By Precious D. Freeman
The Center for Transparency and Accountability in Liberia (CENTAL) with support from USAID/DAI-Liberia completed a one-day dialogue engagement with civil society actors, students, government officials and others to present findings of Political Economy Analysis (PEA).
The dialogue focused on economic security and drivers of conflict in affected mining enclaves in the country.
According to CENTAL Executive Director, Anderson Miamen, the aims to inform civil society organizations, the Government of Liberia, USAID, and other partners including citizens on possible program interventions and mechanisms to mitigate issues identified in mining enclaves and proximate communities to improve good governance in the natural resource sector.
He added that the dialogue is intended to have a civil conversation on how to make a mining work, especially from the point of view of triggers of conflicts and how to make suggestion to address them, which will be achieved by the CSO policy makers, media, partners among others.
During the one-day forum, participants including panelists discussed the social and environmental impacts on mining communities and the livelihood; common triggers of conflicts and violence in affected mining communities and avenues for redress, the complex landscape of legal framework and its implication on governance of the sector and people.
For his part, DAI Deputy Chief of Party, Francis Kempeh said conducting a Political Economy Analysis is one tool that can be utilized to understand and support the design and implementation of political feasible programs, setting informed objectives of what can be achieved, and over what timescale and the risk involved.
He added that PEA is an interactive process that determines the right timing and the right strategy to feed into program design, planning and reviews.
According to him, the findings of political Economy Analysis were conducted with key stakeholders in four concession counties including, Nimba, Bong, Grand Bassa and Grand Cape Mount counties.
“In the reporting period, CSA continue to make progress to drill down on tractable development issues that are of priority to Liberian citizens and define two of the thematic windows to be in the basic of CSA initial grant portfolio.
CSA, through its subcontractors CENTAL and NAYMOTE and using Geopoll survey result, conducted problem identification consultant in 14 counties validating the health and education sectors as priority development sectors,” he said.
In remarks, the Director General of the National Bureau of Concessions (NBC), Edwin Dennis, emphasized the need of budget allocation and job creations through concessional companies operating in Liberia.
He also proposed that citizens of concession areas should be able to decide and explain what kinds of project or contracts they need for implementation.
