ANSD : UNDP official talks elections, development

SUN 24 - 11 - 2024

Date: Feb 16, 2018
Source: The Daily Star

UNDP official talks elections, development

_{Federica Marsi| The Daily Star}
BEIRUT: A self-described son of farmers who spent his early years cultivating the land in Brazil, the current United Nations Development Program administrator Achim Steiner visited Lebanon Thursday to discuss the country’s road map toward sustainability, democracy and economic and social advancement. In an interview with The Daily Star at the UNDP headquarters in Beirut, Steiner addressed two issues confronting Lebanon: the steps toward achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and reliability of the democratic process scheduled for May 2018 – the country’s first parliamentary elections in nine years.

Steiner, a vocal advocate of the SDGs, admitted that the goals adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at its headquarters in New York may sound like pipe dreams for many countries. However, he argued, “they are powerful goals that mark a shift in the development paradigm.”

The large influx of refugees from the neighboring Syrian conflict took a high toll on Lebanon, but it has also coincided with an unprecedented surge in international funding, he said. But “if all [these funds] are consumed daily, we are missing an opportunity,” Steiner added, explaining that this rationale was behind the decision to orient the SDGs toward long-term investment.

According to information published by UNDP, Lebanon is considered to have achieved seven of its eight Millennium Development Goals targets in health, primary education, and gender equality in education that had been set for 2015.

Yet two of the most critical targets – poverty reduction and environmental sustainability – have not been achieved and are currently at the heart of the 17 SDGs set for 2030.

“The voluntary national review report that Lebanon is currently preparing on SDGs is an exceptional opportunity for a country to take advantage of this framework to have a national conversation and address some of the critical environmental issues, but also define the Lebanese society and economy today,” Steiner said.

The UNDP, which is the largest U.N. body and works in 170 countries around the world with the mission of reducing poverty and inequality, has also been running a project since 2012 to strengthen institutional capacity in terms of electoral management and administration.

Now, ahead of the imminent national elections, Steiner said the UNDP’s overriding concern is “for Lebanon to feel, the day after the election, that it has had an electoral process [the integrity of which] reflects the popular will.”

“We are interested in the preparation of the election but also in reaching out, for example, on issues such as participation, to encourage the involvement of women networks so that more women can become part of the political process,” Steiner added.

Earlier Thursday Steiner met with Prime Minister Saad Hariri at the Grand Serail, where they held a conversation behind closed doors.

Steiner and resident UNDP representative Philippe Lazzarini then visited the area of Burj Hammoud, where the UNDP invested over $1.5 million in structural work and rehabilitation in support of host and refugee communities.

Compared to 2011, Burj Hammoud has witnessed a 20-percent leap in its population, with 30,000 Syrian refugees settling in alongside an already impoverished Lebanese community, according to figures provided by the municipality.

Sako Tarpinian, a shop owner in Burj Hammoud, told the UNDP representatives that “water used to enter in the shops” when it rained before the street’s sidewalks underwent renovations thanks to the UNDP and the municipality’s joint efforts. “Now more people come to this street [also] because there are awnings,” Tarpinian said as evidence of how renovations improved his business.

A few shops away, however, Joseph Nowar argued that the $1.5 million investments have hardly been felt. “Since the outbreak of the war in Syria, things have only got worse. I haven’t noticed the renovations, what I noticed is that people are more and more tight on money,” the shop owner said.

In a third business along the same street, Krikor Dermesrobian took on a more philosophical approach. “Aid is like vitamins,” he said. “It reinvigorates you. But it doesn’t cure you.”

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