Sami Atallah

Sami Atallah is Executive Director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies (LCPS), which was set up in Beirut in 1989 during the civil war in Lebanon with a view to reconstruction and better governance. LCPS aims to provide policymakers with policy alternatives, inform the public about the policies conducted, and build bridges between academic experts and circles of power. This independent research institute focuses on diverse issues: the electoral reform, decentralization, job creation, hydrocarbons, refugees… Sami Attallah graduated in International Economics and Development from Yale University (1996) and in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University (2004). He is currently completing his Ph.D. in Political Science at New York University. He is the author of a number of articles and studies on the Arab world (including “Linking England to India: How Geostrategic Trade Routes have Shaped the Political Institutions in the Arab World”, ERF Working Paper, 2014), and has been a consultant for the World Bank, European Union and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Lebanon and Syria. He has also been advisor to the Lebanese Ministries of Finance, Industry and the Interior and municipalities, as well as to the Office of the Prime Minister. From November 2012 to April 2014, he was a member of the committee set up by the Prime Minister to prepare a decentralization law.