Lebanese Institute for Market Studies earns the top award at Investor Summit 2022

At Investors Summit for Liberty 2022, ten pre-selected Atlas Network partners took the stage to pitch their most exciting projects for the upcoming year. Generous investors provided grant funding not only for the winner, but for each runner-up as well. Lebanese Institute for Market Studies—or LIMS—won this year’s top prize for their Lebanon NOW initiative to counteract inaccurate reporting by mainstream media in their country.

In Lebanon, the vast majority of the media is owned by political elites, allowing them to spin, alter, or invent news to protect and benefit themselves and their allies. This control over the flow of information has sped Lebanon’s slide into poverty and unrest. In response, Lebanese Institute for Market Studies has developed a plan to provide the people of Lebanon with accurate news, verified economic statistics, and free-market opinion articles. This material will be made available on the new Lebanon News and Opinion Website, or Lebanon NOW. The organization’s goal is for this website to be easily accessible, smartphone-compatible, and for its content to be attractive even to mainstream media outlets. The project’s potential to have regional impact, its scalability, and the expertise of the LIMS team won the confidence of investors and the event’s US$50,000 top prize.

Runners-up included Advocata Institute (Sri Lanka), Association Multi (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Better Cities Project (United States), Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo (Argentina), Fundación Eléutera (Honduras), Human Rights Foundation (United States), Nkafu Policy Institute (Cameroon), Pelican Institute for Public Policy (United States), and SecondStreet.org (Canada). These organizations each received a US$25,000 grant, with the opportunity to win an additional US$10,000 matching grant. Donors in attendance also pledged a total of US$80,000 to various organizations.

Read more about all ten projects here.