About

Liberia’s Agenda for Transformation 2012-2017 confirmed many of the barriers identified in the NCSA. Specifically, the agenda noted the following barriers:

• Weak technical, administrative and managerial capacities;
• Weak institutional coordination;
• Unclear policies and mechanisms to enable effective participation by especially non-state actors; at the national and local levels;
• Limited stakeholder participation in planning and decision-making processes;
• Limited dissemination of key information (Republic of Liberia, 2013).

Barriers were also reaffirmed in the Liberia Constraints Analysis (Government of Liberia, 2013).

A.3 Consistency with National Priorities

The country has demonstrated a desire to improve the environmental policy framework with the preparation of multiple new policies including the National Environmental Protection and Management Law (2003), the National Environmental Policy (2003), the establishment of an Environmental Protection Agency, in 2003, the National Forestry Law (2000), and the New Mineral and Mining Laws (2000).

In the first Poverty Reduction Strategy, the environment was considered a cross-cutting issue. Some achievements made during implementation of this strategy include passage of the Community Rights Law, which established a system for community harvesting of forests. Efforts were also undertaken to improve protected areas management and increase the size/number of protected areas. In Liberia’s medium-term Poverty Reduction Strategy II (2012-2018) there is a fifth pillar: Cross-Cutting Issues which includes the environment. Additionally, environmental issues have been integrated into other pillars of the strategy specifically the economic pillar.

During the Liberia Rio +20 National Consultative Workshop, Liberia identified five issues that are essential for accomplishing its development goals and objectives. Additionally, Liberia has also developed a National Capacity Development Strategy (2010), which calls for investing in areas needed to achieve development goals.

The project will assist the Government of Liberia to achieve the national priorities it has set in Liberia RISING 2030. The aim of this is to transform Liberia through a new development strategy, which was launched in December 2012. The overall objective is to turn Liberia into a middle income country by 2030.

The project is also in line with Liberia’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan II (NBSAP) which aims to, as part of Liberia’s commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, and in line with the National Environmental Policy of Liberia, assist the people of Liberia to acknowledge and exercise responsible stewardship over biological resources to meet the needs of the present without endangering the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Some of the goals are to protect critical ecosystems, create biodiversity awareness, and increase commitment to sustainable use of biological diversity (Republic of Liberia, 2017).

Liberia’s 2008 National Adaptation Plan of Action (NAPA), as a response to the impacts of climate change, aligns with National Environmental Policy which calls for the sustainable management of Liberia’s environment and natural resources. The NAPA also aims to establish synergies between adaptation and national development plans, such as the National Reconstruction and Development Plan, Millennium Development Goals, and the National Biodiversity and Strategy Action Plan. The NAPA identifies key adaptation needs and list priority actions, such as enhancing resilience to increasing rainfall variability through agriculture, to address the needs.

This project is also in line with Liberia’s UNDAF 2013-2017. The UN Country Team decided that the new UNDAF would also take into account the requirements of Delivering as One. Thus, in addition to the Strategic Framework and Results Matrix, the UNDAF is accompanied by a detailed Costed Action Plan. Together they constitute the One Programme. The four pillars of the One UN Programme are:

• Peace, Security, Rule of Law
• Sustainable Economic Transformation
• Human Development
• Inclusive Governance and Public Institutions

The UNDAF (One Programme) also aligns with Liberia’s National medium-term strategy, known as the Agenda for Transformation. The Agenda for Transformation is based on five pillars:

• Peace, Security and Rule of Law
• Economic Transformation
• Human Development
• Governance and Public Institutions
• Cross-cutting issues

The Agenda contains a specific goal to improve management of the environment to safeguard sustained economic development and growth. Specific actions called for in this agenda include: a) developing environmental quality standards and regulatory tools; b) harmonizing environmental laws and policies to ensure improved environmental management; c) undertake a gap analysis of sectoral environmental laws and policies; d) create environmental awareness; e) create training and education programmes; f) develop a public awareness strategy and campaign; g) train professionals in effective environmental management; strengthen environmental units in ministries through training and improved coordination; and h) develop a system to collect and disseminate environmental information/data.

The design and implementation of the proposed CCCD project would also take into account the development plans of other bilateral and multilateral donors in Liberia to ensure appropriate alignment as well as to leverage the necessary co-financing.

A.4 Baseline Scenario and Associated Baseline Projects

Liberia is struggling to fulfill many of the objectives set forth in the Rio Conventions. Many of the developed frameworks and plans for action face limited implementation due to limited government resources, limited human capacity, and a lack of appropriate technologies. Liberia struggles with an inadequate system for information and knowledge management and the poor information sharing between or within sectors. Additionally, the country’s degraded and limited infrastructure combined with a low technical and institutional capacity severely limit Liberia’s environmental governance framework and thus its potential to conserve the natural environment, let alone secure long-term benefits from it. The civil war only exacerbated the situation, leading to displacement of individuals and unprecedented amounts of resource exploitation. Although Liberia is recovering from the war, 85% of the population still lives below the international poverty line. Liberia’s HDI (2014) is 0.430, ranking the country 177 out of 188 (UNDP, 2015). 

Multilateral donor agencies specifically in the field of natural resource management currently working in Liberia now include the African Development Bank, GEF, IFAD, UNDP, and the World Bank. Bilateral donor agencies are also very important development partners from, Norway, and the United States (USAID), as well as other inter-governmental organizations such as the CARE International, Conservation International, and the Society for the Conservation of Nature in Liberia. 

National environmental NGOs, with assistance from Conservation International, organized themselves into the Alliance for Conservation in Liberia. The goal of this body is to ensure that all local NGOs who are or would like to be involved in conservation of biodiversity can do so without overlapping efforts or functions. 

Liberia has made significant progress since the end of the civil war by investing in infrastructure, revising existing policies and laws, and reviewing the mandates of political institutions to reduce duplication. One area of progress is updating the mandates and restructuring Government ministries and agencies to improve effectiveness and efficiency. Liberia has also established new agencies like the Rural and Renewable Energy Agency to promote the sustainable development strategy. Reforms in Liberia have been undertaken on an institution-by-institution basis and have not been considered on a holistic basis, nor have they increased coordination and harmonization. 

Between 2010 and 2012, UNEP implemented a global project, entitled Piloting Integrated Processes and Approaches to Facilitate National Reporting to Rio Conventions that included Liberia as a beneficiary country. This project focused on helping Liberia (among other countries) to better organize modalities for accessing and preparing their national reports. Notwithstanding the capacities developed, a number of important capacities remained to be developed, such as the standardization of data collection and information analysis, improved coordination and collaboration to facilitate streamlined national reporting, and increased awareness and stakeholder engagement in the national reporting process. During the project implementation, activities under component 4 will undertake an updated assessment of the systemic, institutional, and individual capacities that remain a priority to be developed in order to meet and sustain Rio Convention obligations.

A description of on-going projects that this project will coordinate with appears in section C.4 Partnerships. Relevant completed UNDP GEF projects that form the baseline of this project include:

Associated Baseline Projects

Project Name	Description of project’s alignment with CCCD project
GEF Enhancing Resilience to Climate Change by Mainstreaming Adaption Concerns into Agricultural Sector Development in Liberia (Ending September 2015)	The expected results of this project included improving the rural communities’ capacities, increasing sustainable livestock and crop production, and reducing poverty.
FAO to Support MOA Statistics and Information Management System	The objective of this project was to support the implementation of a linked information and knowledge system.
Smallholder Agricultural Productivity Enhancement and Commercialization Project (SAPEC)	The goal this project was to reduce rural poverty and household food insecurity. One component is capacity building and institutional strengthening, which includes trainings.

B. Strategy

B.1 Alternative Strategies

During the conceptualization of the present cross-cutting capacity development project, a number of alternative approaches were considered, taking into account the current set of interventions currently underway and planned for Liberia. An important starting point was the findings and recommendations of the National Capacity Self-Assessment, followed by a consideration of the lessons learned from other projects, such as a review of the Final Evaluation of the Mainstreaming and Capacity Building for Sustainable Land Management project . A review of the recommendations contained in the more recent Rio Convention reports was also considered, such as the 2016 National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan.

The single most common cross-cutting capacity development constraint that was recurring in the various assessments and action plans was the significantly low institutional capacity for managing data and information for improved planning and decision-making to meet and sustain Rio Convention obligations. Taking into account the GEF-6 Cross-Cutting Capacity Development priority of strengthening mainstreaming capacities as a strategy to meet the duality of national development and global environmental priorities, this project’s objective was formulated.

From an implementation perspective, a number of alternative approaches were considered to meet the stated objective. One was for Liberia to continue the same approach of implementing focal area projects, and to strengthen the key set of systemic, institutional, and individual capacities through focal area projects. However, this approach will not address the capacity development gaps nor result in creating synergies. Another aspect considered was to have different components executed by different agencies. The challenge with this approach is the relative weak coordination among government ministries and agencies – indeed an important capacity development need that the project would help address. A related issue was the government’s keen desire to use the project to strengthen national capacity of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The selected strategy was based on the real need to strengthen meaningful capacities that can be successfully institutionalized. The key here is not for the project to take on more than the Environmental Protection Agency can absorb, but rather, through the process of project execution, learn how to formulate better plans and make better decisions regarding the global environment within the framework of their institutional mandates. That is, this project places a premium on address institutional sustainability by emphasizing the execution of the project through a wide range of learning-by-doing exercises by the EPA. This will require that they reach out of other government ministries and agencies to meet complementary and shared mandates as well as to effectively negotiate resolution of real or perceived conflicts of interests that come about through Rio Convention mainstreaming.

B.2 Selected Scenario

This project is in line with the GEF-6 CCCD Strategy objective 1, 3, and 5 which call for countries to: a) integrate global environmental needs into management information systems and monitoring, b) integrate MEA provisions into national policy, legislative, and regulatory frameworks, and c) update NCSAs, respectively.

The uniqueness of this project is centered on its cross-cutting nature. Other projects currently under implementation focus on strengthening targeted capacities under one of the three Rio Conventions, and thus have a relatively narrower system boundary than the CCCD programme approach. In the absence of the CCCD project, there remains likelihood that Liberia would not realize its full potential for sustainable development due to limited coordination and decentralization. Additionally, it is likely that environmental management in Liberia would continue to focus on traditionally narrow constructs.

B.3 Knowledge Management

This project is part of a portfolio of capacity building interventions in Liberia that encourages regional cooperation and knowledge and information exchanges. Partnerships and collaboration will also catalyze the transfer of knowledge and competencies among actors and stakeholders. Lessons learned from other projects will be included, as appropriate (for example, in the training programmes and the knowledge management system). This project also contains specific activities to increase the use and sharing of knowledge, and to strengthen critical thinking in understanding the implications of the global environment towards the pursuit of sustainable development. These include a series of learning-by-doing workshops and public dialogues among a diverse set of stakeholders. Component one focuses on establishing a system for collecting and sharing information and data between the institutions for better environmental management and the fulfillment of the obligations of the Rio Conventions (an EKMS).

The system that the project developed is the ideal platform to share lessons learned and experiences with the main stakeholders of environmental information and knowledge. Universities and research centers will be at the center of the information and knowledge management and will ensure the integration of innovative scientific and technical information into the project setup and into other baseline initiatives.

The project’s approach to knowledge management is consistent with the International Resource Panel Report on Policy Coherence of the Sustainable Development Goals which emphasizes the need for developing widespread awareness and creating and disseminating decision support tools.