The Government of Liberia through the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) has entered into a financial grant agreement with the United States Agency for International Development –USAID Liberia.
This comes amid amendments 14 and 15 made to the Development Objective Agreement (DOAG), No. 669-DOAG.
The agreement is intended to incrementally fund and revise the total USAID contribution to the Development Objective Grant to amongst other things, accelerate reforms in health, education and provide essential services to Liberians.
The Grant Agreement signed Wednesday, November 13 at the Ministry of Finance is in the tone of one hundred fourteen Million, four hundred eighty eight thousand, one twenty five United States Dollars (US$114, 488,125).
It is expected to provide support for programs in three thematic areas: Market-driven, inclusive economic growth supporting increased job creation; Effective and inclusive governance catalysed through reforms and greater accountability; and Foundation for growth strengthened through a healthy, productive, and educated population. These activities cut across several sectors including the agriculture, justice, education, health, among others.
This is part of amendments 14 and 15 to the Development Objective Grant Agreement (DOAG), No. 669-DOAG.
The financial agreement between the Government and USAID-Liberia is intended to tackle numerous challenges the government of Liberia and its people are faced with.
The United States Ambassador to Liberia, Mark C. Toner and Signed on behalf of USAID Liberia; while Finance Minister Augustine Ngafuan signed for the Government of Liberia.
Making remarks during the signing ceremony, the Minister of Finance and Development Planning termed the grant agreement as a pivotal role map in strengthening the historic bilateral ties between the Governments and peoples of Liberia and the United States of America.
The Minister said he is certain that as both parties move on to address the serious development challenges confronting Liberia, noting ‘there will be many more of such signings in the months and years to come’’.
He narrated that the health sector is the largest amongst the sectors with the total of fifty-five (55) on-going projects in all of the Counties with USAID providing technical and financial support through its health development program for the implementation of the Ministry of Health’s Health Policy and Plan and the national Essential Package of Health Services.
According to Minister Ngafuan, through this agreement, the capacity of community-based institutions, health workers, and volunteers to provide and safe water supply and sanitation to communities and maternal health and child delivery support will also be provided at selected health facilities in the counties. Additionally, family planning and protection against malaria will be done to make sure that Liberia are healthy in all 15 counties.
‘It further supports maternal and child health service delivery at selected facilities in various counties. Family planning and anti-malaria interventions in all 15 Liberian counties are also important features of USAID’s support to Liberia’s Health sector.’
Minister Augustine Ngafuan indicated that USAID’s continual willingness to work with the government of Liberia in supporting the MOH 10-year plan as well as continuing to ensure further alignment through the Global Health Initiative strategy which has core principles of country ownership and integrated health systems for sustainable impact.
He pointed to an underlying component of the strategy which is the use of government systems to channel funding for service delivery and other activities, adding that this will be realised using a Fixed Amount Reimbursement Agreement (FARA) to be pre-financed from the GOL’s Budget.
In the education sector, the agreement provides for improving the quality of teaching and learning (especially in early grade reading and math), and increasing equitable access to learning opportunities for girls and for youths that have missed out on education due to the Liberian Civil War.
‘USAID is helping to train teaching and management staff, develop school curricula and policies essential to providing quality basic education services to all Liberians. Support will also go to the critical reform process of the decentralization of the Ministry of Education’s operations through assistance in preparing administrative regulations and policy guidelines. Other initiatives include: the development of teacher education system, support to the youths, and support to higher education.’
The Minister of Finance and Development Planning called the attention of partners stressing the need for a more sustainable approach to development investment in areas of the domestic economy where the most potentials can be leveraged to create jobs for our people especially in the private sector and engender growth and up-liftmen from poverty is a critical concern of Boakai’s Administration..
‘This must be done in tandem with efforts that promote accountability in public sector institutions and ensure that resources are managed used prudently to benefits all of our people. We believe that by working with a sense of urgency and intentionality we can remove several of the binding constraints to development including addressing the issues of road connectivity and electricity thereby unlocking the economy over the next few years.’, the Finance Minister iterated.
The Minister highlighted Liberia’s new national development plan -ARREST Agenda for Inclusive Development (AAID), committing GOL to working with partners to lessen roads and energy burdens.
Additionally, Ngafuan noted government’s willingness to invest in agriculture especially in value chain expansion, education, sanitation, rule of law, social welfare, and tourism.
He indicated: ‘we want to make the economy work better to churn out more people to get jobs, again especially in the private sector.’
