Youth Group Sets Standards for Accountability Nationwide

April 15, 2022

Top: The headquarters of the Bassa Youth Congress (BYC) in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County. The DayLight/Varney Kamara

By Varney Kamara

BUCHANAN, Grand Bassa County – In 2014, the Bassa Youth Caucus (BYC) sacked Mathew Bryant, its president, for misapplying a portion of its share of the county social development fund. Bryant had suggested the US$300 be spent on a toilet project but the executive council, which approves projects for the group, did not sanction it.

“I agree that, constitutionally, my decision should have been approved, Bryant, 33, says in an interview with The DayLight, adding he was “shocked” when he learned about his. “I was attending another function in Monrovia when the guys announced my expulsion.”

Established in 2006 for local development initiatives nationwide, the County Social Development Fund (CSDF) has been marred by corruption, mismanagement and confusion since its emergence in 2006, undermining its intent of the fund. In some counties, officials have created bogus companies, dishing out huge sums for projects that have not been implemented.

But this youth group has used its allotment to set standards for the expenditure of the controversial fund. Apart from its internal dismissals, BYC has held accountable high-profile recipients of the fund and has called for general accountability and transparency nationwide.

Created in 2003, BYC is a collection of 35 different youth groups in the west-central, seaside county. Each of its auxiliaries is represented on its executive council, its highest decision-maker. It was formed to “seek, defend, and protect the interest of young people in the county,” according to its website.

‘Harsh and unbending’

Bryant is not the only member to face BYC’s accountability wrath. Last month, Marjuin Eddie, his successor, was suspended indefinitely over a scandal involving USD$2,500 and L$25,000.

Eddie allegedly withdrew US$2,000 from the group’s account without authorization of its executive council and did not capture that transaction in her financial report late last year. The money was a portion of the US$5,000 social development fund it received last year from the Grand Bassa project management committee (PMC), the body that manages the CSDF. Last year, the county received USD$1.529 million from the government of Liberia as its share of the fund. By law, the county is supposed to receive US$2.7 million, with contributions from ArcelorMittal Liberia (AML) and the Liberia Agriculture Company (LAC) as part of their concession agreements, which affect the county. The PMC distributes the fund to communities through a host of groups every year.

BYC had planned to use its last year’s allotment for agriculture activities across districts but Eddie allegedly used the money on a Christmas party, according to Samuel Wilson, the chairman of the executive council.

Eddie was also accused of mismanaging US$500 Minister of State for Presidential Affairs Nathaniel McGill donated to BYC and a L$25,000 donation from Representative Thomas Goshua of District Number 5, where BYC is headquartered. On March 19 earlier this year, 29 EC members of the BYC voted to indefinitely suspend her, with an instruction to return the missing money. It also suspended Pauline Geegar Barlingar, its financial secretary, for failing to include those transactions in her report.

“We will not sweep this issue under the carpet. We will not bend the rules in the middle of the game,” says Samuel Wilson, chairman of the executive council. “BYC remains harsh and unbending when it comes to the issue of ensuring transparency and accountability. We must practice what we preach in the society.”

Eddie denies any wrongdoing and has filed a complaint at the Second Judicial Circuit Court in Buchanan for her reinstatement.

“The executive council leadership had for undisclosed reasons decided not to reinstate us, which is impeding our functions as executive leaders, and the effectiveness of the youth caucus,” reads the April 1 court filing of the case. “We are pleading with you, your honor and this Honorable Court, to intervene in the matter and ensure that the leadership of the caucus is made to restore our rights, by lifting our suspension so as to enable perform our duties as duly elected members.” She declined to speak to The DayLight while the matter is in court. The court will hear the case on Friday.

But Barlingar says she received a fair penalty. “During the investigation, I acknowledged that failure on my part to capture the transaction of the USD$2,000 withdrawal in the financial report was an error on my part,” she tells The DayLight in an interview. “I agree to face my suspension. The [executive council’s] action against me was right.”

Whether or not the accusation against Eddie is true, their suspension is a rarity when it comes to the county social development fund. It shows that some institutions are fighting corruption in Liberia, a country that has grappled with the menace since its foundation. The country is ranked 136 out of 180 countries in the world, with a score of 29, climbing just one step above its 2020 ranking, according to the 2021 corruption index report published by Transparency International, a global anti-corruption watchdog.

“Generally, it is a laudable effort for the Bassa youth to ensure transparency and accountability in the society,” says Anderson Miamen, the executive director of the Center for Transparency and Accountability in Liberia (CENTAL), which works with Transparency International.

“However, there needs to be an independent investigation into this matter. If the investigation proves that people embezzled BYC’s fund, then, whoever is responsible should be prosecuted,” Miamen adds.

BYC is currently advocating for an audit of the Grand Bassa CSDF. The fund was last audited five years ago, a violation of the Public Financial Management Act of 2009. The budget law lays out how public funds can be spent and accounted for. It says an audit of the fund shall be carried out at the end of each budget year. BYC criticizes county officials for not respecting that part of the law since 2017, demanding an immediate audit of the CSDF.

“Calling for an audit is the right thing to do because it leads to accountability and development,” says Patrick Sulloe, a representative of the All People One People Intellectual Forum, one of 35 Bassa groups that make up the BYC. “This is one of the mediums through which the voices of the voiceless can be heard.”

Funding for this story was provided by the Green Livelihood Alliance (GLA 2.0) through the Community Rights and Corporate Governance Program of the Sustainable Development Institute. The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over the story’s content.

Case Compels Company to Settle Logging Dispute With Community

April 14, 2022

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Top: A worker labels logs in Akewa’s log field in Beyan Poye Community Forest, Margibi County. Photo credit: Akewa via Facebook

By Emmanuel Sherman

MONROVIA – A forest community in Margibi County has filed a court action to compel a Nigerian company to discuss a settlement in a logging dispute between them.

Beyan Poye Community Forest wants the Commercial Court at the Temple of Justice to mandate Akewa Group of Companies (AGC) to” submit to arbitration by immediately appointing its arbitrator to the arbitration panel,” according to court filings.

Beyan Poye had evoked an arbitration clause in the pair’s logging agreement in February earlier this year after more than four years of stalemate. The agreement mandates a three-person penal, one each representing the community, the company and the Forestry Development Authority (FDA), to resolve any dispute to be confirmed by a court.

The community had appointed Tomik Vobah, a lawyer, as its representative. And the FDA also appointed Cllr. Joel Elkanah Theoway as its arbitrator more than a week ago. But the company has yet to send its representative, sparking the court action.

With the matter now in court, Akewa is now expected to designate its representative in 10 days or will have to accept the court’s ruling to allow the two-man penal to decide the matter.

Abigail Funke Odebunmi, AGC’s CEO said she could not comment while the arbitration process was ongoing.

In March 2017 Akewa signed the agreement with Beyan Poye Community Forest to harvest logs in its 33,338-hectare forest in the Gibi District in exchange for roads, schools, clinics and handpumps. Since then, it has not implemented a single project, except a handpump, the court heard. The company owed the community US$4,000 for 2,141.836 cubic meters of log harvested and US$1,697.52 for land rental fees between the periods 2018 to 2021 and failed to honor its corporate social obligation, according to court documents.

“We further inform you that we are resorting to arbitration against AGC as the result of numerous breaches of the March 25, 2017 community forest management agreement and other subsequent agreements, collateral to said agreement,” Jehudi Barnyou, the chief officer of Beyan Poye’s community forest management body said in a letter to Odebunmi in January earlier this year.

AGC has a history of indebtedness to communities and a record of violations of Liberian logging laws.

An investigation conducted by The DayLight about the same time as Barnyou’s letter found the company violated a host of forestry laws and regulations, dating as far back as 2008, and going with impunity.

It found that the 100 percent Nigerian-owned company was illegally issued a timber sales contract (TSC A2), meant for companies with at least 51 Liberian shareholdings. The company also owes Compound Number One, the community that hosts the forest the Liberian government leased to her.

AGC was involved in the Private Use Permit (PUP) scandal of 2012 in which 2.5 million hectares of forest land or 23 percent of the country’s landmass was illegally given to logging companies. It held one of those illegal PUPs for Gibi District, surprisingly, the same area it would sign the Beyan Poye agreement.

The company was investigated by the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) for using a tax clearance belonging to Tiger Quarry, a mining company, to bid for the Gola Konneh community forest it would win. Now it owes that community in Grand Cape Mount county logging-related payments as well.

Foya Replants Trees To Defeat Deforestation

April 12, 2022

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Top: Farmers from Bambudu planting cocoa in the savannah to combat deforestation and climate change in Foya, Lofa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By James Harding Giahyue

FOYA, Lofa County – In the 1970s the Liberian government signed an agreement with Agrimenco, an Israeli company, to produce rice and palm oil in the craggy forest on Liberia’s borders with Sierra Leone and Guinea. Later, the company left, and the Liberia Produce Marketing Corporation (LPMC) took over its plantation, retaining the district’s bread basket status. But by 1989, the Liberian Civil War (1989-2003) broke out and the project was abandoned, leaving behind huge swathes of cleared forestland for the disposal of invasive savannah.

While the savannah encroached on its once vast forestland, the 14-year conflict pillaged Foya’s infrastructure, and farmers cut down the remaining forest to farm and burn charcoal in the decades afterward. Then population growth and climate change added insult to injury with bushfires, floods, less water and more mouths to feed in this fabled Kissi countryside in the Liberian northwest.

But Foya is reversing its meltdown. A collaboration involving farmers, nongovernmental organizations, construction workers, community leaders, and local officials combines climate-resilient farming methods, replanting trees and a “law” on fire to banish its ghosts. They call it the Foya Production Protection and Inclusion (PPI) compact.

The turnaround began in 2018 after IDH, a Dutch NGO conducted a land-use plan for the district, highlighting its agricultural potential but warning of dire consequences if villagers continue to cut down trees and watch the savannah spread across the land. Since then, farmers here have planted over 50,000 trees in areas once covered by the savannah and along riverbanks, cultivated acres of swampland, and have seen bushfire incidents reduce.

“I think we, in the not-too-distant future, will regain our status as the breadbasket of Liberia,” Clarence Sandie, the Statutory District Superintendent of Foya, said at the launch of the project last year.

So far, the farmers have planted 20,166 trees on the banks of Wokanyah, a tributary of the Mayo River to prevent flooding, according to the Forestry Development Authority (FDA), which supervises the villagers. Two years ago, the stream broke its banks after a heavy downpour of rain for the very first time, destroying six homes in the Central Rankollie clan, authorities say. Farmers experience water shortage during the dry season, as the water level reduces, and the fish are disappearing.

“Most of the trees on the banks of the rivers were all cut down for charcoal production, such as the Makona River between Liberia and Guinea and the Mayo River that branches from the Makona River,” says Oliver Korboi of the (FDA). The trees are all aquatic, including uapaca, and cotton trees.

Farmers are involved in the replanting exercise at all stages. They have created the nurseries, nurtured and transplanted the young trees several miles along the Mayo River.

“I joined the project because it will help our farmers,” says Jenneh Korgor, a villager in Chaysenei, a town on the route to the Sierra Leonean border. “[The trees] help with shade and, I will always be part of this program if it continues.”

“It is very much important for us to have trees by the river for shade and to keep the forest to have more fish in the river,” says Justin Fayia, a villager in Menegisua in the Chaysenei area. He did not participate in the planting himself but asked his children to, and provided his farmland for the trees in nurseries.

A volunteer, Jenneh Korgor points to a tree she and other villagers planted on the banks of a river in Foya, Lofa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

“I did that because I know that the trees will help me in the future,” Fayia adds. “I will advise children not to cut the trees because I know within myself they will help them tomorrow.”

Palm Plantation and agroforestry—where farmers plant cocoa and trees together to combat the savannah—are at the heart of the Foya’s resistance. The main idea is to encourage villagers to leave the natural forest and make their own woodland on the grassland, which covers 26 percent of the district’s territory.

Palm trees are characteristic of Foya’s agriculture profile. Before the war, LPMC ran the country’s largest palm oil mill here, serving as a market for hundreds of growers in the district. The farmers want to bring back those days. Forty-three of them in the Waum, Tengia and Rankollie clans have planted 6,400 palm trees, according to the Office of the Superintendent. “Freedom mills,” a locally made, handheld device for making palm oil is driving the resurgence with double yields.

But cocoa farmers enjoy first preference over their palm counterparts because cocoa can grow alongside other crops and fits the idea of growing farms and forests at the same time, authorities say. Under this part of the project, 60 cocoa farmers have planted 22,952 seedlings on plots in the savannah, according to Robert Kettor, who liaises with farmers and the Office of the District Superintendent. The cocoa farmers have also benefited from 31,691 shade and fruit trees (avocados and orange) to transplant cocoa nurseries, Kettor says. Theobroma, a Liberian cocoa firm piloting the idea of growing the crop in the grassy areas, provided the seedings.

“Since we started, it has been a good project,” Emmanuel Morlu, a cocoa farmer in Bambudu, a village in the Lower Rankollie clan, tells The DayLight in an interview. “People embraced the work and we have been working. We saw it as beneficial to us because it is not only in the forest that we can grow cocoa.”

All about the cocoa agroforestry program has been rosy, though. Farmers were reluctant when it was introduced in 2019 and now they are in a battle with the hostile grassland. Most of Morlu’s 5,500 cocoa seedlings are not thriving in the savannah, according to him, because of insufficient shade trees. Some of the shade trees he planted have not grown.

Morlu’s farm seems to be a battleground just as he puts it. Shrubs of young cocoa trees with yellowish and dried leaves are swamped and dwarfed by tall sunbaked, sugarcane-like grasses. He points to a stunted cocoa shrub, saying it was dying. He and other farmers are facing difficulties, as they are new to planting in the savannah, but says his mind is already made up.

“We are not going to go back to the forest. We have the knowledge already,” he tells me. “Also, it will help us reduce fire outbreaks.”

Bushfire has been another problem farmers here have had to face, even before the civil war. Fueled by the savannah, wildfire has destroyed farms in the region for decades, leaving local authorities grappling with a solution. In one of the worst incidences in March 2018, thousands of acres of farmland were destroyed in Kpandu and Kendema in the Tengia clan. Fifty acres of the FDA’s afforestation and reforestation plantation—established in 2011 as part of a 1986 scheme to fight the fire—were burnt. Some blame careless villagers and travelers. Others say climate change, which has led to prolonged dried seasons and patchy rainfalls nationwide.

So, a year later, local authorities, chiefs and elders passed the Fire “Control Constitution/Laws” after four years of review. Though it was not created by an act of the Legislature, authorities are enforcing it.

It prohibits people from traveling with fire during the dry season, smoking on highways and unauthorized burning of farms. It mandates every farmer to cut a 10-meter buffer—locally called fire lines—between their farms, the forest and other farms. Violators face fines between L$1,500 and L$5,000.

There have been improvements, with just one fire outbreak in the last three years, according to Moses Sonjor, assistant statutory superintendent for development. “It is not an event,” says Sonjor. “I am really satisfied.”

Just as cocoa farmers are leaving the upland forest for the savannah land, so are rice farmers for swamplands. Years of poor farming practices did not only cut trees but also diminished the fertility of the district’s soil, according to the land-use study conducted by IDH, which works with the farmers to promote sustainable, community-centered agricultural investment in Liberia.

The swamp-rice program is quite ambitious. One thousand farmers are leading that shift to the wetlands, which make up 11.9 percent of Foya. The target is 10,000 farmers on 80 hectares of swampland, according to Kettor. They can produce three times a year, increasing their yield from 2.2 metric tons to 4.5 metric tons per acre a year, says Mohammed Kamara, the CEO of the Agricultural Infrastructural and Development Company (AIIC), which gives the farmers the rice seedlings. That is more than a 100 percent increment in their previous yield in montane forest. AIIC also assists the farmers in tilling the swamp and milling the rice they produce.

Farmers have been encouraged to leave the forest for swamps where they are expected to triple their yields in a scheme to combat deforestation. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Wetlands have been used for agricultural purposes for thousands of years, helping to provide clean water, retaining soil and cycling nutrients. That is the case in Foya, too, just that that tradition bears scars of the civil war. Irrigation dams that stored and supplied water to the swamps were destroyed. Warehouses, including that of Intofawor—Liberia’s oldest cooperative—were looted. So were powerhouses that supplied electricity and factories that milled palm oil, cocoa beans and rice.

Now, with the help of IDH and AIIC, three of 10 damaged dams have been repaired and are functioning. The farmers have planted rice on 20 acres of swampland, with that expected to increase to 80 acres, Kettor says. The price of locally produced rice has dropped from L$3,500 to L$1,500 for a 25-kilogram bag, boosting local consumption.

The farmers The DayLight interviewed show no sign of fear that the NGO, the investors, or local authorities will exploit them. Liberia’s history is replete with government-aided concessional land grabs that abuse the rights of local communities, destroyed their livelihood and take their land. However, the Production Protection Inclusion (PPI) project protects them. Though Teogbroma and AIIC provide them with cocoa and rice seedlings, the farmers are not compelled to sell their produce to the companies as per the terms of the project. And all six clans in Foya have formalized ownership of their ancestral land, guaranteed in the Land Rights Act of 2018.

“We are teaching [our farmers] how to stand by themselves, to be self-sustainable,” says Kumbah Saah, chairperson of Foya Rural Women Cooperative of 52 women and four men, involved in cocoa, palm, rice and vegetable farming. “Everybody knows that we are fighting the savannah and climate change for the sake of our children.”

Farmers on their farm in a swamp in Foya, Lofa County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Funding for this story was provided by the Resilience Journalism and Climate Change Fellowship Program of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism CYNY Foundation, Inc.

Dutch Bank Pulls Out of Probe Into Alleged Deforestation and Land Grab in Liberia

April 11, 2022

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Top: Deforestation is associated with the agricultural sector in Liberia. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By Gabriel M. Dixon

MONROVIA – Dutch Bank, ING, has backed down from an OECD investigation into a complaint filed by NGOs that accused it of supporting companies that are allegedly clearing forests and grabbing land in Liberia and other parts of the world.

A statement by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which looks into OECD matters, on April 7 said “No agreement could be reached between the parties [ Friends of the Earth and partners vs. ING]” after several months of negotiations.

Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), its Dutch and Indonesian affiliates, Friend of the Earth Netherlands and WAHLI complained in July 2019 that ING bank allegedly violated OECD’s guidelines.

“ING has breached several provisions of the OECD Guidelines by contributing to specific adverse environmental, human rights, and labor rights impacts caused by subsidiaries of ING’s clients Noble Group Ltd., Bollore Group/Socfin Group S.A., and Wilmar International Ltd,” stated the complaint in summary.

In January 2020, the OECD started to look into the complaint and concluded that it “merited further consideration.” The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an international body that issues guidelines and recommendations to multinational enterprises for responsible business conduct. The body works with governments, decision-makers, and citizens on establishing international standards and best practices on a range of issues including the environment. Its guidelines are, however, not binding.

ING denies any wrongdoing, saying, “The bank refused to accept any liabilities” and “opined there are no harms to which [it] contributed.”

The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed regret the mediation did not continue. “Efforts to bring (the) parties to an agreement on possible improvements of ING’s due diligence policies and practices regarding palm oil, and to assess the enterprise’s involvement with the actual or potential adverse impacts identified, in order to determine the appropriate responses, ended prematurely,” it said.

The international standards-setting body, therefore, concluded that “No agreement could be reached between the parties… on the question whether and to what extent there was a responsibility of ING to cease its (possible) contribution and to contribute to remedying the adverse impacts.”

The petitioners represent communities and individuals in Africa and Asia where companies Like Wilmar/SICFA, Bollore Group/Socfin, and GAR run various oil palm and rubber plantations funded by investments from ING bank and other financial institutions. At the time of their complaint, the three NGOs sought “to ensure that oil palm companies operate within the confines of the Liberian laws and international standards on human rights and the environment,” stated James Otto-lead campaigner for SDI.

An earlier report by FoE showed how Dutch banks heaped investments in multinationals like GAR, Wilmar, the Bolloré Group, and SOCFIN Group to fund their operations in Liberia and countries in Africa and Asia. Subsidiaries of those foreign companies are accused of carrying out deforestation, land grab, and human rights violations. In a few cases, some were found guilty by the RSPO and other international regulators.

The Maryland Oil Palm Plantation and the Cavalla Rubber Corporation, both of whom are owned and run by SIFCA, a subsidiary of Wilmar, were found to have engaged in deforestation and human rights violations including killing in Maryland County. SIFCA’s total investment in MOPP is about US$203 million. The investment was largely funded by ING bank.

“ING bank chooses to continue deforestation and human rights violations on the palm oil plantations in which they invest money [leaving] affected residents in Liberia, Indonesia, Cameroon, and Sierra Leone… empty-handed,” Friends of the Earth said in the release responding to ING’s pullout.

“The unilateral withdrawal from Dutch ING bank is outrageous……… This shows the urgent need for regulating the financial sector…,” said Wouter Kolk, a senior campaigner at Friends of the Earth.

The DayLight has reached out to ING bank for comment on the statement released by the office of OECD in the Netherlands and the claims made by Friend of the Earth in its news release.

The bank’s action comes at a time when the UN and climate scientists continue to warn the world of the fast-increasing impact of climate change and the ability of many communities to adapt. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, deforestation and forest degradation now constitutes 10 percent of global warming. Environmentalists agree that the clearing of forests for agriculture and mining projects leads to emissions of high CO₂ into the air.

James Otto, lead campaigner at SDI called on the Dutch government to “ensure justice and redress” for victims in Liberia.

“We will continue to work with local communities to identify other ways to hold ING bank and other financiers to account,” Otto said in a statement. “They can walk away from the table but not from having to face the responsibility of their clients’ misconduct.”

Farmers to Complain Against Oil Palm Company to Global Watchdog

April 7, 2022

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Top: An Equatorial Palm Oil truck transports palm nuts at the company’s Palm Bay estate. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By Emmanuel Sherman

JOGBAHN CLAN, Grand Bassa County – last year, there were hopes after farmers and Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO) began negotiation to resolve a conflict between the pair over a controversial deal that saw the company pay for their crops.

But that negotiation has failed and the farmers have told The DayLight they would file a complaint against EPO with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the global watchdog for the commodity if they do not get redress.

“The proposals from the communities were all denied by the company,” says James Otto of the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), an NGO working with the villagers, in an interview with The DayLight.

The RSPO’s principles and criteria call for its member companies to respect communities’ free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) before planting palm trees on lands they occupy.

“The communities think that these processes were not followed after the company made a series of unrealistic promises to them,” adds Otto.

The farmers say they are seeking the intervention of local and county authorities on the matter, a prerequisite for lodging complaints with the global certification scheme.

“If nothing is done, we will go to RSPO,” says Luke Paye Toe, the chairman of the aggrieved farmers.

The conflict started in 2016 when EPO compensated farmers from five communities: Gmene, Kampala, Wesseh Village, Paye Town, and Morb Town. EPO and the Liberian government had signed a 50-year agreement in 2008 for the company to expand its plantation to cover 169, 000 hectares in Grand Bassa, River Cess, and Sinoe counties. It was a transfer and extension of a 1965 agreement between the country and LIBINCO, whose plantations were destroyed during the Liberian Civil War. EPO had to pay the farmers for their crops before clearing them to replant palm trees.

But the farmers allege they were cheated in the deal. They accuse EPO of using previous government-approved prices that were higher to seal the deal but paid them according to new prices that were low.

The previous one, for instance, had rubber at US$97.92 for a mature tree—the villagers are predominant rubber farmers—but that was reduced to just US$6. The change also affected other crops, including sugarcane from US$0.54 a stick to US$6 an acre, and banana from US$1.69 to US$3 for several shrubs.

The government had lowered the compensation of the crops to “spur development,” a June 6, 2014 public notice released by the Ministry of Agriculture said.

“This action has been taken in furtherance of the Agenda for Transformation for the effective development of the agriculture sector with reference to the Millennium Development Goals and pushing the post-2015 development agenda,” it added.

The farmers had anticipated US$2 million for rubber alone but received US$224,597 for all their crops in the end. They demand a balance of over US$1.7 million or a negotiated settlement.

“They are not willing to pay us,” says Hillary Gbah of Gmene Town, who received US$14,574, according to records of the payment seen by The DayLight, but expected to get US$237,847. “We will take them to task.”

EPO denies any wrongdoing, saying they compensated the farmers according to the government-set prices. “It is their decision to go to the RSPO,” says Jasvinder Singh, EPO’s compliance manager.

Farmers hold a meeting over Equatorial Palm Oil’s controversial compensation of their crops in 2016. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

The farmers have written the National Bureau of Concessions (NBC), Gbehzohngar Findley, former President Pro Tempore of the Liberian Senate, and county officials on the matter.

“We the five communities… wish to formally bring to your attention our hurts and betrayal on the part of EPO to deliver our just and fair benefits, regarding the use of our land,” their letter to the Grand Bassa Legislative Caucus reads.

“We the farmers and community members of the five… communities are complaining the company to you and hope that you will take the needed actions in addressing our concerns,” it adds.

EPO is a member of the RSPO through its parent company Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad (KLK) of Malaysia, one of the oldest and largest multinational palm oil companies in the world. Not being in compliance with the watchdog’s standards could hurt its standing on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange (LSE), where it is listed.

It would not be the first complaint involving EPO at the RSPO. In 2013, other towns in Jogbahn Clan filed a complaint against it for an alleged land grab but the watchdog cleared the company of that accusation. Ironically, the five communities in the current controversy did not have issues with the company and did not participate in the 2013 complaint.

“The new planting of 1,570 hectares is not in the disputed area claimed by the Joghban Clan,” the RSPO said at the time. However, it mandated EPO to stop development in disputed areas and address its encroachment into Nnuhn and Qwrakpojilain villages. Afterward, the communities and the clan participated in demarcating their boundaries and the dispute was resolved.

Funding for this story was provided by the Green Livelihood Alliance (GLA 2.0) through the Community Rights and Corporate Governance Program of the Sustainable Development Institute. The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over the story’s content.

Community Leader Urges Local Officials To Stay Off Forest Matters

April 5, 2022

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Top: Newly felled and marked logs from the Bond Mandingo Forest in Gbarpolu County. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

By Henry Gboluma

BOPOLU, Gbarpolu County – A community forest leadership has cautioned county officials and residents to stay away from matters of the management of forest resources.

Recently, Joseph Akoi, Assistant Development Superintendent of Gbarpolu threatened to prevent Indo Africa Plantation Limited from transporting logs from the Bondi Mandingo Community Forest. Akoi demanded the Singaporean logging company pay the community its benefit before being taking logs it had felled there for shipment. The company owes the communities thousands of United States dollars and has yet to fulfill the commitment it made to help develop its towns and villages.

But making remarks at a daylong training organized by the forest governance program of the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), Mark Dennis, the community forest management body (CFMB), said Akoi and King were interfering in community forest matters.

“Sometimes they want us to do something outside of the law, but we are finding it difficult to bend the law,” said Dennis. “We are recommending that our county authorities and some influential leaders in our communities be educated about the law.”

Dennis acknowledged the company has not fulfilled its promises made to the communities but warned interference could worsen the situation.

Residents have a say in community forestry but through recognized bodies.

The Community Rights Law of 2009 with Respect to Forest Lands empowers the community assembly—comprising representatives from villages affected by logging operations—the executive committee of the assembly and the CFMB Dennis heads to handle such matters. Neither Akoi nor King is a member of any of the groups.

If there is a conflict between a community and a company only the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) should intervene. In the case where parties to the dispute cannot resolve the matter goes to arbitration or to court.

The event Dennis spoke at was meant to train members of Bondi Mandingo, Korninga A, and Korninga B community forests, who have all had their share of conflict with logging companies. The gathering, which brought together representatives of the civil society, donors, and local leaders, also forms part of the Legal Foundation for Sustainable Forests and Livelihoods project for logging affected communities being implemented by the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI). Participants gained new skills in resolving conflicts, using the alternative disputes resolution (ADR) mechanism.

ADR is the procedure by which disputes are settled without litigation. These include arbitration, mediation, or negotiation. The method has been widely used to settle community disputes because it is less costly and yields a speedy outcome.

“We want to ensure that community forests are stronger and contribute more effectively to reducing deforestation, conserving biodiversity, and generating sustainable economic development in Liberia,” said Wilfred Gray-Johnson, the Executive Director of SDI.

“This is helping to increase community voices in forest governance by identifying and elevating them at the national level, while at the same time finding ways to solve them all together,” he added.

Actors Want Women’s Rights Mainstreamed in Agriculture, Land Sectors

March 21, 2022

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Top: Women on a farm in Sarpimah, Gbarpolu County. The DayLight/Harry Browne

By Varney Kamara

MONROVIA – Stakeholders have agreed to mainstream gender equity and inclusion across the agriculture, land, and forestry sectors in Liberia.

The enforcement of gender policies across these sectors has been largely hampered by access to information, a coordinated strategy, traditional practices and norms, capacity, and budgetary constraints.

Women in Liberia make important contributions to both the agriculture and land sectors, but they continue to play limited roles in leadership structures determining the fate of these industries. They produce over half of the country’s food crops, creating 60 percent of agricultural products, and carrying out 80 percent of trading activities in rural areas, studies showed. Meeting the global food needs increasingly depends on the mainstreaming of gender issues into the agriculture and forestry sectors, and would enhance the resource capability of women, according to a World Bank report, but that has been missing.

The National Gender Policy of Liberia and the 2018 Land Rights law recognize women’s right to land ownership and demand their full participation in matters pertaining to the usage and development of these vital resources. The gender policy bars all forms of discrimination against women, while the Land Rights Act gives equal participation and access to land. Not respecting and enforcing these rights also violates the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) of which Liberia is a signatory.

“We need to create awareness on the policies because people are not even aware of the law. We need to target the custodian of traditional practices to provide information on the importance of the policy,” said James Parker, principal project manager of ProForest at a two-day gender conference in Monrovia that brought together representatives of the government, CSOs, and businesspeople. The nongovernmental organization supports governments and civil society organizations on the sustainable management of forest products and helped organize the event.

“We also need to talk to the government on how it can provide tools and budget support for implementation,” he added in an interview with The DayLight.

Liberia has attractive gender equity laws on the books which have largely failed to be implemented. A gender assessment policy in the country shows the vast disparity in land ownership between women and men. The study revealed women are to be negatively impacted by the lack of implementation of gender policies across the agriculture and forestry industries, including the environment. It underscores gender equality as a major factor affecting the value of the supply chain in the cocoa sectors and revealed how commercial logging and chainsaw mailing have been the major sources of deforestation.

“This is a serious global issue when it comes to women’s control over land,” said Wilhemina Beyan, program director of Social Entrepreneurs for Sustainable Development (SESDev). Which helped organize the event. “In order to make this work, we need to carry on more targeting of traditional leaders and chiefs, including Zoes. We need to create awareness among them and explain the importance of the role of women across these sectors.”

Participants, representing the rubber, oil palm, and forestry industries, agreed to continue building the capacity of women, as well as institutionalizing gender policies across the public and private sectors.

A special report is expected to be prepared from the outcome of the conference to seek donors’ support for specific interventions, they agreed.

“We need to increase advocacy for the protection of women’s rights in the rubber sector, ensuring that they, too, climb to big positions,” Wilhemina Siaway, president of the Rubber Planters Association of Liberia (RPAL) told The DayLight. “We’ll continue to push for equal rights, equal opportunity, and equal participation of women in the society.”

“If we want this thing to work, we must continue to rally everyone to support women’s rights across the sector. Women are an integral part of the oil palm sector, and we must never forget this,” Franklyn Jackson, head of the Association of Liberian Oil Palm Farmers Incorporated (ALOPFI) told this online news platform.

Villagers Struggle to Honor the Dead After Losing Graveyards to Investors

March 20, 2022

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Top: Luke Paye Toe stands at the spot where the graves of his parents used to be before Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO) demolished them in 2016. The DayLight/Gabriel M. Dixon

By James Harding Giahyue, Varney Kamara and Gabriel Dixon

SALALA DISTRICT, Bong County/DISTRICT FOUR, Grand Bassa/GARWULA DISTRICT, Grand Cape Mount-It is early morning and Pastor William Binda and two other villagers offer prayer in a short memorial ceremony at the St. John Lutheran Church in Qua-ta.

This is how Binda and many people in this small village in the Salala District of Bong, and their neighbors in Margibi have observed Decoration Day since they say Salala Rubber Corporation (SRC) cleared several villages and their graveyards for the expansion of its plantation in 2010. Binda’s grandfather, Dugba Flomo, had been buried in a village called Dede-Ta One but his grave was demolished with a horde of others, their debris dumped in a nearby creek, locals tell The DayLight.

“I feel bad. No way to even go there to decorate,” Binda says in an interview following the short ceremony. “They have [a] rubber farm there. They brushed the whole place, we just pray for our parents [whose graves we lost] for their souls to rest in peace.”

In 2019, Binda and other villagers lodged a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which in 2008 invested US$10 million in SRC to rehabilitate its facilities and expand its plantation. They accused SRC of several counts of human rights abuses, including land-grab, water pollution, and destruction of ancestral graves and shrines, which contravene IFC’s standards. SRC denies clearing graveyards and planting rubber on them. The company told the IFC the land it cleared was part of 100,000 hectares it leased from the Liberian government in 1959, and that it supported the communities to perform cleansing rituals. The IFC is still investigating the matter.

The situation in Salala is a constant feature of Liberia’s concessional history. Beginning with Firestone in 1926, Liberia has leased over a million hectares of land to rubber and oil palm investors. It depends heavily on money generated from agriculture, with the sector contributing US$26,009,261 or 32.66 percent of total revenue in the 2018/19 fiscal year, according to the latest report by the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI). Rural people, who had lived on the land even before the country got its independence in 1847, did not participate in the concession-awarding processes. This also happened in Grand Cape Mount, Sinoe and Grand Bassa with Sime Darby, Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) and Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO), respectively—just to name a few.

Because of that, many rural communities affected by these agricultural concessions—like the one Binda lives in—have seen their ancestral gravesites leveled in some of the worst land-grabs in human history. The Liberian Legislature had set aside the second Wednesday in March each year to honor the dead, which goes in line with the customs and traditions of rural people. This has left villagers in concession communities across the country with no graves to decorate—the most relevant part of this 104-year tradition—creating an atmosphere of sadness and anger.

“I am feeling bad on this day because others are cleaning their relatives’ graves but I don’t have any grave to [decorate] on this day,” says Kandakai Blasuah, a 46-year-old father of four in Ballah Town, Grand Cape Mount County, whose sister’s grave was demolished by Sime Darby in 2010. That was a year after the company signed a 63-year US$800 million agreement with the Liberian government to develop oil palm and rubber on 220,000 hectares of land in Bomi, Cape Mount and Gbarpolu Counties.

“On this day, I remember we used to cook food and bring it to the site for everyone to eat. Some people would be brushing around the grave, while others are cleaning and clearing the dirt. After that, we would all sit and joke about the good old days with the deceased,” Blasuah adds.

The communities in Cape Mount got justice for the destruction of their ancestral burial places, sacred sites and shrines. In 2011, the communities affected by the land-grab filed a complaint with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the global watchdog for the oil palm industry. RSPO prohibits its member companies such as Sime Darby, EPO and GVL from acquiring lands, among other things, without local communities’ free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). In 2015, it ordered the Malaysian company to pay US$1 million. Four years later, Sime Darby left Liberia, turning over the concession to Mano Palm Oil Industries Limited, which must continue the payment up to 2069.

Kandakai Blasuah, who lost his sister’s grave to Sime Darby, points to where it stood before the company illegally cleared it in 2010. The DayLight/Varney Kamara

The situation in Grand Cape Mount County involving Sime Darby might be slightly different from the one in Grand Bassa County with EPO. However, in both instances, local communities lost graves to the investors.

In 2008, EPO signed an agreement with the Liberian government to lease 169,000 hectares of land in Grand Bassa, River Cess and Sinoe. The agreement was a takeover and extension of a 1965 deal between the country and LIBINC Oil Palm Inc. In a bid to replant its plantation, the new deal saw EPO clear farms and graves, locals say. Some of the graves were restored but some were not, including those of the parents of Luke Paye Toe, a community leader in Jogbahn Clan.

“I felt discouraged that I can’t see my parents’ graves again,” he tells The DayLight, pointing to a spot on the ground blanketed by palm trees, with sunlight piercing through their upright V-shaped leaves. “Sometimes if (when) I dream about them they tell me ‘We are in the darkness. We are in the bush. What are you people waiting for?’” Toe and other villagers say they will file a complaint with the RSPO.

EPO denies any wrongdoing, telling The DayLight last year that the areas locals speak of fall within its concession. Toe and other villagers say they will file a complaint with the RSPO.

‘Spiritual Divorce’

The emotions Toe shows are common in rural communities with that problem, as villagers in the three counties The DayLight interviewed expressed the same concerns.

Losing the grave of a loved one can have long-term effects on rural people given the role the dead play in their lives, and recovery takes more than damage payments, according to experts.

“It is painfully devastating. The dead are believed to still be around providing protection, guidance, consultations, and other forms of support to the family,” says Rev. Dr. Jerry Kulah, I., dean of the Bishop John G. Innis Graduate School of Theology at the United Methodist University in Monrovia. “They demonstrate this by prayers that are often offered to the dead at the time of their burial, and the occasional visits to gravesites to seek guidance, etc.

“For some rural community dwellers, the destruction of relatives’ graves symbolizes a spiritual divorce from their ancestors. The land on which they are buried belongs to them as well as to the living (current stewards of the land) and the unborn who shall be inheritors in the future,” says Dr. Kulah, adding it would take a reburial or a memorial to appease the spirit of the dead.

Dr. Emmanuel Urey, a land rights expert and the lead character of The Land Beneath Our Feet, an intriguing documentary depicting the 1926 Firestone land-grab, agrees with Dr. Kulah and calls on the government and investors to recognize rural communities are attached to the spirit of their ancestors. He urges actors in the agriculture sector to protect rural communities’ belief systems. He recommends innovative approaches such as surveying and mapping all ancestral graveyards, sacred places and shrines to prevent future problems.

“If the development experts could just take into consideration, the damage they cause by destroying and desecrating burial grounds, they would have a different approach to development,” Dr. Urey tells The DayLight in an interview.

“It is important for local knowledge to form part of the development. Don’t just design the development in Monrovia, in Europe and other places. Go and speak with the people who have inhabited the land for a very long time, they will be able to guide you on how to carry out the development so that it does not negatively impact their lives,” adds Dr. Urey.

On paper, Liberia has an impressive array of laws and has signed on to international best practices that guarantee rural communities’ right to their land and cultural practices. Some date as far back as the 1960s. The Public Lands Law of 1956 gave traditional chiefs and elders a right to participate in land-lease agreements. The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights all provide culture as a basic human right. The Environmental Protection and Management Law of Liberia mandates the participation of local communities affected by concessions. The most monumental of all land and culture-related laws is the Land Rights Act of 2018, which gives customary areas ownership of their ancestral land. These are also consistent with the RSPO’s principles and criteria, which provide for the involvement of locals in the demarcation of their territories from that of plantations.

Locals say this rubber bush in Lango-ta in the Salala District of Bong County used to be a graveyard. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Efforts to get comments from the Ministry of Agriculture and the Bureau of Concessions did not materialize. We visited the offices of both institutions twice last week but officials we met there said they could not speak on the matter. We will update the story once we speak to them.

Campaigners say the history of concessions in Liberia shows laws and standards are not enough to protect rural people and their traditions.

“The government should give urgent priority to the implementation of the Land Rights Act (LRA),” says Simpson Snoh, an advocate with the Alliance for Rural Democracy, which, alongside other nongovernmental organizations, lodged the complaint against SRC on behalf of villagers in Salala. Snoh says communities that have lost ancestral graveyards must be paid reparations and their ownership of their land recognized henceforth by all players in the agriculture industry.

A native of Tarjuwon, Sinoe County, Snoh is himself a victim of land-grab. A 2018 RSPO report did not find the company cleared graveyards but established it wiped out sacred sites, revered by locals for generations. The Indonesian company had signed a concession agreement with the Liberian government to grow palm on 350,000 hectares of land in the country’s southeast in 2010 for 65 years. The RSPO ordered GVL to remap its boundaries with affected places, negotiate a compensation deal with villagers and stop work in disputed areas. Following the ruling, GVL stormed out of the international certification scheme, only to see its move rejected. Snoh and other victims are still pursuing their case against the company, four years on.

Villagers we interviewed in Grand Bassa and Bong are seeking redress, too.

In Salala, Binda hopes he and other townspeople win the case against SRC the IFC is investigating, and receive damages for the graveyards the company allegedly cleared.

“They should remove their rubber from our land,” Binda says. “They should pay us for [clearing] our people’s grave.”

Others want their land returned.

“I want the spot back to do decoration,” says Emmanuel Kpaingbah, an elder Qua-ta, who lost his relatives’ grave. His late uncle Dede was a traditional healer, famed for curing snakebites. “Money will not do that.”

“Let them give our land back to us,” says Joseph Nelson, the town chief of Ballah Town in Cape Mount who lost his grandparents’ graves. “The new gravesite they identified for us is too small [and] the graves will soon enter the town.

“We are doing this for our future generation.”

Honoring the dead is a huge part of the Liberian way of life as seen on Decoration Day March 9, 2022, in Weala, Margibi County. However, many in rural communities have lost relative graves to agriculture concessions. The DayLight/James Harding Giahyue

Funding for this story was provided by the Green Livelihood Alliance (GLA 2.0) through the Community Rights and Corporate Governance Program of the Sustainable Development Institute. The DayLight maintained complete editorial independence over the story’s content.

Tenure Facility: The International NGO Supporting Rural Communities for Land Rights

March 18, 2022

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Top: Women pose with a fist in Gbonota in Bong County in 2019 with Tenure Facility’s Dr. Raymond Samndong (squatting) and Loretta Pope-Kai of the Foundation for Community Initiatives (third from the right). The DayLight/James Giahyue

By Gabriel M. Dixon

MONROVIA – In 2019, Tenure Facility supported the Protection of Customary Collective Community Land Rights in Liberia (P3CL). approximately half of a million hectares of forestland, the project has reached 24 communities in eight of the 15 counties of Liberia. Twenty of those communities have been certified as landowning communities by the LLA, now waiting for the confirmatory survey to get their deed.

“The Tenure Facility is committed to continuing its support to customary land rights formalization process for all the communities already supported to complete the step and own their land deed,” said Dr. Samndong, the organization’s head for monitoring, evaluation and learning, at a land conference held in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County earlier this month.

An international financial mechanism based in Stockholm, Sweden, Tenure Facility supports rural communities around the world in securing land and forest rights and ownership. Since 2015, the organization has spent over US$3 million on projects that have helped scale up recognition of the rights of rural communities and facilitated the process for communities to claim their rights to customary land in Liberia. The Tenure Facility pilot project in 2015, established the Community Self Identification (CSI) Guide, now integrated into the Land Rights Act of 2018 as the first step of the process leading to the legal recognition of customary land rights.

Before Liberia created its Land Rights Act in 2018, only the government and private individuals owned land across the country. When the state negotiated forest, mining and agriculture agreements that affected local communities, rural people were left out. But that changed with the creation of the Land Rights Act in 2018. Unlike the 1956 Public land law (revised in 1973), the new law guarantees land rights for customary communities, including women and youth.

However, implementation of the law has been a huge challenge, with the Land Authority lacking funding to access remote communities and locals still unaware of the law more than three years since its creation. And despite their rights being guaranteed under the Land Rights Act, women still face challenges from a male-dominated society.

Through its implementing partners—Parley Liberia, Foundation for Community Initiatives (FCI) and the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI)—Tenure Facility has assisted some communities in the formalization of customary land. The Tenure Facility’s projects have targeted women.

“Gender mainstreaming has been a crucial part of…..increasing women inclusion for the first time in community land governance structures and increased overall the women and youth participation in the entire project implementation,” said Dr. Samndong.

Dr. Raymond Samndong, head of MEL at The Tenure Facility, speaking at the Land Conference in Buchanan, Grand Bassa, March 1, 2022. The DayLight/James Giahyue.

The projects also helped strengthen the knowledge of chiefs in the administration of local land across the country. Towns and villages once at loggerhead over boundary disputes have banished their demons.

“Women’s rights are now respected,” said Moses Wegee, the Town Chief of Dumah Town in the Kpatawee Clan of Suakoko District, Bong County. “We know now that our sisters have right to land whether you are blind, cripple or have no husband you have right to your father’s land [like your brothers].”

“This program is very rewarding because we as district commissioners have a lot of problems in the district when it comes to land issues,” said Julia Russell, Commissioner of Wanhasa Administrative District, Lofa County at a land conference organized by Parley Liberia in Gbarnga, Bong County in 2020. “I am very happy that some of the chiefs are getting the idea that they will make the work easier for us. Boundary issues between villages, clans, it’s just a lot of headache,” he added.

Dr. Samndong reveled at the success of the organization’s endeavor in Liberia so far.

“The partners’ good relationship with the LLA has been significant for the success of the project. There have been many owners of this success, in addition to the [Liberia Land Authority], the local actors and the many development agencies that supported this process early on and continuously, like USAID and the World Bank…,” Samndong told over 250 delegates of the Land Conference.

“As a dedicated funding mechanism that was established to provide direct funding to indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and local communities, over 75 percent of our disbursements [since 2017] have gone directly to local communities and Indigenous-led projects around the world,” Dr. Samndong said.

Tenure Facility is working in 13 countries around the world, enabling indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and local organizations to build partnerships with champions in governments to advance the legal recognition of their collective land and forest rights.

This strategy has already advanced collective land-tenure security for roughly 7.2 million people across 12 of the 13 countries in which it works, covering 14 million hectares.

“In the next five years, the Tenure Facility is seeking to scale from 13 projects with indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants, and local community organizations to 48 plus projects,” Dr. Samndong said.

U.S. Envoy Calls Out Monrovia’s Garbage System In Comic Critique

March 16, 2022

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Top: U.S. Ambassador to Liberia Michael A. McCarthy. Photo credit: U.S. Embassy near Monrovia

By Gabriel M. Dixon

MONROVIA – U.S. Ambassador to Liberia Michael McCarthy has criticized the condition of the sanitation system of Monrovia in a witty opinion piece also tearing into the leadership of the country.

In a thinly veiled criticism of the city government and garbage system, McCarthy contrasted the cleanliness of villages he has lived in other West African countries to one of the oldest cities on the continent.

“As a Peace Corps volunteer, I was blessed to live for two years in villages (without electricity or running water) in West Africa,” McCarthy said in an opinion Tuesday as Liberia celebrated the 213^th birth anniversary of its first president, Joseph Jenkins Roberts.

“First thing every morning, each household would take advantage of the cool, early morning daylight to sweep inside and outside and dispose of debris. Villagers then coordinated with the local government to deliver waste daily to a designated landfill.

“The state of cleanliness in the city of Monrovia, which is more developed and a far wealthier community, sadly does not compare,” he added.

Monrovia is home to more than 1 million people who produce close to 800 metric tons of solid waste per day. The city alone creates 292,000 metric tons of waste every year. However, only 45 percent or 360 metric tons of waste is collected mainly by the Monrovia City Corporation and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) operating in the sector. The remaining 55 percent or 440 metric tons is uncollected, leading to huge piles of garbage at market places, street corners, empty lots and the backyards of residences.

The city government has often attributed its waste disposal challenges to a lack of funding and capacity. McCarthy said he was “surprised” at the city’s leadership that donors were not supporting solid waste management as they did in the last three years.

“Is there a more basic local government responsibility than the collection and proper disposal of garbage?” He quipped.

Piles of garbage are often seen on the streets of Monrovia such as this one on Center Street. The DayLight/Tom Portland

Records also support McCarthy’s disagreement with the city’s leadership. On 28^th June 2017, the World Bank committed a grant of US$17.5 million for the Cheesemanburg Landfill and Urban Sanitation Project for Liberia. The project, which will expire in June 2023, is meant to support increased access to solid waste management services in Monrovia.

Also, in 2021, the United States was among the top-three largest contributors to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), both of whom are World Bank groups and instruments through which the Bank provides loans, guarantees, risk management products, and advisory services to middle-income and creditworthy low-income, and low-interest loans and grants to the world’s poorest countries.

McCarthy’s opposite the editorial (op-ed) entitled: “What would Joseph Jenkins Roberts Have to Say About Liberia Today?” also criticized the Liberian government over corruption, transparency and accountability, human rights, “and other acts that threaten the peace and security of Liberia.” He repeatedly implied Roberts, accredited for being the pioneer for Liberia’s foreign relations, for his support to nation-building and contribution to the Liberian education system, would have something to say about the state of affairs of the country he helped establish in 1847.

It comes barely six months after the Head of the European Union Laurent Delahousse said in October last year Monrovia was the “dirtiest” city in Africa he had lived in. Delahousse came under heavy criticism for that statement he made at an event on solid waste management. He later retracted his statement but it had already sparked a heated debate on the sanitary condition of Monrovia and its environs.

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