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THREAD Beirut’s fast-moving, bottom-up disaster response has given the capital a much-needed injection of practical support and collective purpose. But this model also has pitfalls, which may prove self-defeating unless local and foreign actors adjust
The speed and energy of Beirut’s response effort have been remarkable: An army of volunteers of diverse backgrounds instantly stepped into the void left by the state, and cleared large areas buried beneath glass and debris
This volunteer effort coincided with a spectacularly successful wave of crowdfunding campaigns: Even some relatively small, little known initiatives raised tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, within days
Faced with a complex and fluid crisis, many initiatives have sought to professionalize what started off as ad hoc interventions—for instance by building more sophisticated data management systems or ramping up coordination
Yet the spontaneous quality of this effort also has limitations that are often, in fact, the flip side of its strengths. They must be acknowledged and redressed if civil society is to expand, rather than exhaust, the credibility earned from handling this disaster
1. The benefits of grassroots solidarity are not equally distributed. The vast majority of media and volunteer attention has targeted relatively affluent neighborhoods of East Beirut, which loom large in Lebanon’s economy, social life, and sense of self
By contrast, the peripheral neighborhood of Karantina, which abuts the port, has received far less attention— although it was gutted by the explosion and contains some of the capital’s most vulnerable communities
This imbalance is not a coincidence: Karantina comprises a mix of underclass Lebanese, migrant laborers, and refugees, long forgotten by the Lebanese state, local political factions, and society writ large. This legacy of neglect now colors the aid response
2. Although local solidarity has spurred cooperation across diverse communities, it can also spark tensions. In some instances, Lebanese actors have been reticent to extend support to non-Lebanese victims of the blast, such as Syrian refugees
Over time, such competition risks fueling animosity between various constituencies. Such tensions have long ebbed and flowed, but are best muted to avoid distracting from current attempts to hold the country's ruling class accountable
3. Initiatives that have proved adept at fundraising must now convert electronic donations into hard currency—a daunting task in Lebanon’s Kafkaesque financial environment, which could lead to major discrepancies between pledges and actual spending
Meanwhile, small groups that have raised large sums of money will likely face growing pains as they struggle to manage, disburse, and adequately monitor this sudden influx of cash, which typically comes with very few strings attached
4. As the response moves from emergency to recovery, the technical limitations of this improvised effort grow larger. Groups that organized to clean debris and distribute food are less equipped to repair damaged infrastructure, or provide psychological support
5. Relatedly, local actors are hard-pressed to effectively manage the vast quantities of data they are collecting on communities in need—let alone coordinate to share information with other groups who may need it
Chaotic data collection guarantees duplication of efforts and underused data. It also means that hard-hit communities are visited over and over by different initiatives conducting assessments, without necessarily receiving support as a result
6. Indeed, the response’s most glaring weakness arguably lies in its frantic, fragmented quality, with countless actors—from grassroots initiatives to UN agencies and NGOs from around the world—all moving at breakneck speed with minimal coordination
This problem is, to some extent, unavoidable: Lebanon lacks a functioning government to facilitate the effort, and, in any case, such dysfunction has for decades been endemic to the global aid system
Yet many of these issues can be mitigated through a commonsense approach: From top to bottom, all parties to the response will benefit from critically taking stock of what they have to offer and where they need support
While international actors must incorporate input from the grassroots response, local initiatives could proactively seek support in those areas where they are weakest: from financial and data management to dealing with traumatized communities
Such introspection is no small feat, as needs remain immense and emotions high. But the stakes are even higher: Lebanon’s ruling class—having done nothing to avert the blast or support its victims—will cast any grassroots failure as proof that they are the only option
