The escalation of hostilities in Lebanon has caused a severe humanitarian crisis, displacing over 1.2 million people despite a ceasefire and the attempted return of populations to their homes. The intersection of pre-existing, multiple and cascading crises has left over 80% of the population in Lebanon in multidimensional poverty. Services are overwhelmed, exacerbating an already dire socio-economic situation and highlighting the need for coordinated humanitarian efforts.
During crises, diaspora researchers play a critical role due to their contextual knowledge, cultural awareness, language skills, and networks. However, humanitarian actors lack a coordinated approach to leverage these networks, leading to inefficiencies, duplication of efforts, and the marginalisation of local and diaspora expertise.
To help address this issue, this project aims to establish the Lebanon Diaspora Humanitarian Research Network to support research and humanitarian efforts during the ongoing crisis in Lebanon. The network seeks to bring together diaspora and local experts, develop an action plan for their deployment, and create a collaborative platform to support and amplify local voices within the humanitarian response. To achieve this, the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership (CHL), in partnership with the American University of Beirut (AUB), will conduct the following activities:
- Diaspora Outreach: Conduct outreach within Lebanese diaspora communities to identify relevant diaspora and local experts and build connections between them, AUB, and the wider humanitarian response.
- Online Workshop: Convene diaspora and local experts and humanitarians to develop a diaspora network action plan for the integration of diaspora and local experts into humanitarian research systems.
- Evidence Synthesis: Develop a rapid evidence and commentary paper on the humanitarian context, diaspora experiences, and provide lessons learned and recommendations for similar deployments in other humanitarian crises.
This project is led by CHL at Deakin University, in partnership with the Center for Public Health Practice (CPHP) at the AUB.