Translated by Tamara Barakat

Sayigh was born in 1916 in Al-Bassa village near Acre, Palestine. He is the son of Priest Abdallah Sayigh. He moved with his family to Sweden in 1918, where his father worked as a teacher and preacher. Seven years later, the family returned to and settled back into Al-Bassa, due to the occurrence of the Syrian Civil War.

Sayigh studied in the American School in Sidon from 1929 – 1934, and then attended the American University in Beirut, earning a BA in Business Administration and graduating with honors in 1938.

In 1939, he worked as a teacher in a public school in Tikrit, Iraq. A year later, he returned to Palestine and served as the assistant to the general manager of the Jordan Himmeh Mineral Company, located near Tiberius. After that, he was the General Manager of a hotel in Tiberius for one year. And in 1944, he worked in Jerusalem for an organization concerned with saving and inflation combatting companies and associations. A few months later, he started working as the manager of the Saba and Co. Group’s branch in Jerusalem. After that, he served as the Director-General of the Arab National Fund, which he founded, and whose structure and work system he designed.

In 1948, Sayigh was imprisoned by the Zionist militias. After his release a year later, he went to Beirut and worked as an accountant in a transportation company until the end of 1950. After that, he worked for the UNRWA, and obtained an MA in 1952 from the AUB. He worked at the AUB as a teaching assistant until 1953, when he was appointed as an assistant professor. In 1955, he earned a PhD in Economics from a Johns Hopkins University in the USA.

Moreover, between 1959 and 1961, he worked for a year at Harvard University, and another year at Princeton University. After that, he came back to Lebanon through the sea, and during this trip, he wrote his book Bread with Dignity, which was awarded the Friends of the Book Prize in 1961.

In 1964, Sayigh was one of the members of the first Palestinian National Council that was held in May, in Jerusalem,. In 1968, he became a member in the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He worked on establishing the Palestine Planning Center, and he managed it until 1971. Then, he served as the Chairman of the Palestinian National Fund and was a member in the Executive Committee between 1971 -1974. 

In 1990, he formed a team of economists and experts in order to prepare a Development Program for Palestine, and he was commissioned to do so by the Economics Department in the PLO. He was also a founding member of the Center for Arab Unity Studies, the Arab Thought Forum, and the Economic Research Forum.

Sayigh died on May 11, 2004, at age 88, leaving behind a legacy brimming with giving.