Inguna Dabraja, World Bank Country Manager for Liberia
photo: Maris Kaparkelejs

The World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors Wednesday approved a total of US$30 million in credit and grant to support Liberia’s medium-term strategy to strengthen its transparency and accountability mechanisms’

The money will also be used to expand the economy, increase access to quality education and improve health services that are critical to fighting the current Ebola epidemic.

The financing, which will support the Second Poverty Reduction Support Operation (PRSDPO II), includes a US$20 million International Development Association (IDA) credit and a US$10 million grant allocated from the World Bank Group’s IDA Crisis Response Window designed to help low-income IDA countries respond to exceptionally severe crises in a timely, transparent and predictable way.

“Liberia has made significant progress in reducing poverty after a history of conflict, but the country is now faced with heightened challenges brought on by the Ebola epidemic,” said Inguna Dobraja, World Bank Country Manager for Liberia. “The operation will continue to support the government’s poverty reduction strategy and foster an environment to bring much needed jobs and education to the Liberian people across the country. It will also help enhance access to basic health services.”

The PRSDPO II will support the implementation of Liberia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) called the Agenda for Transformation (AfT), a medium-term strategy, in the context of Liberia’s long-term vision plan, which aims to transform Liberia into a more prosperous and inclusive society, and help the country to achieve middle-income country status by 2030.

More specifically, the PRSDPO II calls for steps to increase transparency and accountability throughout the government to reduce corruption and to expand the economy by providing credit to farmers and by resolving constraints to infrastructure growth—including lack of human resources and financing. The Operation will also help improve access to, and the quality of, education and health services.

“By improving access to education, as well as addressing infrastructure and credit constraints, this operation will help prepare Liberian workers, especially the youth, for productive employment and give them access to more jobs,” said Errol George Graham, Task Team Leader for the project. “We also are happy to support the government in its efforts to strengthen health service delivery during this period of crisis and beyond.”

The World Bank Group is mobilizing nearly $1 billion in financing for the countries hardest hit by the Ebola crisis. This includes more than $500 million for the emergency response and to help speed up the deployment of foreign health workers to the countries, and at least $450 million from the IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, to enable trade, investment and employment in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The US$10 million approved today as part of the PRSDPO II is part of previous pledges from the Bank Group for the emergency response to Ebola. 

The Ebola epidemic, centered in West Africa, has infected more than 13,000 people and killed nearly 5,000.

World Bank