The numbers · 16 October 2026 · 6 min read
Over three weeks we read thirteen datasets on Lebanon's digital economy, one post at a time. Side by side they show one pattern: what individuals do scores well, the shared systems they depend on score poorly, and one global measure cannot see Lebanon at all.
Since late September, Club Cedro has published one dataset at a time on Lebanon's digital economy: code on GitHub, ICT exports, AI use, AI readiness, research, connectivity, open data, e-government, innovation, cybersecurity, government technology and digital payments. Thirteen posts, from nine publishers.
A post can carry one number. It cannot show how the numbers fit together. This piece reads them side by side. Every figure below was re-read from its source on 15 October 2026, and where a publisher says its index is not a ranking, we give scores, not places.
Where a measure counts what people do for themselves, Lebanon tends to sit level with its region or above it. Where a measure counts shared systems, the things a business or a citizen relies on without owning, Lebanon sits near the bottom of the tables we read. That holds across publishers that use different methods, different years and different definitions, which is why it is worth stating.
AI use. Microsoft's AI Economy Institute estimates that 27.7 percent of working-age people in Lebanon used a generative AI product in the second quarter of 2026. Worldwide the figure was 18.8 percent. Lebanon is 34th of 147 economies.
Code. On GitHub's Innovation Graph, Lebanon's share of all code pushes rose in every calendar year from 2020 to 2025, from 4.2 in every 10,000 to 7.5.
Research. In WIPO's Global Innovation Index 2026, Lebanon is 4th of 139 economies for scientific and technical articles relative to the size of its economy, at 45.5 per billion dollars of GDP at purchasing power parity. In 2023, 30.6 percent of its graduates finished in science and engineering, 20th in the index.
Phones. In the World Bank's Global Findex 2025 survey, 94.0 percent of adults in Lebanon own a mobile phone. The average for lower middle income economies, Lebanon's group, is 75.1 percent.
Innovation and economic integration. The IMF's AI Preparedness Index splits its score into four parts. On innovation and economic integration Lebanon's part is 0.13, level with Jordan and Qatar and above Saudi Arabia at 0.12.
Exports. Lebanon sold 749 million dollars of ICT services abroad in 2018 and 141 million in 2023, a fall of 81 percent. World ICT service exports rose about 76 percent over the same years.
Payments. 20.3 percent of adults made or received a digital payment in 2024. In 2017 the figure was 33.1 percent. The lower middle income average is 47.3 percent. Set beside the 94.0 percent who own a phone, this is the widest gap in the set.
Digital government. On the UN's E-Government Development Index, Lebanon was 73rd of 193 countries in 2016 and 126th in 2024. Its own score barely moved, 0.565 to 0.545. Others rose past it: Jordan went from 91st to 89th and Armenia from 87th to 48th.
Government technology. The World Bank's GovTech Maturity Index 2025 gives Lebanon 0.260 out of 1, against a global average of 0.589. Its weakest part is digital citizen engagement, open data portals and feedback platforms, at 0.084.
Cybersecurity. ITU's Global Cybersecurity Index 2024 gives Lebanon 32.37 out of 100, Tier 4, against a global average of 65.7. Its legal pillar is 12.08 of 20. Its technical pillar, the one for incident response teams and security standards, is 1.39 of 20.
Open data. Open Data Watch scores Lebanon 33 out of 100 for official data published openly. Seven of its 22 topics score zero, among them international trade, energy and health facilities. The strongest are balance of payments at 81 and money and banking at 75.
Government AI. Oxford Insights places Lebanon 117th of 195 in its 2025 Government AI Readiness Index. On public sector adoption it scores 18.65 out of 100, where the report puts the regional average at about 48 and the global average at 54.
Research with industry. The same WIPO index that puts Lebanon 4th for papers puts it 137th of 139 for research co-authored by public institutions and companies. The share is 0.2 percent.
Readiness parts. On the IMF index, Lebanon's overall score is 0.42 of 1. Its digital infrastructure part is 0.09 and its regulation and ethics part 0.08. Saudi Arabia scores 0.14 on both.
ITU's ICT Development Index measures how universal and meaningful internet connections are. Its 2026 edition covers 159 economies. Lebanon is not one of them. Lebanon was scored in the 2023 edition, at 76.1 out of 100, and has no score in the three editions since. ITU's rules drop an economy that lacks enough recent official data, and ITU itself calls falling coverage a major cause for concern. On ITU's global measure of connectivity there is, for now, no Lebanese number to argue with.
They cannot see the diaspora. GitHub places accounts by IP address, so a Lebanese engineer in Paris counts as France. ICT exports count services sold from Lebanon, so work invoiced by a company registered in Dubai or Delaware does not appear. Our earlier piece, Follow the paperwork, found Lebanese AI companies registered in Abu Dhabi, Vienna, Sharjah, Tokyo and New York.
They cannot see private work. GitHub counts public code. Code written inside companies is invisible to it.
Several record existence, not quality. ITU says its index records whether a cybersecurity measure is in place, not how well it works. The GovTech index rests mostly on answers governments give about themselves, and the IMF index includes perception-based indicators.
Surveys have margins. The Findex figures for Lebanon come from 1,004 interviews between 28 May and 2 July 2024, with a margin of error of 3.4 points, and some areas, among them Baalbek, Bint Jbeil and Hermel, were not sampled.
And none of them says why. Not one of these datasets attributes a cause to Lebanon's scores, and neither do we.
Build for the user who is already there. Almost everyone has a phone and more than a quarter of working-age people already use generative AI. One in five adults made or received a digital payment in 2024. A product that assumes card rails will meet that gap. A product that closes it has a measured market.
Write with the researchers. Lebanon is 4th for papers and 137th for papers written with companies. That gap does not need a policy to close. It needs a company to co-author with a university lab, and every such paper counts.
Hold your own systems to the standard. A company cannot move the national technical score of 1.39 out of 20. It can adopt the security standards that pillar measures, and buyers abroad will ask whether it has.
Publish what you can. Seven topics scored zero for open official data. A startup that publishes clean data on its own sector, with a licence, gives the next builder something to stand on.
Be countable. Where work can be invoiced from Lebanon, it shows up in the export series. Where it cannot, the series will keep reading low, whatever the talent behind it.
We are not giving Lebanon's digital economy a single grade. These measures come from different years, from 2023 to 2026, and use different methods, and we have not combined them into an index of our own.
We are not ranking where a publisher says not to. The IMF, ITU and the World Bank ask that their indices not be used as rankings, and we give their scores.
We are not claiming a cause for any figure. The data records what is, not why.
What we are saying is narrower. On thirteen public datasets, Lebanese people and researchers score well and the shared systems around them score poorly. That gap is where builders have room to work. We will re-run each figure as its publisher releases a new edition.
The full record of Lebanese AI companies, builders and events, each entry with its source, is on the register.
Sources
Written for Club Cedro. If something here is wrong, say so and it gets corrected with the correction left visible.
More writing