Multidimensional poverty in Lebanon (2019-2021): Painful reality and uncertain prospects

This study examines the multidimensional facets of poverty in Lebanon, for the period of 2019-2021. From a multidimensional poverty perspective, a household can be classified as poor if it is subjected to one or more of aspects (notably health care, medicine services, education, employment, housing and assets) of deprivation, even if it is not income poor. A household deprived of electricity, for example, is classified as deprived in this indicator, and possibly multidimensionally poor, regardless of its financial capacity to subscribe to a private generator. The same classification applies to households that are unable to obtain medicines, irrespective of their financial ability to purchase them.

When measuring deprivation in Lebanon using this concept, the multidimensional poverty rate in 2021, according to the most recent household data sources, is 82 per cent (as for the Extreme multidimensional poverty it is estimated at 34 per cent). The analysis in this brief is derived from the Labour Force and Household Living Conditions Survey in Lebanon for the period 2018-2019. The survey was conducted by the Central Administration of Statistics, with support from the International Labour Organization and the European Union