By: G. Bennie Bravo Johnson I
The United States Agency for International Development has launched a US$1.5m grant, in an effort to improve the workings of eighteen civil society organizations.
The $1.5 million grant empowers the eighteen CSO organizations to advocate for policy reforms in the local governance, education, and health sectors.
It endeavors to promote greater collaboration with Liberian traditional leaders and media outlets to communicate reform priorities to citizens and to also encourage education and health grantees to form sustainable coalitions to extend their reach beyond Monrovia and elevate citizens’ aspirations and concerns.
The grant launch took place on June 27, 2023, at the Sinkor Palace, Tubman
Boulevard, Oldest Congo Town under the theme “Liberian citizens, civil society, and the private sector advocating and working with the Liberian Government to resolve priority governance and development issues in the education and health sectors”
Additionally, it seeks to strengthen linkages between CSOs with shared development priorities to increase their impact, and enhance civil society’s ability to serve as a conduit for information between constituent and the Government of Liberia. And support CSOs’ financial and organizational sustainability. It considers ongoing capacity development services for both CSOs and the private sector readily available on the local market.
In an overview provided Anthony Myers, the senior policy advisor of the Liberia Civil Society Activity stated that the grant will strengthen the ability of Liberian civil society organizations (CS0) to advocate for citizen development priorities through policy reforms, policy implementation, and service delivery improvements.
He added that the CSA workings have been implemented by development alternatives Incorporated through building multi-stakeholder coalitions that create feedback loops among the Government of Liberia, CSOs, private sector entities, and citizens.
Furthermore, he stressed that these coalitions address critical issues in the health, education, and human rights sectors through advocacy, community engagement, and public oversight mechanisms.
He said it enables CSA also collaborates with partner CSOs to identify and resolve gaps in their organizational capacity and improve their sustainability.
In Continuation, he provided that there were three political economy analyses conducted to determine citizen development priorities around democratic governance issues in the health, education, and natural resources extraction sectors.
The overview further provided that there have been fifty grants issued to Liberian CSOs (totaling $3.7 million) to address citizen-determined, priority democratic governance issues in CSA’s focus sectors.
In a remark, the deputy chief of mission at the US embassy, Joel Maybury charged the civil society organizations to keep citizens informed, defend their rights and deliver essential services, as well as hold the government accountable to do the right things, thereby describing CSOs as the living light of society.
Maybury continued by lauding civil society organizations for being instrumental in helping Liberia survive many crises, playing key roles in the passage of policies such as the local government act.
He went on by calling on every Liberian to work together to make Liberia better for everyone.
For his part, the executive director of Integrity Watch Liberia, Harold Audio asserted that Liberia is a dysfunctional vehicle that must not be parked but be allowed to be moving while fixing it, stating that it is inaccessible to enable the vehicle to park.
He called for the collective effort of CSO to work with the government and hold the government accountable to ensure that Liberia becomes better.
At the same time, the assistant minister for urban affairs at the Ministry of internal affairs Abubakar Bar on behalf of the minister and the government lauded the American government for the many support through the USAID that is aimed at making Liberia better
Abubakar Bar further charged CSOs to become efficient, unbiased, and reliable in the discharge of their duty to the country.
He added that as CSOs call for transparency in government, they must be efficient enough to exercise a high degree of transparency and accountability as they take delivery of the US$1.5m
