Fixing Lebanon one neighbourhood at a time: App maps broken infrastructure and holds authorities to account
It was the crumbling stone wall that did it. For a decade, the 50-metre stretch of wall along Ardeh’s main road deteriorated, threatening to fall on the hundreds of vehicles that pass through the village in northern Lebanon's Zgharta district each day. The residents of Ardeh told the local authorities about the wall on numerous occasions, but it was never fixed. Roy Bou Nasser, a 28-year-old…
Baladi Map is a free website and mobile app developed by Roy Bou Nasser, a mechanical and industrial engineer, to address the issues of broken infrastructure and hold authorities accountable in Lebanon. The platform allows residents to document problems in their communities, photograph them, and provide a description and location, which are then published on a map.
This puts the relevant authorities publicly on the hook to fix the issues. In just a few months since its launch, Baladi Map has already garnered 1,000 registered users who have reported various local problems, such as dangerous roads and illegal pavement encroachments, for their municipalities to address. The app aims to bring transparency and organization to the way public issues are dealt with in Lebanon, which has been plagued by perpetual crises, economic instability, and political clientelism.
Brief written by urgent.news from The National Business's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
