17/09/2026
It sounds like a theoretical question — but in 2019, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Lebanon's Foreign Minister suggested that perhaps we should "teach them how to run a country without a budget."
Dr. Lamia Moubayed Bissat, president of the Institut des Finances Basil Fuleihan, found this statement hard to reconcile with the principles that have guided her career. A budget is much more than a financial document — it's how governments set priorities, plan for the future, allocate public resources, and remain accountable to their citizens.
Her chapter in Women in Public Finance: Stories of Gender in Budgeting shares her story at the heart of Lebanon's financial machinery — an uphill battle against an archaic 1963 system, institutional inertia, and deep-seated political resistance, as a non-partisan, non-sectarian woman leading in a male-dominated field.
Edited by Maja Bosnic and Manal Fouad | Published by Routledge (2026) | eBook ISBN: 9781003732532
📖 Available at the Library of Finance
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Lamia Moubayed Bissat