In the welcome video for this week, we said we wanted to see “Sustainable Energy Access for Communities” not so much as a course, but as a collaboration with you, the participants. The comments and contributions have shown that this really the case. What has been remarkable about the discussion so far is seeing the diversity of participants and the range of rich experience they bring.

Over the past two weeks, members of a Citizens Assembly in Lebanon have concluded work deliberating energy justice, and making key decisions on where Lebanon should get its energy and the best way to reduce energy demand. One of the key aims of the pilot was to work on building a model of a CA that works on a local and regional level and to begin an educational process about the method.

Under challenging conditions in Lebanon and the challenges of public gathering in these pandemic times, a pilot of the first Citizens Assembly launched with its first session last Friday 23 October. The physical meeting took place under several adaptation measures including a reduction in the number of Members from 50 to 33, covid-screening, social distancing and mask-wearing. To limit the need for overall face to face contact, the sessions were also reduced to two hours spread over three days, with digital engagement with presentations and material in the interim periods between each session.

The RELIEF Centre is launching a citizens' assembly on Energy on 23rd October 2020.

Doing any type of research in Lebanon in this period of compounded crises needs a different and more profound kind of grounding and embeddedness.

Lebanon has been facing a severe energy crisis for the past 30 years at least. With a community of energy experts, and on the backdrop of recent protests for economic and political reforms, RELIEF has been working with key partners and advisors to deliver a future Citizen Assembly on Electricity in Hamra in the last quarter of this year. Many citizen assemblies have taken place in Western contexts, and have found resurgent popularity in the wake of climate emergency. The citizen assembly is a novel idea in the Middle East, and in Lebanon in particular. The delivery team in Lebanon has undertaken much learning, translation and adaptation of the citizen assembly concept. After consultation and testing, we have translated ‘Citizen Assembly’ as majlis madani in arabic invoking the idea of a civic forum that would be inclusive of everyone and not just citizens. We began with the need to raise public awareness about what a citizen assembly is using videos in Arabic.

Within the framework of the “Regional Initiative for Promoting Small-Scale Renewable Energy Applications in rural areas of the Arab Region (REGEND)” Project, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) is partnering with the Institute for Global Prosperity (IGP), University College London, RELIEF Centre and Chatham House in organizing a workshop on “Transitions to Renewable Energy and Sustainable Prosperity in Lebanon: The role of municipalities, education and future scenarios for 2030”. This is the second in a series of workshops exploring the transition to renewable energy in Lebanon.

The RELIEF Centre, Institute for Global Prosperity UCL, ESCWA and Chatham House are organising the one-day workshop, “Transitions to Renewable Energy and Sustainable Prosperity in Lebanon: The Role of Municipalities, Education and Future Scenarios for 2030”, Monday 23rd September 2019, at UN House, Beirut, Lebanon. This is the second in a series of workshops exploring the transition to renewable energy in Lebanon.