Agenda For Transformation: Steps Toward Liberia RISING 2030.

Developing Liberia’s medium-term growth strategy required intense intra-sectoral and cross-sectoral coordination to ensure that the process benefited from synergy and complementarity between sectors. To achieve this level of cooperation, 25 sector working groups (SWGs) analyzed and formulated sector plans. Each SWG followed a common results-focused approach, emphasizing outcomes and capacity development, rather than the output-focused approach in the PRS. The SWGs were led by government M&As and co-led by one development partner designated for each sector. Liberia has an aspiration to become a middle-income country by the year 2030. The government is leading the development of Liberia RISING 2030, a visioning exercise that includes the perspectives of diverse stakeholders from Liberian society and takes a broad view of Liberia’s economic, political, social and human development over an 18-year timeframe (2012–2030). It aims at directing public spending toward infrastructure and human capital development that will enable expanding production of tradable goods and services—for export or to replace imports. Agricultural development, enhanced competitiveness and modernization can improve the diversification of the economy, reduce poverty and improve food security (and hence risks on the import side), while limiting the damage to the rainforest.
The goal is to have a vibrant economy; one in which more than half of the workforce is employed in the formal sector. This is led—but not dominated by—the concessions economy, which is integrated into a prosperous Liberian economy. Liberians are successful managers and are entrepreneurs by choice. Agriculture continues to provide the majority of jobs; to produce the majority of non-resource exports; and to bring food security to Liberians. Manufacturing firms also thrive, mostly focused on serving Liberia and the sub-region, but also for labor-intensive exports. Services for export, including call centers and back office tasks, have begun to prosper. A special economic zone in Buchanan permits complex activities to service the extractive sector in the sub-region, while also acting as a staging ground for institutional reforms at the national level. Buchanan has established itself as the finance and business service capital of the sub-region, and opens its arms to international businesses.
The development of Liberia’s medium economic growth and development strategy was institutionally anchored in the Liberia Reconstruction and Development Committee (LRDC) at the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs. The primary reason for using the LRDC structure to coordinate the formulation of the strategy was the fact that the new strategy needed to be based on the gains made as well as the unfinished agenda and lessons learned from the implementation of the Lift Liberia PRS, which was also housed inside the LRDC. The strategy aims to promote a robust, competitive and modernized agriculture sector supportive of sustainable economic growth and development through these strategic objectives: 1) Increase agricultural productivity, value-added and environmental sustainability, especially for small-holders, including women and youth. 2) Increase integration of small-holder agriculture with domestic and international markets. 3) Increase fishery production in a sustainable manner. 4) Increase access to machinery, fertilizer, storage, credit, training, technical assistance, market information and improved technologies, and related services, including through farmer groups and nuclear farms. 5) Increase access to land and security of tenure. 6) Improve nutrition for all Liberians.
Chapter 7 outlines the objectives of the Agenda for Transformation and its structure, which will be supported by four main pillars: 1) Peace, Security and Rule of Law; 2) Economic Transformation; 3) Governance and Pubic Institutions; and 4) Human Development. A fifth pillar on Cross-Cutting Issues (including: include gender equality, child protection, youth empowerment, human rights and labour and employment) supports these core foundations.