News

Al Hayat newspaper published a report on the difficulties that young Lebanese youth entrepreneurs face and the activities of the “Bader” programme which seek to provide opportunities for young people through collaboration with Lebanese business people who believe in private entrepreneurship as a key vehicle for healthy economic growth.

The main problem that young people face is in financing their businesses given their scarce resources and the absence of tangible governmental support to such initiatives.  In addition, political instability and insecurity is a major challenge to emerging businesses coupled with limited professional skills and poor public relations.  All these factors limit the scope for the development of an entrepreneurship culture in Lebanon.

Despite the above, and according to Bader’s project’s manager, Joelle Yazbeck, her group provides several solutions to enable young people to succeed in their businesses through its collaboration with more than 30 established enterprises.  These include, according to Yazbeck, a) education and awareness on the principles of private entrepreneurship through workshop and university scholarship, b) collaboration and networking between young entrepreneurs and well established business people in Lebanon and abroad; and c) financing through Bader’s investment fund and its Lebanese business network which is investing in emerging business and facilitating access to those bank loans which have terms that are adequate for small and medium enterprises.

Source: Al-Hayat 25 March 2013

Al Mustakbal newspaper published a report on a biology teacher of public education who left her job and started selling Kaak.  Omm Rabih from South Lebanon chose the Afeef el Tibi popular street as her place of business and kicked off her new career as a street vendor selling Kaak and other savory pastries.  Formely, Omm Rabih was teaching biology on a contractual basis in two public schools and was paid LBP 12,000 per hour taught for middle classes and LBP 22,000 per hour taught for secondary classes.  In addition to her low pay, Omm Rabih was paid once or twice a year at best.  Omm Rabih’s aim was to enable her children to complete their education.  She is the head of her household and needs to pay her monthly rent of USD 400 per month for a small dwelling located in the Southern suburbs of Beirut in addition to USD 200 a month for utilities.

Omm Rabih addresses the government in this article saying that she has given up on teaching as she has had enough of being humiliated.  She simply wants to secure her livelihood but is aggravated by the situation of children who now roam the streets.

Source: Al-Mustaqbal 23 March 2013

The UNDP Human Development Report for 2013 which was published under the title “The rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World indicates that Lebanon has climbed to the 72nd place out of a total of 187 countries.
The report notes an increase in life expectancy at birth by 6.2 in addition to a 2.9 increase mean years of schooling and 77% in the GDP per capita and that is between 1990 and 2012.
According to the same report, Lebanon’s human development indicator for 2012 is 0.745 and which is less than the average of 0.758 for those countries with a high and above average indicators but is higher than the average of the Arab countries (0.652)
The report noted the deterioration in Lebanon’s gender equality indicator which was calculated at 0.433 thus placing Lebanon in the 73d position out of a total of 143 countries whose GE index was calculated for 2012.  The report further highlights that women’s participation in parliament does not exceed 3.1% whilst 51% of adult women have reached the secondary and higher education levels compared to 55.4% for males.
Source: Al-Nahar 16 March, L’Orient Le Jour 21 March 2013

The Workers Coordination Committee scored a victory yesterday after 32 days of strike to which the government responded by transferring the new salary scales decree to the Parliament whilst introducing some amendments which have been met with some WCCC reservations.
Indeed and prior to the cabinet meeting of yesterday, the Coordination Committee led its grand march to the road leading to the presidential palace in Baabda despite various political attempts extended the previous nights to abort this initiative.  Thousands of women and men including teachers from the public and private sectors, supporters, Lebanese university staff, members of syndicates and civil activists joined the march.  The participation of women was highly visible as women insisted that mothers’ day is meaningless without meeting their rights.

Source: Al-mustaqbal, Al-Safir, Al-Mustaqbal 22 March 2013

My Nationality is a Right for me and my Family Campaign organised yesterday a sit-in in front of the seat of the cabinet in Ryad Solh square.  The purpose of the event was to remind the Prime Minister of the promise he made on the same date only a year back with regards to granting women equal rights to transmit nationality.  This promise was to be repealed shortly after by the Ministerial Commission set up for that purpose by the Prime Minister and which decided to undermine rights and offer instead meager services to women.  Protesters chanted a number of slogans in which they expressed their utter refusal to being granted services in lieu of rights.

Mariam Ghazal, an activist in the campaign read the official communiqué released for the event indicating that a year has elapsed since the PM’s promise and which he and his cabinet failed to honor.  The communiqué notes that the Cabinet has failed women as well as its commitments to the constitution and to the international conventions that are supposed to be binding.

The Campaign called on women to free themselves from their political, confessional and other allegiances and rebel against injustice and inequality through actively participating in the upcoming major event that the Campaign will organize on April 14th to commemorate the civil war in Lebanon.

The Campaign also reiterated its commitment to pursue its struggle with all the concerned women and all throughout Lebanon through holding candidates for the elections accountable to women and to collaborate with all other stakeholders working for full and inclusive citizenship rights.

Shortly after the sit-in, PM wrote on his FB status that he will be discussing again the issue of the reform of the nationality law so that women have equal rights to men.

Source: Al-Akhbar, Al-Safir, Al-Mustaqbal 22 March 2013

The World Bank launched last week its new report entitled “Opening Doors: Gender Equality and Development in the Middle East and North Africa”,at an event jointly hosted by the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC in collaboration with the World Bank.  The report unveils that investment in human capital in the MENA region has not resulted in a higher economic or political participation for women.  According to the report, the percentage of women’s participation in the job market is half of average global rate.

The report which notes that gender equality would be a smart economic strategy for the region uses a combination of statistical and qualitative data to analyse challenges facing gender equality and subsequently highlighting priorities at the policy level to strengthen women’s participation in the region.  The report further notes that gender equality as a whole remains a major challenge in the region despite considerable gains made by women in education and health.

The challenges cited in the report are defined as being legal and cultural.  These, according to the report, result in excluding women from public life and from the job market and in curtailing their decision making abilities, their choices, mobility and access to opportunities. Other key factors are limited women’s skills and poor job opportunities created by the private sector.  However, the report adds that the main obstacle remains women’s difficulty in balancing work and family responsibilities.  Although this is a global phenomenon, yet, according to the report women in the MENA region face particular difficulties and have to make hard choices to the point that only one woman out of four is actually looking for work which is half the global average.  Unemployment rate amongst young women is estimated at 40% and the gender gap in employment rates between men and women has almost doubled during the last 25 years.  Should the trend remain as is, the report expects that some 50 million men and 140 million women will be unemployed by the year 2050.

The report further notes that employment creation trends in the private sector were lower then supply and thus unable to absorb the growing needs of job seekers. In such difficult circumstances, women are unable to compete equally with men and the real challenge would be to create a more diverse pool of work opportunities to absorb more men and women job seekers.  Even if this materializes, there is nevertheless a need for exerting more effort to boost economic and political participation of women namely reforming the social protection sector, abolishing gender discrimination in laws and bridging the gap in skills and capacities so as to meet the needs of the job market.

To read the whole report please click the following link: “Opening Doors: Gender Equality and Development in the Middle East and North Africa”

Source: Al-Akhbar 18 March 2013

An Nahar newspaper published a report about Tripoli’s traditional soap manufactured by Samir Nather as early as the sixties and the journey of this trade which began as a family hobby and extended to reach London where it became known as “Eden’s Paradise” after being taken over by the founder’s three daughters.  The daughters who inherited the trade made sure to use their family’s heirloom recipe although they pursued their education in universities in the UK. The Nather girls transformed their production to suit the demands of increasing SPA facilities and marketed their product at Harrods and enjoyed grants and facilities provided by the Municipality of London and the UK engineering association which supports small enterprises.  Improving production also involved modernizing packaging while ensuring that the soap still retained its original and traditional look. This soap is now moving towards mass marketing in malls as well as in shops specializing in natural personal care products.
Source: Al-Nahar 20 March 2013

Endeavour organized a session yesterday to discuss existing opportunities for expansion of small and medium enterprises and the steps necessary to develop an environment that is conducive for entrepreneurship.
The event was attended by the head of the UNDP projects unit at the Ministry of Trade and Commerce Zeina Al-Khouri, Printworks founder and CEO Jad Khouri, Strategic Decisions Group in Europe and Middle East CEO Mazen Skaff, and Tarek Saadi Endeavor CEO, in addition to media representatives and experts in the field of business and economics.
Participants discussed the difficulties facing the growth of these enterprises despite the increasing and unprecedented availability of financial support to the creation of new enterprises during the past few years.  Participants also recommended a number of steps that need to be considered during planning phase namely focusing on consolidating tangible and immediate markets at the inception phase of any project before moving into expansion to new markets as well as the importance of continuously looking for new talents and making sure that there are sufficient provisions for increasing capital before the need for such an action arises.  Participants also discussed the difficulties faced when looking for financing especially given the limited responsiveness of local banks particularly when enterprises are in their early stage and may pose risks for investors.  As such, banks were invited to allocate more money to small and medium size enterprises.  Participants also reviewed the important role of the private sector in supporting the growth of small and medium enterprises and a recommendation was made to seek ways of building partnerships with the private sector.  The government was also invited to extend efforts to work more collaboratively with the private sector in order to put in place successful development plans in all sectors.
In addition, the meeting reviewed new initiatives currently being taken by the Ministry of Economy and Trade in order to strengthen the growth and development of enterprises including the set up of an observatory of small and medium enterprises which will meet the demands of research and monitoring of these enterprises as well as other initiatives proposed by the Ministry of Labor to develop with selected institutions a number of appropriate business training programme, adapting the curricula of educational institutions with the long term needs of the market.  The Ministry of Economy is also looking into the possibility of proposing to the Cabinet the adoption of several incentives and tax waivers for small and medium enterprises and for encouraging Lebanese in the diaspora to invest in Lebanon.
Finally, the seminar concluded by suggesting a number of short term solutions to improve the situation of small and medium enterprises given the current economic slump in Lebanon.  Participants also called on the enterprises to try and expand to external markets particularly given the non conducive environment in the country.
Source: Al-Mustaqbal 18 March 2013