The Daily Star
BEIRUT:
Senior politicians joined leading economic and academic experts at the
launch ceremony of a landmark equality and citizenship report on
Tuesday. The National Human Development Report, entitled "Toward a
Citizen's State," was unveiled in downtown Beirut with speeches from
contributing authors and Lebanese MPs including Education Minister
Bahia Hariri, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud and Information Minister
Tarek Mitri. A
collaboration between the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and
the Council for Development and Reconstruction, the report addresses
the concept of citizenship in Lebanon as well as making a number of
recommendations regarding the state of Lebanese confessionalism,
socio-economic citizenship rights, poverty and education. Introducing
the report, UNDP Lebanon's Resident Representative Marta Ruedas, said:
"The Human Development Report is a tool for analysis, a tool for
recommending human progress and for contributing action for changes. "We
hope the report can spur public debate and mobilize support for action
and for change. It looks at the cultural values that exist [in Lebanon]
as well as the cultural differences that may lead to a negative impact
on national identity," she added. A
series of striking data has been complied for the report, with many
number sets relating to Lebanon's performance on gender and wealth
equality in comparison with other OECD countries. Ruedas
said that the recommendations put forward in the report centered on a
number of key issues, including a downplaying of Lebanese confessional
divides and better universal access to social services, such as health
and education. "It's
important, we believe ... to use national dialogue as a process and to
go beyond the confessionalism that exists in various aspects of
society. We can do this through a number of processes, activities of
dialogue and peace-building at a local level. "The
issues that divide our nation also affect access to social services and
we believe it is important to ensure that people have quality access to
these social services," she said. "Lastly,
one of the key tolls of this change could be the electoral law reform
and to promote participation in at all levels in decision making." Interior
Minister Ziad Baroud spoke of the need for continued electoral reform
and praised the report for the way it approached the issue of Lebanon's
confessionalism. "The report didn't give a magic solution; it's trying instead to form a web of all the Lebanese community," he said. "In
a country so divided, citizens are rarely at the core of Lebanese
policies. However, the NHDR raised many implicit questions. It asked
the question: 'How can we develop cultural politics and expand people's
choices?'" Baroud recently
won praise for his handling of the Lebanese general elections on 7
June. The elections implemented a number of electoral reform policies
recommended by the Boutros Commission in 2005. However, other reforms,
such as the lowering of the voting age to 18 and the mandatory use of
pre-printed ballot papers, were not incorporated into law in time to
take effect in the June vote. Baroud
reiterated the report's stance that the Lebanese people were deserving
of greater political representation, irrespective of confessional
loyalties. "The
Constitution has recently become a point of view and we need to
reconsider our consensus democracy. The government needs to see
citizens as individuals and not as members of a certain religious
community. The greatest difficulty is for us to shift toward a people's
nation through constitutional, legislative and coexistence reform," he
said. Education Minister
Bahia Hariri said that the public and private sectors needed to
co-operate in order to continue to close the equity gap in education.
The current literacy rate in Lebanon shows gender inequality, with only
84 percent of women over 15 years of age considered to be literate
compared with 93 percent of men. Hariri also thanked other nations for their financial support in Lebanon's regeneration in recent years. "We
have come out of a long war and have tried together to reconstruct and
improve our country. But today we are in need of NGOs ready to
cooperate with the government. "We also thank all the international efforts that have helped Lebanon," she said. Ibrahim
Shamseddine, representing President Michel Sleiman, under whose
auspices the ceremony was held, called for government unity and greater
political representation throughout Lebanese society. "In
the past decades Lebanon was unable to defend itself but that changed
after [the] Taif [Accord]. The president's job is to guarantee the
country's security. The government also has to secure all freedoms. "Democracy
... is a must for development and it's based on alternating power and
the people's right to choose their representatives. ... The government
is for the people and not for politicians," he said. - With additionnal reporting by Carol Rizk
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