Lama Mourad is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto, where she researches migration and local governance in the Middle East. From 2012-2015, Lama was a CGS-Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) doctoral fellow. She spent a year in Lebanon conducting research on the role of municipalities in responding to the Syrian refugee crisis. She has received numerous grants and awards for her work, including the International Development Research Centre’s (IDRC) Doctoral Award, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and a Fellowship from the Trudeau Centre for Peace, Conflict, and Justice.
From Conflict-insensitive to Conflict-driven Aid: Responding to the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Lebanon
In part due to a broader move from an emergency to development-based approach and due to pressure from central Lebanese government authorities, the humanitarian effort has now been coupled, since mid-2014, with one that takes into greater account the needs of local host communities alongside those of refugees. This traces the way in which tensions between hosts and refugees have become increasingly central to the development and execution of aid projects aimed at community-level support. The author argues that this has important consequences that may actually incentivize the tensions it aims to alleviate.
