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Liberia

Livelihood Resilience and Escaping Poverty in Liberia: For the development of a Dashboard for Livelihood Security in Liberia (September 2024)

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Background

Liberia experienced another democratic alternance at the head of the State, with Joseph Nyumah Boakai in replacement of George Oppong Weah. Soon in the new term, the new administration announced its strategic priorities for the next 5 years, that will cover areas like Agriculture, Roads, Rule of Law, Education, Sanitation, and Tourism, coined the ARREST Agenda. This decision illustrates a shift in the country’s public policy focus, moving away from peacebuilding, as outlined in pillar 3 of the PAPD Agenda, and towards development, in line with the goals of the ARREST Agenda. From 2016 to 2021, three waves of survey’s, aligned with the SCORE methodology, were conducted to provide robust evidence for accurate monitoring of the country’s progress in achieving the Peacebuilding Plan’s objectives. The ambition is now to adjust the SCORE metrics to provide evidence to support the new agenda.

Indeed, the third SCORE Liberia project (2020-2021) provided an opportunity to assess progress in Liberia since the closure of UNMIL on 30 March 2018, through reports around (i) progress towards sustaining peace, (ii) livelihood resilience and (iii) women and the peace dividend. This allowed us to provide policy makers with evidence-based insights which can optimize efforts to accelerate progress towards achieving key targets in the PAPD. This assessment was made possible by the work done in the previous waves (2016 and 2018) to establish a measure of social cohesion and resilience capacities in local communities for conflict prevention (SCORE Liberia 2016) and convert SCORE findings into evidence-based publications to serve as the baseline for a) Enhancing Good Governance, b) Addressing Violent Tendencies and c) Fostering Constructive Citizenship (SCORE Liberia 2018).

The current Liberia SCORE project (2023) provides an opportunity to assess progress in Liberia since the closure of UNMIL on 30th March 2018, toward the achievement of the Liberia Peacebuilding Plan’s targets. It also explores the ability of SCORE metrics to provide insights that could inform the ARREST agenda. This is an important challenge to be tackled because it will establish a strategic continuity from peacebuilding to development focus, and help developing a Peace & Development Dashboard that could be useful for the Government of Liberia (GoL). The three reports in the 2023 series will explore a) livelihood resilience, b) the progress in women’s situation and c) Civic Satisfaction as the bridge between peace and development. They build on the work and knowledge accrued through previous SCORE projects, and together provide policy makers with evidence-based insights to assess the achievement of PAPD’s key targets and ensure the strategic continuity towards the country’s new focus.