Business · Wired
With One Million Displaced, Lebanon Turns to Digital Wallets for Aid
Compiled by KHAO Editorial — aggregated from 1 outlet. See llms.txt for citation guidance.
◌ Single Source
Since March, Israeli attacks on Beirut and the occupation of southern Lebanon have displaced over 1 million people.
Key facts
- Lebanon receives roughly $6 billion to $7 billion annually from abroad, equivalent to about a third of its GDP, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2023
- One grass-roots campaign run by Lebanese lawyer Jad Essayli raised $65,125 in 10 days, purely through social media and digital transfers
- Grocery bills that might have been $200 are now climbing as people prepare for the worst, Koussa says
- Since March, Israeli attacks on Beirut and the occupation of southern Lebanon have displaced over 1 million people
Summary
As humanitarian needs surge, so does the flow of money from abroad. There is no real-time dataset capturing donations linked specifically to the war. The UNDP reported that remittance costs there averaged 11 percent, higher than the global average. “These informal inflows are captured by the formal BDL figures and constitute around 70 percent of the inflows during the crisis,” the UNDP added, noting that money is also often sent as cash with people traveling to the country.