In his book “The Institutional Revolution in Lebanon” published by Antoine edition house, Hikmat Abou Zeid called for reforming the mechanisms of governance and developing the administrative system in Lebanon.
This topic was at the heart of the discussion and cultural exchange in the lecture organized at « Jamhour School » headed by Reverend Father Charbel Batour S.J., Rector of Collège Notre-Dame de Jamhour, who participated in the conference as well as the former Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Dr. Ziyad Baroud.
The debate was moderated by journalist Randa Sadaqa at the Cultural Center of Jamhour on Tuesday, January 17, 2023.
Father Batour, invokes the role of the religious institution in society and the potential implications of decentralization for schools in Lebanon, as well as the issue of social progress.
In his analysis, as in the introduction to the book, Ziyad Baroud – Minister of Interior and Municipalities from 2008 to 2011 and head of the committee that worked on the project of decentralization in 2014 – refers specifically to the importance of local participatory life.
Whereas, Hikmat Abou Zeid indicated that: “Decentralization organizes a unified state that improves daily life by strengthening public service.”
The conference was attended by a large number of ambassadors, lawyers, teachers and students who interacted with the idea, which calls for a formula for governance based on a social contract linking the citizen to the state.
The meeting ended with the signing of the book “The Institutional Revolution in Lebanon” on administrative decentralization, which is also available in Parisian bookshops at the Sorbonne (Polac) and the Institute of the Arab World in Matignon, which is still a hot topic in the daily political debate.