Faculty of Law and Political Science (FLPS) at Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU) Professor and Chairman of the Lebanon National School of Administration (ENA) Georges Labaki participated on November 1,2017, in an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on “Integrated Approaches to International Migrations: The Perspective of Public Institutions and Public Administration” held at the UN headquarters in New York, USA. According to the organizers, the purpose of the global EGM was to draft a World Public Sector Report 2017 “by gathering practitioners working on institutional and public administration issues in relation to international migrations. The main objective of the meeting is to collect feedback and additional inputs from a group of committed scientists, experts and practitioners on this topic, in order to enhance the credibility and relevance of the report.”
Dr. Labaki discussed the specific needs of countries, such as Lebanon, which are overwhelmed by a disproportionate ratio of refugee-to-host-population. He proposed the following approach.
“The answer is by adopting a holistic and comprehensive response, strengthening tracking and monitoring mechanism, strengthening institutional building at both local and national levels, strengthening national coordination and implementation systems, establishing joint plans between donors and states, monitoring and evaluation response, increasing aid, and developing support policies. Also, there is a complementarity between refugee aid and development assistance, i.e. a close relationship between what refugees need to help them support themselves and what the disadvantaged local people need. These needs should be reflected in the structures and/or co-ordination procedures aimed at addressing these issues at the national level. To sum up, there is a need for additional support for the poor hosting countries in underdeveloped areas and a lasting solidarity. Finally, there is a need to act at the source of the problem for this protracted migration issue that mixes between refugees, economic migrants, and displaced populations through, among other options, the need for organizing economic migration.”