Crafting Local Public Policy Instruments in Lebanon: The Case of Solid Waste Management with Jihad Farah, Lebanese University

Seminar Cities WIP*

Sciences Po, via Zoom, Compulsory Registration

In his intervention, Jihad Farah will focus on a dominant aspect of his research: the analysis of local authorities in Lebanon, their governance, and the instruments they use in their quest to assert themselves as leading actors of urban change. In fact, in the last two decades, despite the increasing lethargy of central State institutions, local authorities have been expanding their activities to a wide diversity of sectors and issues. What is remarkable in this is less the sophistication of the municipal projects and services developed and mostly the capacity of these local authorities to deal with the complex sociopolitical and spatial fragmentation that mark urban space in Lebanon. In his analysis, and as a general position,Jihad Farah sees the efforts of these local authorities as those of “bricoleurs” assembling iteratively different public policy instruments in order to stabilize networks of actors, resources and representations, and build legitimacy, territoriality and relative autonomy. In his presentation, he focuses focus on a research led with Eric Verdeil on local authorities and solid waste management in Lebanon. However, Jihad Farah will also go through other examples mainly from earlier research on local authorities in the suburbs of Beirut. Though urban Lebanon certainly represents an acute case of fragmentation and of weak central State institutions, many aspects of the analysis could serve to capture elements of urban governance in cities in developing and developed countries. 

Speaker

Jihad Farah, Lebanese University

Jihad Farah is a professor in urban planning at the Lebanese University and co-founder and senior researcher in an urban planning and local development consultancy UPLoAD. His research and professional practice mainly focus on the capacity of actors to produce modes of collective management of common goods and urban services in contexts of urban fragmentation, institutional fragility, social vulnerability and uncertainty. This has led him to research and work with local authorities and civil society organizations dealing with issues of common goods (public space, heritage, green spaces) and urban services (solid waste, water, etc.) in different contexts including urban, rural and humanitarian contexts in Lebanon and underprivileged neighborhoods in Belgium

Collective Discussion

*Séminaire Cities WIP (Work in Process)

For more information: citiesarebackintown@sciencespo.fr 

Compulsory Registration