Poverty in Lebanon has become one of the country’s most urgent humanitarian challenges. By 2024, around 44% of the population was living in monetary poverty, while almost 80% were suffering from multidimensional poverty. By 2025, nearly 80% of families were in urgent need of support and 31% of households lacked sufficient drinking water, putting them at risk of disease. 

The Economic Crisis

To understand poverty in Lebanon, it is necessary to revisit 2019, when the country’s financial system collapsed under years of mismanagement, massive debt and corruption. The economy had long depended on imports, remittances and high interest rates rather than domestic production. When foreign inflows slowed and confidence in banks crumbled, the fallout was severe. The currency crashed, savings disappeared, poverty escalated and basic services like electricity, health care and transport stopped working.

What followed was one of the worst economic collapses in modern history. Between 2019 and 2023, the Lebanese pound lost more than 98% of its value while food prices rose by 350%, the highest food price inflation recorded anywhere in the world. Families were forced to cut back on food, health care and basic expenses and the value of a lifetime of savings evaporated almost overnight. Years later, the crisis is far from over and has devastated daily life for millions of people. 

Social Protection Programs in Lebanon

Social protection programs help cushion people from poverty through cash transfers, pensions and school feeding schemes. The World Bank finances the two largest social protection programs in Lebanon: The National Poverty Targeting Program (NPTP) and the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN). In 2021, the NPTP reached only 1.5% of the population, which led to the ESSN in 2022. 

The ESSN now covers around 142,000 families, providing roughly $100 per month alongside support for schooling and health services. The ESSN, also known as AMAN, assists people living below the poverty line. Around 800,000 people now receive assistance through the ESSN. 

However, in 2023, the World Bank provided an additional $300 million to expand the ESSN, extending cash transfers to 160,000 households and covering school costs for students. Three years later, in 2026, it approved a further $350 million to support social protection, promote the economic inclusion of women and youth and accelerate the digitalization of key public services. The investment aims to strengthen Lebanon’s economic recovery, support job creation and improve the state’s long-term ability to deliver meaningful public services to all citizens.

Oxfam’s Response to Poverty in Lebanon

Oxfam has been working in Lebanon since 1993, providing humanitarian assistance to vulnerable people. Its current five-year (2023-2028) plan focuses on accessible financial solutions, renewable energy projects and helping businesses survive the economic crisis. Marwan Isaam, a researcher and policy advisor at Oxfam Lebanon, told The Borgen Project that the organization works at multiple levels.

On the humanitarian front, Oxfam provides cash assistance to households for food, rent or multipurpose needs. As he explains, “This is usually not done directly by Oxfam; we work with local organizations to deliver them. We always try not to impose our projects from above; we try to understand communities, to see what they need.” Its work also combines short and long-term interventions. “For example, we provide the family with $200 and at the same time, we train the youth on finding jobs and securing long-term employment. We answer the short-term needs and long-term needs,” Isaam says. 

Community Focus

Oxfam also collaborates with ministries to strengthen social development capacities. It works with municipalities on water networks and agriculture to secure resources for communities. It also produces research and policy reports on poverty and food security, which are sent to policymakers in an effort to influence them. 

What sets Oxfam apart is its approach to targeting. Rather than using proxy means-testing to identify the very most impoverished individuals, it focuses on reaching entire communities. “We try to push for more universal social production measures, like reaching an entire group or entire region instead of trying to pinpoint who is the poorest, which comes with a lot of targeting issues,” Issam explains. 

This also means extending support to groups that are excluded from government programs due to discrimination, including migrants, while prioritizing women and refugees who often lack access that other households might have. “What’s interesting about the work we do at targeting is that we often try to reach communities that are not reached by your mainstream social protection programs,” he adds.

Signs of Improvements

Lebanon’s government has made limited reforms, but some progress is visible. By 2025, signs of stabilization began to emerge for the first time since the crisis began, with inflation falling to double digits and the economy recording positive growth. Food insecurity also improved, driven by moderate inflation, remittances and continued humanitarian assistance. 

Politically, the election of a new president and prime minister brought renewed pledges to tackle the economic crisis. The cabinet approved a draft law to establish a mechanism for returning depositors’ funds lost during the crisis. The draft still needs to be approved by parliament to become law. 

However, it is the government’s first attempt to return funds to individual depositors whose bank accounts were frozen. Issam welcomes some of these developments but remains cautious. “There are some areas where adaptability and transparency have improved,” he says, “but the main model of how the country operates at an economic level, at the political level, so far remained unchanged.” 

He argues that the socioeconomic system still prioritizes protecting business and political elites and marginalizes underserved communities.

The Future of Poverty Policy in Lebanon

After years of crisis, something has shifted. A new government, a stabilizing economy and renewed investment in social protection signal cautious progress. While Lebanon has not yet fully recovered, recovery may finally be within reach for the first time in years.

– Jeanne Pellet

Jeanne is based in London, UK and focuses on Business and Politics for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Flickr