BPW Coffs Harbour - Meet the Ambassador Lunch

The Ambassador for Lebanon, Mr Glenn Miles is visiting Coffs Harbour and will update our women's groups on events in Lebanon and the M iddle East. He has also indicated that he will be pleased to take questions on the status of women in the Middle East.

Mr Miles is a career officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and was most recently Acting High Commissioner to Fiji and High Commissioner to Tuvalu for nearly three years. He has also served as Ambassador to Kuwait and Australia's Representative in Ramallah, with earlier postings in Amman and Riyadh. Mr Miles was a member of the Baghdad Embassy opening team in 2003 and served with the Peace Monitoring Group in Bougainville.

Mr Miles is a graduate of Deakin University and speaks Arabic. He is married with three children.

Background info

Some background from the World Bank Report on Lebanon and the impact of the Syria crisis:

Lebanon is a small open country – culturally, politically, and economically, of high income status with a population of 4.5 million people, (not taking into account the refugee populations). Lebanon’s diverse sectarian make-up has resulted in a confessional system of governance (the President is Christian, the Prime Minister is Sunni and the Speaker of the Parliament is Shia) that has left Lebanon vulnerable to external influence.

This vulnerability has been exacerbated by the Syrian crisis. Since the start of the conflict in March 2015, 1.5 million Syrians - more than a quarter of the Lebanese population - have taken refuge in Lebanon, adding to an already pre-existing population of 270,000 Palestinian refugees. This influx has increased pressure on Lebanon’s already strained economy and vulnerable infrastructure, and impacted government service delivery, particularly in the education and health sectors. Similarly, the demographic changes have had a major socio-economic and environmental impact - poverty levels amongst Lebanese have increased markedly. The resulting demographic changes have also disrupted Lebanon’s delicate sectarian and political balance, putting at risk its already fragile stability.