Over the past two weeks, members of a Citizens Assembly in Lebanon have concluded work deliberating energy justice, and making key decisions on where Lebanon should get its energy and the best way to reduce energy demand. One of the key aims of the pilot was to work on building a model of a CA that works on a local and regional level and to begin an educational process about the method.
Under challenging conditions in Lebanon and the challenges of public gathering in these pandemic times, a pilot of the first Citizens Assembly launched with its first session last Friday 23 October. The physical meeting took place under several adaptation measures including a reduction in the number of Members from 50 to 33, covid-screening, social distancing and mask-wearing. To limit the need for overall face to face contact, the sessions were also reduced to two hours spread over three days, with digital engagement with presentations and material in the interim periods between each session.
Lebanon has been facing a severe energy crisis for the past 30 years at least. With a community of energy experts, and on the backdrop of recent protests for economic and political reforms, RELIEF has been working with key partners and advisors to deliver a future Citizen Assembly on Electricity in Hamra in the last quarter of this year. Many citizen assemblies have taken place in Western contexts, and have found resurgent popularity in the wake of climate emergency. The citizen assembly is a novel idea in the Middle East, and in Lebanon in particular. The delivery team in Lebanon has undertaken much learning, translation and adaptation of the citizen assembly concept. After consultation and testing, we have translated ‘Citizen Assembly’ as majlis madani in arabic invoking the idea of a civic forum that would be inclusive of everyone and not just citizens. We began with the need to raise public awareness about what a citizen assembly is using videos in Arabic.
