PREAMBLE TO THE STUDY OF THE LEBANESE NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN (LNDP)

Everyone realizes the difficulties that our country faces at the present time in all the domains, be them social, economic or financial. With the current upheavals in the region anything can happen and Lebanon's fragile make up is under severe stress.

We are convinced that most of our problems can be partially or totally solved, provided we decide to face them together, irrespective of our individual religious and/or political affiliations. 

But, first, we must identify these problems, describe them accurately in full details, seek the appropriate solutions to them that would satisfy the largest possible number of individual and groups of citizens. Later we should ascertain who will be responsible for executing the job,  the cost that will be involved in implementing these solutions, seek the sources of financing these initiatives,and draw up an execution time table.

This is a huge task that we face. Fortunately, over two thirds of the studies are available but lie gathering dust in the archives of the Ministry of Administrative Reform (OMSAR) in Starco.

Our job will consist in extracting these documents, read them carefully and use them to build the PLAN.

This is, evidently, no easy feat. However, it is estimated that, provided one can recruit some one hundred searchers and analysts, the entire PLAN can be built up within eight months. The cost of this eight months long operation is estimated at one million US dollars.This is a comparatively negligible amount when compared with the daily losses currently sustained by the Authorities in the absence of some effective reforms. We have estimated these DAILY losses at thirty million US dollars and we are prepared to provide a detailed statement to back up our assertion.