Debt is widely recognized as a double-edged instrument: at the macro level, it can fund growth and essential services, but at the household level, it often represents both survival and constraint. In fragile settings, where formal safety nets are limited, borrowing increasingly serves as a de facto social protection mechanism, allowing families to secure food, housing, or healthcare when income falls short. Yet this coping strategy carries emotional and financial costs, deepening cycles of dependence, stress, and inequality, particularly among poorer households, women, and refugees.
Since 2019, Lebanon has faced overlapping crises, economic collapse, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Beirut Port explosion, and the on-going conflict, that have…