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1. What is a National Economic Plan?

The introduction to the website of the Republic of Ireland’s own National

Development Plan (NDP) provides the best definition of an ideal National

Economic Plan. It reads as follows:

“The National Development Plan 2007-2013 entitled Transforming Ireland –

Better Quality of Life for All, sets out the roadmap to Ireland’s future. The

€184

billion Plan represents another major milestone in building a

prosperous

Ireland for all the people, characterized by sustainable economic

growth, greater

social inclusion and balanced regional development.”

Reading through that statement one notices that every word is carefully

chosen

to clearly describe the functions and the raison d’être of the Irish

National

Development Plan. It is also evident that the same criteria that are

mentioned

above can equally apply to Lebanon, especially since Ireland’s

overall economic

make-up does not differ much from our own.

2. What are the broad subjects that the LEBANESE NATIONAL

ECONOMIC

PLAN should address?

We propose to deal with the following main issues which most markedly

affect

the Lebanese economy at the present time and are likely to do so

during the next

few years. During the course of the Plan’s preparation it may

become necessary

to include some additional topics.

The Fiscal Strategy

The development and the growth strategy

The Public Debt

The Privatizations

The financial and the monetary policies

The Paris III Conference and its impact on the Plan

The future prospects that are offered to Lebanon

3. Why is a PLAN needed?

This question has been answered at length in a number of past studies that

have undertaken on the subject. Let us briefly enumerate some of the

most

obvious benefits to Lebanon from the implementation of a carefully

studied,

popularly supported and wisely implemented National Plan.

The citizens will acquire more confidence and trust in their Government. The

State will be able to chart a straighter course. The Nation’s economy will

grow

more harmoniously. Lebanon’s relations with its regional neighbors

will

improve. Ultimately, and provided the Plan is ready on time, the citizens

will be

given, by the next spring, the opportunity to vote for an economic and a

social

program instead of a “zaim”.

Above all, the national energies that were so wastefully squandered in the

past

on unending and ruinous squabbles and wars among the communities

will be

redirected toward a constructive task of plan building, country’s

revival, and

program implementation.

4. Did Lebanon have any national plans before and were they applied

successfully?

President Fouad Chehab, during his mandate (1958-1964) initiated a

National

Plan that was fairly successfully implemented during that period,

but was

subsequently partially abandoned by his successors. Thirty six

years later the

CDR (The Council for Reconstruction and Development)

prepared a seven

hundred pages document entitled Horizon 2000 that was

successively updated

in 2005 and in 2008, but was never officially adopted

by the government or by

Parliament.

5. Why the PLAN of President Chehab (that was prepared by the

Mission

Irfed) was gradually neglected by his successors

In our opinion, the Chehab/Irfed Plan fell into neglect soon after the end of

his

mandate because it was initially “imposed” upon the citizens though it

was

admirable in many respects. His successors failed to carry it out

adequately

because the concept itself was alien to the general mentality

prevailing at the

time, and because the initiators of the Plan failed, from the

start, to “sell it”

successfully to the population and to the Civil Administration.

6. What happened to the 1994-2000 PLAN prepared by CDR? Why was

never implemented, in spite of being updated in 2005 and 2008?

Again, during that period, we believe that the population and the Civil

Administration were not properly “prepared” to adopt the Horizon 2000 Plan.

any case, some people have surmised that the mere bulkiness of the

document

and its over-technical approach discouraged the people’s

representatives from

reading and studying the 700 pages that compose the

Plan. Furthermore, the

Syrian occupation, the subsequent assassination of

Prime Minister Hariri and

the three years of political impasse that followed,

put an effective stop to such a

noble initiative.

7. What were the consequences of the absence of a PLAN, from 1995

date?

In our opinion, most of the ills that have befallen the Lebanese economy

during

that period: the horrendous escalation of our public debt, the low

growth of our

economy, the poor quality of our social services, and the

degradation of our

environment are, in many cases, the direct result of an

absence of vision and

forward looking policy that a well conceived and

carefully implemented

NATIONAL ECONOMIC PLAN would have generated

instead.

8. What will happen if we continue without a PLAN?

In our opinion, most probably the overall economic situation will grow worse.

That condition may lead eventually to some serious civil disorders unless

the

introduction of a National Plan brings an end to the anarchy by diverting

all the

energies toward finding some appropriate and comprehensive

solution to the

country’s economic problems.

9. What should be our next steps?

To create a successful National Economic Plan we suggest adopting the

following action framework:

a. The Plan initial build-up

To generate the Lebanese National Economic Plan we should proceed as

follows:

I. Select the persons, or rather the group of persons (preferably an NGO)

who will lead the study of each section of the Plan. We have purposefully

used

the word “lead” because the study per se will be the result of several

individual

researches by experts and specialists, as well as the appointed

representatives

of the Ministry or Public Institution concerned. We shall call

that body of experts

the research team. The role of the NGO group leader will

consist in combining

their initiatives into a final summarizing document. That

will entail recruiting 27

NGOs for the entire project. That should not be too

difficult considering that there

are six thousand NGOs operating in the

country at the present time.

II. The research team will scrutinize attentively the national plans that

were

previously formulated in Lebanon and discuss the matter at length with

the

experts at the Council of Development and Reconstruction, CDR who

developed

the latest Lebanese Plan proposals. Their guidance and their

advices will prove

invaluable in that domain. Without the full cooperation of

CDR the project cannot

succeed.

III. The research team will also examine the plans that were created and

successfully administered by the governments of other countries, namely

Ireland, Brazil, Cyprus, Syria and Jordan. They will trace and identify the

causes

and the extent of their successful implementation.

IV. The research team will collect and analyze the numerous local and

foreign documents, proposals, studies and researches on each of the 27

topics

that the National Plan intends to cover.

b. The enhancement of the Pla

I. At the end of the above preliminary study its findings should be widely

published and the public should be called upon to provide their feedback

and

their comments upon them.

II. A special attention and care should be brought to obtain the opinion of

the

different experts in their respective fields of knowledge, to name but a

few: the

faculty teachers and graduates in economy, finance and public

administration,

the agricultural, industrial and construction engineers and

the doctors, the IT

specialists, the syndicates and the members of the

business, service and trade

associations, etc.etc.

III. The National Economic Plan in its amended version will then be

submitted once more to the Council for Development and Reconstruction,

CDR

for discussion.

c. The Plan’s adoption

After the Plan has been agreed upon by CDR it will be submitted for adoption

the Government. Should the latter approve of it; the Plan will then go to the

different parliamentary committees concerned for discussion, at the end of

which it will be presented to the Parliament for a vote.

d. The Management and the Implementation monitoring Programs

This is a crucial step in the process to ensure the success of the Plan. In fact

the

lack of implementation and the absence of a rigorous follow-up have

always

been the Achille’s heels of all the past Lebanese Administrations.

To avoid falling into the same trap we recommend adopting the following

measures:

I. Determine the institutions and the individuals who will be ultimately

responsible for following up on the implementation of the Plan and

coordinating

among the different departments of the Administration who are

responsible for

its execution. In this connection we wish to refer the readers

to the section of the

Irish National Development that describes the method

employed by the Irish

Government to deal with that all important aspect of the

Plan.

II. Assign to the non-governmental organizations (NGO) an equal

responsibility in the monitoring process to ensure that it is regularly and

effectively undertaken and does not fall into disuse through neglect or ill will.

These NGOs will also be called upon to submit and publish periodical

reports

on their monitoring achievements.

III. Any member of the general public, who wishes to make any

comments or

remarks on the entire planning process, during all its phases,

should be actively

encouraged to do so and his suggestions and proposals

should be carefully

considered and implemented once they are accepted.

That last initiative will

ensure that the Plan will not only see the light of day

but that it will be supported

by the majority of the population through all the

changes of regimes and

governments, and implemented with a relatively

good margin of success.

More information on Lebanon's
economic plan

CPI The Lebanese Center for Public Information

Introducing the Lebanese National Plan