27 leading activists belonging to 22 major grassroots movements involved in the 2020 protests completed LIMS’ Leaders Academy (LLA) out of 99 initially enrolled. This year’s policy fair and graduation also hosted 22 young, high-achieving staff belonging to 7 leading political parties, who completed the 2019 edition but did not have the opportunity to present their policy papers and graduate because of the protests and the COVID-19 lockdown. LLA achieved 2 monumental milestones.
First, we managed to connect groups engaged in the protests to each other’s, thus enabling them to work together peacefully on market-oriented reforms for Lebanon’s economic crisis. This milestone is important given that previous attempts to gather protestors, made by other organizations, ended up with rebels violently clashing against each other, chairs flying and venues destroyed. Second, this year’s protest leaders competed against representatives of political parties from last year’s edition, in a peaceful and constructive design.
2 Sets of Policy Reforms To Save Lebanon: 2 policy booklets were produced. The first combines the papers produced by the 2019 graduates (political parties) and includes 7 topics: (1) challenges facing the creation of privately-managed and owned toll roads, (2) privatization of the dysfunctional railway in Lebanon, (3) criteria allowing decision-makers to identify public institutions that should be privatized, (4) a single digital platform to cut the red tape and facilitate doing business in Lebanon, (5) establishing a free economic zone to solve the decline in investments, (6) reducing public debt through combating overemployment in the public sector, and (7) opening the airline sector to competition.
2 Sets of Policy Reforms To Save Lebanon: 2 policy booklets were produced. The first combines the papers produced by the 2019 graduates (political parties) and includes 7 topics: (1) challenges facing the creation of privately-managed and owned toll roads, (2) privatization of the dysfunctional railway in Lebanon, (3) criteria allowing decision-makers to identify public institutions that should be privatized, (4) a single digital platform to cut the red tape and facilitate doing business in Lebanon, (5) establishing a free economic zone to solve the decline in investments, (6) reducing public debt through combating overemployment in the public sector, and (7) opening the airline sector to competition.The second includes the 7 papers produced by the 2020 graduates (protestors): (1) the ability of decentralization to develop the regions, (2) currency board: a solution to the devaluation of the lira, (3) the recovery of stolen assets, (4) solution to the crisis facing private schools, (5) food security in Lebanon, (6) revitalization of tourism to boost the economy, and (7) the revival of the railway through private initiatives. LLA 401 Policy Fair and Elevator Pitch Competition To avoid clashes between participants and to ensure social distancing, the policy fair took place in a large, spacious meeting room. Political parties’ stands were on the left side of the meeting room, while protesters’ stands were located on the right. A big space was intentionally left empty in the middle to create enough distance between the 2 groups and a stage was installed in this area. The stage had stairs, 1 to the right giving access and exit to protestors, and 1 to the right for political parties. For every paper produced, 1 or 2 representatives would take the stage and pitched the policy proposition. Groups alternated pitches to a crowd composed of journalists and experts, then participants took their stands and discussed the reforms with the audience.
Graduation Ceremony And Advancing Liberty Award: During the graduation ceremony, LIMS awarded the 2020 Advancing Liberty Award to Dr. Jean Ellieh, Director General of the Tenders Department, for his work to promote competition and transparency in public tenders. Dr. Patrick Mardini, LIMS President, handed the award to Dr. Ellieh and thanked him for his relentless work to ensure checks and balances on spending in the ministries and for his determination to uphold competition and transparency in public tenders.
The award highlights Dr. Ellieh’s work to enforce the rule of law, exercise control on public spending and stand up to corrupt ministers, despite the monumental pressure and the smear campaign against him. In turn, Dr. Ellieh gave a speech inspired from the values and spirituality of Christmas to shed light on the importance of honesty, integrity, and perseverance in work. He stressed that in a country where the rule of law is enforced, it should be possible to question and hold accountable anyone who holds a public office. Dr. Ellieh encouraged graduates to be brave and persist until their goals are reached and allow freedom of opinion for those who disagree with them, because these are the characteristics of sustainable and sophisticated democratic governance.