updates on consultations with community leaders and energy experts
Doing any type of research in Lebanon in this period of compounded crises needs a different and more profound kind of grounding and embeddedness.
How do we think about participatory research and community engagement when communities are facing severe hardship, and the possibilities for social transformation appear to be structurally restricted? Lebanon's electricity infrastructure was already struggling to meet demand before the lockdown – but power cuts have significantly increased over the past month to up to 20 hours a day following the delay of imported energy fuels. Protests outside the national electricity company are occurring daily. Sustainable and long term solutions are needed.
The citizens' assembly (CA) on electricity will discuss the electricity crisis and begin to form a bottom-up vision of what a future sustainable energy system in Lebanon can be. The CA is a new method, a unique experiment in bringing community members together with stakeholders, including academics to learn, deliberate and vote on things that affect their quality of life directly. In this CA, we will explore what energy justice means for the members, and what people would like to prioritise to enhance their local and national energy systems.
Our advisors come with expertise in community engagement, energy sector reform and citizen assembly design. Following the advice of Marcin Gerwin, who has conducted citizen assemblies in several countries, the citizen assembly delivery team has embarked on a process of co-production of the citizen assembly design with stakeholders in the energy sector and local area of Hamra. As valued members of these communities, their input is crucial to designing the citizen assembly. The first stakeholder meeting took place on June 24th with another scheduled later in July. The framing of the CA and the questions that assembly members will discuss will be part of the consultation with stakeholders in July.
The following presentation document outlines, in Arabic, what the concept of 'majlis madani' entails, and how it is structured. Based on this, we received a lot of feedback which we will summarise below.
The first stakeholder meeting
Around 25 people joined the call from the following organisations; LFRE, NRGI, LOGI, UNESCWA, UN-Habitat, Greenpeace MENA, Public Works, AUB-NI, Legal Agenda, UKLEBHUB, Crowdpowered, United Front of RasBeirut, Ras Beirut "Al Horsh" Public school, T marbouta, and independent consultants.
The mixture of energy specialists and local community organisers provided different perspectives. In the energy space, the conversation between technical experts and has always been a fraught one given the technical difficulties of the subject and the complexity of the electricity crisis. This complexity has hindered the transition to renewable energy that would offer sustainable and affordable solutions to the electricity crisis.
We showed the final version of the animated video that explains what a CA is in Arabic.
The video was a fruitful general explainer for what a CA is to an audience who has never heard of it before. But of course, the question that immediately followed from the video is –– what will be done with the recommendations? This question highlights the importance of having a theory of change in the design of the CA to connect purpose with outcomes. Here there was a debate about the usefulness of recommendations without teeth – but all agreed it would be useful to focus on behavioural change and individual or community initiatives where change is possible.
Key feedback :
We received many questions: what is the purpose of the subject of assembling over the topic of electricity in Hamra? What are we trying to achieve? (i.e., what is the overarching question?) and who will be taking the recommendations forward? Who is the counterpart at the policy level?
From community stakeholders:
● Questions are too complicated and technical: When we presented the original questions, we were going to tackle at the CA – there were concerns – especially by those from the locality and civil society that the questions were too technical and too ambitious for a one-day CA. Other community stakeholders echoed this concern.
● Duration of the CA is too short – one day is not enough time to do the learning required of the CA to answer the kind of questions we are asking
● The CA needs to be grounded in lived experiences, local need and culture – otherwise, interest in the significant issues may wane, and the visioning process would be an exercise in 'just dreaming', or the voting would be akin to a survey/opinion poll, rather than an actual decision that can be acted upon
From the energy experts and government advisor:
● The public struggle to understand anything technical to do with electricity
● The focus on reducing demand through individual practices is essential and the emphasising the cultural link to energy
● Since electricity issues are highly-politicised, the citizens' assembly can have a significant impact to find local solutions and also raise awareness.
● Given the current situation, particularly the currency devaluation and expected deterioration in the electricity provision, what can a CA offer? Can we be thinking through how we can respond to the emerging immediate energy needs?
From CSO and environmentalists, entrepreneur:
● The bottom-up approach is better, and reality can only change from below
● The approach needs to be around urgent basic needs in a 'state of emergency', the case of zero-hour electricity, and that we are approaching crisis mode
● Questions of ability to apply recommendations. Address vested interests of generator mafias and funding
Critical actions for the team:
We need to rethink our plan in terms of scope and format and consult with stakeholders on different options, in light of three main challenges raised in the meeting
Current climate and opportunities for CA to facilitate collaborative action at the neighbourhood level to respond to urgent energy needs (format may not be a strict CA, but more like a people's assembly if necessary)
Lack of policy level counterpart: need to consult further and consider who the appropriate counterpart could be (e.g. in the municipality, the governor, Beirut parliamentarians, Beirut parliamentary candidates who did not win (?) and a way to engage them.
Duration of the assembly, and ability to ensure adequate time for learning, particularly given the current situation and expected disruption due to both Covid19 and political instability. The team will explore online learning as a tool to deliver this component of a CA because of social distancing restrictions and the need to reduce real time spent in a confined location.
We hope to be able to run the citizen assembly physically in September this year subject to confirmation. In the second stakeholder meeting at the end of July, we hope to discuss the following:
What does the data available to tell about electricity in Hamra?
What are the main questions we should ask in the citizen assembly?
Feedback on a revised format and agenda for the CA
Any logistical matters we need to consider in light of the pandemic, social distancing and ensuring access to everyone invited to take part
The CA delivery welcomes all views, feedback and suggestions. Please email Ala'a Shehabi on a.shehabi@ucl.ac.uk or Mariam Daher [mariam.daher@lebanesestudies.com].
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