World Bank and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have concluded a technical Implementation Support Mission (ISM) of its Agriculture funded projects in Liberia.
The project is the Rural Economic Transformation Project (RETRAP), the Smallholder Agriculture Transformation, and Agribusiness Revitalization Project (STAR-P) in the country.
The ISM is a bi-annual activity that includes the review of the implementation of the projects, field visits, and engaging with policymakers, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders.
The mission’s objective was to review the implementation status across the projects’ components, with an emphasis on financial management and procurement performance and compliance with environmental and social safeguards, and agree on actions to speed up implementation.
The mission, which is the first for 2024, occurred between January 29 to February 28, 2024, and included Agriculture Minister, J. Alexander Neutah; World Bank Country Manager, Georgia Wallen, and World Bank Task Team Leader, Kadir Osman Gyasi.
Others were IFAD Country Program Analyst, Johnson S. Kolubah; Liberia Agriculture Commercialization Fund (LACF) Manager, Deliotte, and senior staff of the Ministry and World Bank Project Implementation Unit (PIU), among others.
Speaking at the wrap-up meeting, Minister Nuetah said he was impressed with the projects’ support towards financial Institutions that are helping smallholder farmers address their fight for access to finance.
“This action supports my vision of an agricultural bank that will cater to the needs of our farmers who are struggling to get loans from the existing banks due to the long gestation periods of their various crops. This is a step forward to achieving this form of support on their behalf,” he said.
He also applauded the deployment of project counties’ focal persons that are complimenting the work of the Ministry’s extension staff, stressing the need to do more.
“One key challenge with agricultural extension is the limited capacity that exists. We need 100 staff in the fields for effective extension work, but we have 47.
You have helped us solve some of the issues with that, but the plan is to fill the gap within the next twelve months. This will include training some staff in areas where they can perform well, and shifting some to the field,” he added.
Speaking when she toured some interventions of the PIU, Wallen said she was excited to see that women were adequately captured in the implementation of the projects.
For his part, Gyasi said significant progress has been made in key areas, including proper documentation of expenditure and strengthening the Gender, Environmental, and Social Safeguard components of the projects, thus, the mission can be labeled as successful.
“When I took over, my first request was that you see the implementation as your growth plan. I am glad that you have done that, and that is why we are seeing a very impressive implementation thus far, I am looking forward to working with this dedicated team until the end of the implementation,” he said.
The National Program Coordinator, Galah Toto, in his remark, said that stakeholders were excited about the delivery, and it was now time to talk more about what the projects have done, and are still doing.
Meanwhile, the mission visited project sites and interacted with stakeholders in Bomi, Bong, Lofa, Margibi, Montserrado, and Nimba Counties, and expressed appreciation to all participants in the mission activities.
