Critical political economy of the public infrastructure crisis in Lebanon. Interview with Karim Eid-Sabbagh

In this interview, Karim Eid-Sabbagh and Ulrich Ufer discuss how the case of the public infrastructure crisis in Lebanon highlights the importance of including analytical dimensions of critical political economy and global financial dynamics in technology assessment alongside a technology-society-governance perspective - in particular when focusing on the Global South. The Lebanese crisis has built up through long-term structural problems that include the legacies of colonialism, the country's peripheral position in global capital relations, elite nepotism, sectarian strife, and the state's dependency on international donor funding to build and maintain public infrastructure. These have coincided with short-term disintegration and disaster events over the past two years: mass migration, countrywide anti-government protests in fall 2019, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, the destruction of large parts of the country's capital by the devastating explosion in the port of Beirut in August 2020, and the spiraling devaluation of the Lebanese currency.In diesem Interview diskutieren Karim Eid-Sabbagh und Ulrich Ufer die Krise der öffentlichen Infrastruktur im Libanon und betonen dabei analytische Dimensionen der kritischen politischen Ökonomie und der globalen Finanzdynamik. Diese sind, neben einer Technologie-Gesellschaft-Governance-Perspektive, auch von Relevanz für die Technikfolgenabschätzung - insbesondere mit Blick auf den Globalen Süden. Die libanesische Krise hat sich durch langfristige strukturelle Probleme aufgebaut, darunter das Erbe des Kolonialismus, die periphere Position des Landes in den globalen Kapitalbeziehungen, Eliten-Nepotismus, sektiererische Kämpfe und die Abhängigkeit des Staates von internationalen Gebermitteln zum Aufbau und zur Erhaltung öffentlicher Infrastruktur. Langfristige Strukturprobleme fielen in den letzten zwei Jahren mit kurzfristigen Desintegrations- und Katastrophenereignissen zusammen: Massenmigration, landesweite Proteste gegen die Regierung im Herbst 2019, Ausbruch der Covid-19-Pandemie Anfang 2020, Zerstörung großer Teile der Hauptstadt des Landes durch die verheerende Explosion im Hafen von Beirut im August 2020 und die rasante Abwertung der libanesischen Währung

Wastewater reuse in Lebanon: Shedding light on hydro-social politics at multiple scales

Through an analysis of wastewater reuse in Lebanon, this paper investigates the socio-spatial politics of wastewater management. I analyse (some) of the complexities and contradictions at play in the scalar politics of water reuse. Drawing on empirical work in Lebanon, I aim to add a perspective from the Global South to this line of analysis, reading scalar politics through the wider framework of imperialism. The history of water and wastewater resource management in Lebanon is marked by a governance process that has been in permanent crisis, shaped by contestation in various ways and at multiple scales. This governance process is characterised by a structural lack of coherence unfolding in a context of political competition, class conflict, and englobing imperial domination. These pressures have manifested in radically neoliberal policies and recurring war. The scales through which wastewater, and eventually treated wastewater, reuse are managed emerge from the contradictory interventions of international development actors interacting with Lebanese administrations and the concomitant undermining of Lebanese state sovereignty. Two case studies of treated wastewater reuse in the Bekaa Valley will further illustrate these processes

The analytical framework of water and armed conflict: a focus on the 2006 Summer War between Israel and Lebanon

This paper develops an analytical framework to investigate the relationship between water and armed conflict, and applies it to the ‘Summer War’ of 2006 between Israel and Lebanon (Hezbollah). The framework broadens and deepens existing classifications by assessing the impact of acts of war as indiscriminate or targeted, and evaluating them in terms of international norms and law, in particular International Humanitarian Law (IHL). In the case at hand, the relationship is characterised by extensive damage in Lebanon to drinking water infrastructure and resources. This is seen as a clear violation of the letter and the spirit of IHL, while the partial destruction of more than 50 public water towers compromises water rights and national development goals. The absence of pre-war environmental baselines makes it difficult to gauge the impact on water resources, suggesting a role for those with first-hand knowledge of the hostilities to develop a more effective response before, during, and after armed conflict

Effects of hospital facilities on patient outcomes after cancer surgery: an international, prospective, observational study

Background Early death after cancer surgery is higher in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) compared with in high-income countries, yet the impact of facility characteristics on early postoperative outcomes is unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the association between hospital infrastructure, resource availability, and processes on early outcomes after cancer surgery worldwide.Methods A multimethods analysis was performed as part of the GlobalSurg 3 study-a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study of patients who had surgery for breast, colorectal, or gastric cancer. The primary outcomes were 30-day mortality and 30-day major complication rates. Potentially beneficial hospital facilities were identified by variable selection to select those associated with 30-day mortality. Adjusted outcomes were determined using generalised estimating equations to account for patient characteristics and country-income group, with population stratification by hospital.Findings Between April 1, 2018, and April 23, 2019, facility-level data were collected for 9685 patients across 238 hospitals in 66 countries (91 hospitals in 20 high-income countries; 57 hospitals in 19 upper-middle-income countries; and 90 hospitals in 27 low-income to lower-middle-income countries). The availability of five hospital facilities was inversely associated with mortality: ultrasound, CT scanner, critical care unit, opioid analgesia, and oncologist. After adjustment for case-mix and country income group, hospitals with three or fewer of these facilities (62 hospitals, 1294 patients) had higher mortality compared with those with four or five (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 3.85 [95% CI 2.58-5.75]; p<0.0001), with excess mortality predominantly explained by a limited capacity to rescue following the development of major complications (63.0% vs 82.7%; OR 0.35 [0.23-0.53]; p<0.0001). Across LMICs, improvements in hospital facilities would prevent one to three deaths for every 100 patients undergoing surgery for cancer.Interpretation Hospitals with higher levels of infrastructure and resources have better outcomes after cancer surgery, independent of country income. Without urgent strengthening of hospital infrastructure and resources, the reductions in cancer-associated mortality associated with improved access will not be realised

Critical political economy of the public infrastructure crisis in Lebanon: Interview with Karim Eid-Sabbagh

In this interview, Karim Eid-Sabbagh and Ulrich Ufer discuss how the case of the public infrastructure crisis in Lebanon highlights the importance of including analytical dimensions of critical political economy and global financial dynamics in technology assessment alongside a technology-society-governance perspective - in particular when focusing on the Global South. The Lebanese crisis has built up through long-term structural problems that include the legacies of colonialism, the country's peripheral position in global capital relations, elite nepotism, sectarian strife, and the state's dependency on international donor funding to build and maintain public infrastructure. These have coincided with short-term disintegration and disaster events over the past two years: mass migration, countrywide anti-government protests in fall 2019, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, the destruction of large parts of the country's capital by the devastating explosion in the port of Beirut in August 2020, and the spiraling devaluation of the Lebanese currency.In diesem Interview diskutieren Karim Eid-Sabbagh und Ulrich Ufer die Krise der öffentlichen Infrastruktur im Libanon und betonen dabei analytische Dimensionen der kritischen politischen Ökonomie und der globalen Finanzdynamik. Diese sind, neben einer Technologie-Gesellschaft-Governance-Perspektive, auch von Relevanz für die Technikfolgenabschätzung - insbesondere mit Blick auf den Globalen Süden. Die libanesische Krise hat sich durch langfristige strukturelle Probleme aufgebaut, darunter das Erbe des Kolonialismus, die periphere Position des Landes in den globalen Kapitalbeziehungen, Eliten-Nepotismus, sektiererische Kämpfe und die Abhängigkeit des Staates von internationalen Gebermitteln zum Aufbau und zur Erhaltung öffentlicher Infrastruktur. Langfristige Strukturprobleme fielen in den letzten zwei Jahren mit kurzfristigen Desintegrations- und Katastrophenereignissen zusammen: Massenmigration, landesweite Proteste gegen die Regierung im Herbst 2019, Ausbruch der Covid-19-Pandemie Anfang 2020, Zerstörung großer Teile der Hauptstadt des Landes durch die verheerende Explosion im Hafen von Beirut im August 2020 und die rasante Abwertung der libanesischen Währung

Feasibility Assessment for Water Service Provision to Informal Tented Settlements in Lebanon

Syrian refugees living in informal tented settlements in Lebanon are in a difficult position, being last in line for public water and other unregulated water sources. Humanitarian aid agencies have been delivering water by trucks, and while this has ensured Syrians have adequate non-contaminated water, it has come at a financial and environmental cost. Water sources are being depleted and aid agencies are spending considerable sums to provide a service that is not sustainable.This study looks at the obstacles to providing more sustainable solutions: extending piped public water to settlements, focusing on the financial, social and legal feasibility requirements. A multi-level governance approach is recommended to address water supply to all affected communities

The Influence of Narratives on Negotiations over and Resolution of the Upper Jordan River Conflict

Abstract This article tests the assertion that narratives constructed around international environmental issues serve to promote or reduce opportunities for their resolution. It does this by interpreting the influence of Lebanese and Israeli environmental narratives on resolution of and indirect negotiations over the Upper Jordan River conflict. Colonial archives, key informant interviews and academic and policy literature serve to identify and critically investigate the narratives. An official Lebanese narrative of adherence to international law is found to contradict the more popular nationalist narrative of Israeli ‘theft’ of the flows. An Israeli water security discourse is found to be built on earlier narratives that have long held water (and the Upper Jordan flows in particular) as both a physically scarce and strategic commodity necessary for continued existence of the Israeli state. Basic discourse, security studies and negotiation theory is developed to gauge the influence of the narratives during the 2002 informal negotiations over the Wazzani pumping station dispute. The more influential Israeli discourse is found to establish the starting point (no discussion on re-allocation of the flows) and process of the informal negotiations. The narratives are found to open or shut windows for resolution of the conflict, by politicizing or securitizing ideas about the flows, respectively. The conflict management approach favored by US and EU mediators is seen to align with the more dominant discourse, at the cost of enduring asymmetry and tensions, and missed opportunities for both resolution of the conflict and promotion of fair water-sharing norms. </jats:sec