Title

80. Syria, Lebanon

Tags:

The Forum for a new World Governance launched the World Governance Index (WGI) project in 2008. The idea was to develop a “tool” that would allow the players in charge of governance to visualize the emerging issues and problems and help them reflect on the necessary solutions.
_ In this issue of the FnWG newsletter, we are offering the 2011 WGIs for Syria and Lebanon as compared to their 2008 WGIs. These indexes were calculated just before the outbreak of the internal armed conflict in Syria, which as we publish this issue, has already taken more than 25,000 lives, civilians in the vast majority, and seems to have no resolution in sight. Regarding Lebanon, bordering with Syria and having a long history of tensions with its neighbor, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees informs that the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon in June 2013 amounted to at least 511,000 people—in distress, and very often injured or mutilated—with more than 10,000 additional persons arriving per week, while the country is regularly undergoing Syrian air raids within its borders.
_ The WGI figures and indicators below show what the conditions of governance were in Syria and Lebanon before this conflict, conditions that deteriorated in both countries between 2008 and 2011, which demonstrates, if proof were still needed, the close connection between poor governance conditions and (absence of) peace and security.