Lebanon’s 2026 budget contains at least LBP 1.63 trillion in spending that can be explicitly identified as prison-specific. More than half is allocated to food, almost LBP 500 billion to medicines, laboratory materials and hospitalisation, and another LBP 204.8 billion to equipment and maintenance. The procurement records show where some of that money goes, but calculating a simple cost per prisoner is much harder.
Lebanon’s differing official birth and death counts complicate efforts to track demographic change amid declining births and an ageing population.
Lebanon entered 2026 with a parliamentary election scheduled for May and more than four million registered voters. By March, the election was gone. The numbers place the latest postponement alongside an earlier cycle of extensions, an unresolved electoral law and an expatriate vote that has become increasingly consequential.
Host governments have set return targets measured in the hundreds of thousands. But the return data, the legal data and the conditions inside Syria point to a much less straightforward reality.
Lebanon’s failing electricity system places an unequal burden on households, as wealthier families use solar and backup power to escape shortages while poorer households consume less electricity and leave more of their basic energy needs unmet.
Lebanon's education system faces mounting uncertainty as exam cancellations, declining public-school enrollment, and missing government spending data make it increasingly difficult to assess whether education reforms are delivering real results.
