Last year we marked five years of Youth4Governance. Here is what that milestone meant, and why the work is more alive today than ever.
Five years ago, we set out with a simple conviction: that Lebanon’s young people were not bystanders to the country’s governance crisis. They were its most capable reformers. Not one day, under better circumstances, but now, from inside the institutions themselves.
The years since have tested that conviction against some of the hardest conditions imaginable: political paralysis, economic collapse, war, and a public trust in the state worn down to almost nothing. Yet what we have seen, consistently, across institutions after institutions, is that young professionals willing to show up, ask hard questions, and build practical solutions can move things that most people assume are immovable.
Last year’s fifth anniversary brought the Y4G community together: fellows past and present, ministry partners, civil society, and supporters. Not to declare victory, but to take stock honestly:
- What has the model produced?
- Where have Y4G fellows made a measurable difference?
- What does the next chapter look like?
The answers were more concrete than many expected.
When the basics are broken, fix them first
A recurring theme across Y4G placements has been the gap between what citizens need from public services and what those services are currently able to deliver. Fellows have consistently focused on closing that gap through targeted, practical interventions that produce results quickly.
During the 2025 municipal elections, Y4G fellows embedded at the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities helped build an information and complaints infrastructure that held up under real pressure. A call center handling over 5,000 queries managed to respond to 95% of them, with callers waiting an average of nine seconds to be connected. Real-time dashboards tracked developments on the ground, allowing teams to respond quickly to misinformation before it spread. For many Lebanese voters, it was a noticeably different experience.
- 95% of 5,000+ election calls answered
- 9 secs average call wait time
At the Directorate of Road Traffic, a booking system developed with Y4G input eliminated one of the most frustrating features of dealing with that institution: the wait. More than 7,000 appointments were booked through the platform in its first month alone, and the average queue time fell by three hours. Citizen satisfaction scores rose by 70 percentage points. Staff, too, described the new system as a fairer way to manage their workload, a reminder that good design benefits everyone in the room, not just those on the other side of the counter.
- 3 hrs cut in waiting times at Road Traffic
- +70 pts citizen satisfaction improvement
Accountability needs infrastructure too
Improving how services are delivered is one part of better governance. Equally important is ensuring that institutions can monitor themselves, enforce the rules they are supposed to uphold, and correct course when things go wrong. Y4G fellows have been working on exactly that.
At the Ministry of Environment, illegal quarrying has long been one of the most visible and damaging forms of environmental crime in Lebanon. Fellows have helped develop a satellite and AI-based monitoring system that can detect unlawful expansion before it progresses too far. Alongside this, a dedicated platform manages the process of ordering and tracking environmental reparations, and an AI tool is accelerating the legal research that supports public defenders handling related appeals.
Within the Police of Beirut, fellows have been working to bring inspection processes into the digital age. The shift from paper-based systems to dynamic data analysis means that patterns can be spotted earlier, problems escalated faster, and internal accountability strengthened in ways that were previously impractical.
You cannot reform what you do not understand
One of Y4G’s core convictions is that meaningful reform must start with real data: about how citizens experience the state, and what public servants themselves need to do their jobs better. Over five years, we have generated a significant body of that evidence and put it directly in front of decision-makers.
In collaboration with Central Inspection, Y4G fellows carried out a comprehensive survey of citizen attitudes toward public administration, speaking directly with over 1,000 people about what they experience and what they want to change. They also interviewed 466 civil servants, mapping the internal pressures and structural barriers that get in the way of better performance. The result was a set of policy recommendations that has since fed into national reform discussions.
At the Ministry of Social Affairs, a 2022 survey of over 1,300 households assessed how well the DAEM safety net program was reaching Lebanon’s most vulnerable people at the height of the economic crisis. The findings were honest: targeting was broadly working, but older populations and certain communities were falling through the gaps. Those findings prompted real changes to how the program identifies and reaches beneficiaries, a direct line from fieldwork to policy adjustment.
What fellows take away
Numbers tell part of the story. But when you speak with Y4G alumni, what emerges most strongly is something harder to quantify: a fundamental shift in what they believe is achievable. Many arrived skeptical of whether public institutions could genuinely change. Most left having seen it happen. That experience, of sitting inside a ministry, identifying a problem, designing a response, and watching it go live, changes how a person thinks about their country and their own place in it.
“What makes Y4G different is that, at one point, you’re conducting research on various subjects within the public administration, and then at another, you’re getting to implement [solutions based on that research]. You go on the ground and see the change happening.”
Karen Njeim, Y4G fellow, summer 2025 cohort
Y4G does not stop, it compounds
Anniversaries invite reflection, but at Y4G, as one cohort of fellows concludes their placements, the next is already beginning theirs. The alumni network is growing, a community of professionals who have spent time inside Lebanon’s public sector and carry that experience into whatever they do next, whether that is further public service, private sector roles, or civil society work. Each of them is part of a wider effort to shift how Lebanon approaches governance, and how the next generation of its leaders thinks about the state.
Five years was worth celebrating. But the reason Y4G matters is precisely that it did not end there. New fellows are in ministries right now, working on the next set of challenges. New partnerships are being formed. And the conviction that brought this programme into existence, that young Lebanese graduates are not waiting for change but making it, is as strong today as it has ever been.