Personal Info
- Country of residence: Portugal
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Youssef Abdullah Sayigh was born in the depopulated village of Al-Bassa, in the district of occupied Acre, in 1916. He is married and has a son. He completed his primary education at schools in the village of Khirbet in Syria and the village of Al-Bassa in Palestine, and his secondary education at the Saida School in the city of Saida, graduating in 1934. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the American University of Beirut in 1938, a Master of Science degree in Economics from the same university in 1952, and a PhD in Political Economy from Johns Hopkins University in 1957. He worked as an accountant for the Saucony Company in Beirut in 1938, and as a teacher at the Al-Tafayudh Private School in Tikrit, Iraq, between 1939 and 1940. He served as Assistant General Manager of the Al-Hamma Mineral Springs Company Limited in Tiberias between 1940 and 1943, Manager of the Tiberias Hotel between 1943 and 1944, Manager of the Jerusalem branch of Saba & Co., and Assistant General Manager for the Arab world between 1944 and 1946. Director of the Arab Finance House (a non-governmental organization concerned with supporting the steadfastness and resistance of the Palestinians) between (1946-1948), lecturer in the Department of Economics at the American University of Beirut between (1952-1973), visiting professor at Harvard University between (1959-1960), visiting professor at Princeton University in 1960, director of the Institute of Economic Research at the American University of Beirut between (1962-1964), also worked as an advisor to the Kuwaiti government between (1964-1965), and an advisor to OPEC, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Arab Industrial Development Organization, and the Department of Economic Affairs and Planning of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Sayigh joined the Syrian Social Nationalist Party in the 1930s, headed its branch in Palestine, and was one of its student arms at the American University of Beirut. He participated in the defense of Jerusalem during the Nakba events of 1948, contributed to the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was a member of the Palestinian National Council in 1964, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1968 and 1972, a founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Planning Center in 1968 and its director until 1971, secretary of the Palestinian National Fund between (1971-1974), prepared the Palestinian Development Program in 1990, and headed the Palestine Liberation Organization's delegation in the multilateral talks in Paris and Rome, where he chaired the working group on economic development and cooperation (1992-1993). He was also the head of the organization's delegation to negotiate with the World Bank and donor countries during the same period.
Sayigh began writing in Palestinian newspapers and magazines in the 1940s. He then worked on publishing a number of books, research papers, and studies specializing in Arab development issues and the Palestinian economy. He participated in hundreds of seminars and conferences in more than twenty countries around the world. His books include: News with Dignity: The Social Content of the Arab Nationalist Concept (1961), Palestine Between Liberation and Settlement (1973), The Economies of the Arab World (1978), Arab Oil and the Palestinian Question in the 1980s (1986), Deceptive Development: From Dependency to Self-Reliance in the Arab Region (1991), and Arab Development: From the Shortcomings of the Past to the Obsession with the Future (1994).
Sayigh was active at the level of research centers. He was a founding member of the Center for Arab Unity Studies in Beirut since 1976, of the Arab Thought Forum in Jordan, and of the Economic Research Forum for Arab States. He also headed the Cairo Society for Economic Research between 1992 and 1995.
Zionist forces arrested Sayigh in Jerusalem during the Nakba of 1948, and he spent nine months in their prisons. He died on May 12, 2004.
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