Call on the Lebanese citizens to participate in their country's development

12/14/2009

American Chamber of Commerce
Better Lebanese Business Group

I wish to thank you for acknowledging my message.

May I point out that the suggestions that I presented came as the result of five years of study of the Lebanese National Budget and its sixty-six budget heads[1]. Our goal, initially, was to objectively assess the Budget’s impact on the country’s economy and its capacity to improve the lot of the citizens. We subsequently discovered that involving the citizens in the affairs of their “Dawle” would contribute to bring about improved mutual relations and understanding.

It is not without reason that the authors of the paper on “participatory development and good governance” have asserted that “involving the citizens is needed both as a tool and a goal of society’s development”.

We strongly believe in the importance of directly associating the citizens in the governance process, starting with the preparation of the National Plan, supporting its adoption by Parliament, calling for its implementation by the government, and monitoring the quality and the extent of that implementation.

The day these goals are reached will be the day when Lebanon will become a truly democratic country and a model to its regional neighbors. It will also be the day when sectarian considerations and foreign interferences will lose their impact on the citizens who will thus discover higher common motives and objectives. At such a time we may consider abolishing confessional politics because we shall be sufficiently grown up to enable us do away with it.

I hope that Wednesday’s conference will pave the road for an ambitious program of “participatory development” simultaneously and jointly undertaken by private enterprise and the Public Administration.

Sincerely,
George Sabat (founder and director)
CPI The Lebanese Center for Public Information

[1] See http://www. balancedbudget.blogspot.com/ and http://www. cpibloglist.blogspot.com/