Prosperity in Lebanon – The RELIEF Centre

There are 65.3 million forcibly displaced people in the world. This means that 1 in every 122 people on the planet is now either a refugee, internally displaced or seeking asylum.

But the burden of displacement is not shared equally – poor countries host vastly more displaced people than wealthier countries. Anti-refugee sentiment in Europe is high, yet it is low- and middle-income countries that are hosting 86% of the world’s refugees.

Lebanon hosts the most refugees in relation to its population, with almost one in five people being refugees according to the UNHCR. That means Lebanon has it’s own unique obstacles to its people flourishing and prospering. It’s also the perfect environment to develop solutions to the refugee crisis.

This is why the IGP launched RELIEF (Refugees, Education, Learning, Information Technology, and Entrepreneurship for the Future) Centre.

The RELIEF Centre is a research and learning collaboration that focuses on one of the world’s pressing challenges of the moment: how to build a prosperous and inclusive future for communities affected by mass displacement. It is a collaboration between University College London (UCL), American University of Beirut (AUB) and the Centre for Lebanese Studies at the Lebanese American University (LAU), led by the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity.

The RELIEF Centre’s programme of research and civic engagement is guided by four research questions:

• What does inclusive growth and sustainable prosperity look like in the context of large-scale movement of people?
• How can we improve the quality of life for all in urban environments in Lebanon?
• How do we drive innovation and measure value creation in the context of Lebanon?
• How can the research and knowledge transfer capabilities of universities be reconfigured to develop innovative responses to these challenges?

As in London, this research project will create knowledge using community researchers. This will give us a more genuine understanding of the challenges in the area, and how to overcome them to enable people to flourish.