The Accelerating Collapse of the Lebanese Currency

Were the Lebanese people aware that the year 2019 will be the beginning of devastating
years for them, which will move them from the world of light to murk?
On October 17, 2019, Lebanon witnessed a breakdown with their currency resulting from the
economic and political crises in which 80% of its population is below the poverty line, which
pushed the Lebanese people to do a revolution. But the revolution stopped because of
COVID-19, which obliged all the people to go into lockdown since it paralyzed all the countries
worldwide, especially Lebanon. In August 2020, Lebanon experienced a huge explosion in the
port of Beirut that drove the dollar rate to rise dramatically, with the inflation rate being 281%
between June 2019 and June 2021.

In 2022, the dollar rate increased because of the completion of the maritime border
demarcation agreement with Israel and the end of the term of former President Michel Aoun. It
was expected that this matter would have a significant impact on the decline in the exchange
rate of the dollar, but that did not happen. The dollar rate still increased until today, too, because
the performance of the governor at the Bank of Lebanon also affects the safety of cash.
Lebanon’s people have been affected by these crises until now, when it ranked No. 2 in the
Index World 2022 as “The World’s Unhappiest Country.”

                                                                                                                  – Written by Sara Abdallah