By: Konah Rufus

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The government of Liberia and the World Bank has signed an agreement in the tone of $74.2Million USD. $64.2 Million USD will go towards the World Bank funded Liberia Electricity Sector Strengthening and Access Project (LESSAP) and $10Million USD will go towards the Recovery of Economic Activity for Liberian Informal Sector Employment Project.

According to report only Seven(7) percent of the general population has access to grid electricity while twenty one(21) percent has access to off- grid sources of electricity; The signing today signal the first phase of a multi- phase approach towards solving the country’s electricity problems.

Out of the $64Million USD that is going towards electricity, $30Million USD is coming in as an IDA resources (of which $15Million USD is in grant and another $15 Million USD is in IDA credit), $29Million USD are funding from the IDA scale-up window (SUW) in the form of an IDA credit,$2.7Million USD are grant resources from the Japan policy and Human Resources Development Fund(PHRD) and $2.5Million USD are grant from the Energy Sector Management Assistance program Multi-Donor trust fund (ESMAP). The grant resources mobilized under the Multi-Donor Trust Fund are specifically for electrification of Health facilities as part of building resilience to Covid-19. The need for electrification of the health centers across the country has become a critical priority in addressing pandemics like Ebola and COVID-19.

The $10Million USD was signed for the purpose of helping the informal sector to recover from the impact of Covid-19. The project will provide grants and business skills training to 4,000 vulnerable households to revive or start small businesses, as well as temporary employment and wages to 15,000 poor individuals, half of whom will be women. The project will be implemented by the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Liberia Agency for Community empowerment (LACE), utilizing implementation capacities developed under the ongoing Liberia Opportunities project.

According to the agreement,out of the $10Million USD that is coming in for this project, $5Million USD is an IDA credit while another $5Million is an IDA grant.