The Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies (LCPS) recently published a series of infographics capturing citizens’ perceptions of their country.  The results are quite shocking:

INFACT,

• There is near consensus among Lebanese that corruption the government and political parties practice corruption (98% and 96% respectively).
• The general public has 38% trust in political parties and 32% trust in government.
• The general public perceives 45% level of corruption on the national level; 30% corruption on the governorate level; and 25% corruption on the local level.
• Residents in less developed regions (e.g. Akkar, Baalbeck-Hermel) perceive regional corruption to be higher than in more developed regions.
• 65% of the Lebanese people believe that ordinary citizens engage in corruption for these top 3 reasons:
  1. Speed up public processes (93%)
  2. Secure an additional source of income (92%)
  3. Avoid higher payments (92%)

Numbers are incredibly important, particularly in a data-scarce country like Lebanon. More importantly, what are these numbers telling us?

1. A weak sense of citizenship and belonging to the nation.
2. Weak relationship between citizen and local government.
3. Unequal distribution of resources and imbalanced development across the country.
4. High level of bureaucracy.
5. A weak economic climate.

Food For Thought: What policies should be adopted in order to empower citizens, strengthen relationships between citizen and local government, and encourage equal development in the country?