Developing Infrastructural Solutions for Lebanon’s Challenges of Mass Displacement

A project seeking to develop improved pathways to infrastructural provision in the context of displacement.

Lebanese cities have a long-standing struggle with energy shortages, polluted water, housing inequalities, and lack of sufficient waste management and transport systems. The arrival of 1.5 million Syrian refugees since 2011 has exacerbated this situation by inflating the informal sector and increasing pressure on the country’s infrastructure. In this context, this project brings together engineers, social scientists and Lebanese entrepreneurs to collect neighbourhood-level quantitative and qualitative data on infrastructure and well-being, and to work with communities to co-design small-scale solutions to infrastructural challenges. The research team aims to identify context-specific infrastructural challenges, as well as existing formal and informal solutions, as the basis for developing new engineering designs for more inclusive and efficient services.

This project is funded by the British Academy.

Project Team: Professor Henrietta Moore, University College London; Professor Howayda Al-Harithy, American University of Beirut; Dr Nadim Farajallah, American University of Beirut; Dr Nikolay Mintchev, University College London; Dr Elizabeth Saleh, American University of Beirut; Professor Nick Tyler, University College London

Image credit: Marten Bjork