of the Algerian population to their "marginalization" by the Authorities.
Lebanon. It can be best avoided by associating the citizens to the governance and convincing them as well as the Authorities that their common interest lies in working together, not against each other. |
How can Youth lead the reform movement in Lebanon?
To reform adequately and effectively one must possess both the knowledge and the drive. Youth own the will and the drive to launch a national reform in this country but they lack the necessary knowledge. We believe that they can be the driving engine behind these reforms in spite of all the intoxication and the brain washing that they have been subjected to in the past few years through the combined efforts of the establishment, the militia leaders, and the "monocracy". These three groups have successfully forged together an unholy and vicious alliance, spurred and motivated by their joint desire to retain an exclusive hold on the resources of our country without interference or protests from the population. They have rightly realized the danger that an enlightened and knowledgeable youth might represent to their project At their instigation, all references to the methods and to the ethics of local public governance have been carefully expurgated from the curriculums of both our private and our public universities. These subjects were considered taboo and all attempts by well meaning educators to introduce them were systematically countered on the false grounds that they were controversial subjects that run against the principles of the institution. As a result, of this calculated policy, our Youth has grown up with a solid knowledge of a great many topics but remain crassly ignorant of the basic workings of our public institutions, the ways they should function, and the principles that should guide them. Incidentally, this may also partially explain why no officially approved book on Lebanon's history has been adopted until now by our educational system, for fear of treading on "delicate grounds". In our opinion, this relative unawareness of the issues of public governance is at the root of most of the problems that we are facing in Lebanon today. Among them the lack of civic sense, the exacerbation of religious and communitarian allegiances, the individualistic and selfish approach to life in general, the absence of belonging to a State and the lack of attachment to the Nation. All these defects are the results of the deep chasm that has been artificially created to separate and divide the population from the State, the governors from the governed (in Arabic, Al Chaab mina Al Dawle). The project of participative governance that we are advocating in this web site is meant to reverse that trend and restore the broken relations between the State and the citizens. Participative governance, provided it is correctly implemented, will allow the two estranged parties to reconnect again and forge a new alliance to rebuild our beautiful Lebanon on some solid and durable foundations. |
| A3. Our project |
report published on line, two days, ago by a famous think tank on the real causes of the grievances of the Algerian population against their government. According to this report, 300 youth who reported their grievances to Parliament, complained about marginalization, which is called Authorities. This is a serious warning to our government in Lebanon, the current one as well as the new government that is currently in gestation. Do not repeat the same mistake. Do not ignore or marginalize the Lebanese youth lest you face, sooner or later, the same reaction from your people. Middle East Research and Information Project. http://www.merip.org/mero/mero031211 Algeria's Rebellion by Installments by Azzedine Layachi | published March 12, 2011 More Than Food Three hundred youths were invited to air their complaints at a session of Parliament on January 19, and the price of food was low on their list, even though the average Algerian spends 40 to 55 percent of his income on nutrition. The youth representatives spoke instead about the lack of jobs and housing, their marginalization in the Algerian political and economic systems, and the contempt (known as hogra) shown to them by the authorities, including bureaucrats and state security agents. Hogra, indeed, is the core grievance uniting the rough-hewn rioters of January with the more polite protesters of February. Opaque and unaccountable, le pouvoir treats all Algerians who have no stake in the system with a considerable degree of disdain. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |