PHOTO: Min. Samuel Tweah
By Augustine Octavius, augustineoctavius@gmail.com
Liberia’s Finance and Development Planning Minister, Samuel Tweah is calling on international development partners to focus on how to expand economic diversification, add value additions to raw material and support the agriculture industry.
Minister Tweah has encouraged the African Development Bank Liberia Country office to align its strategic plan of action from 2019-2023 to economic diversification in the country.
The Liberian Finance Minister was speaking at one-day Portfolio Review by the Africa Development Bank (AfDB) with the Liberian government in Monrovia on Tuesday
“We want the world bank, African Development Bank and development partners to structure resources in the way that help private sector actors to take greater roles and responsibility to expand the economy,” Minister Tweah explained.
According to him, commodities including rubber and oil palm have huge potential, and there is a need to invest in these sectors which cannot be overemphasized.
‘’Rubber has huge returns as we speak today, anybody sitting here can invest into rubber and get good returns. Same for oil palm, because the oil palm is the new commodity, and there are so many products you can get from it like soap, oil, and lotion, just to name few,” Minister Tweah added.
For his part, AfDB Country Director, Dr. Orison Mawumenyo Amu said the one-day portfolio review was geared toward assessing implementation of progress made since the country strategy paper was approved, assess the relevance of the strategy, focus on priorities of the strategy and propose changes going forward by considering new emerging issues and developments in the country.
According to him, the bank country strategy paper was approved by the executive board of directors of the African Development bank on the 24th of October, 2018.
“This CSP this year marks the level of implementation of the strategy and covers the five years period from 2019 to 2023,” the AfDB Country Director added.
The objective of the review is to assess the relevant priorities of the CSP that were agreed in 2019.
“As we know this year we will focus on two major priorities- economic diversification through improving transport and energy infrastructure and improving economic governance and advancing economic development,” the AfDB official said.
“We also need to reaffirm which priorities are consistent with the government priorities. The second objective is to assess the progress made to date, how well we implemented them, and deliver at the start of the CFP. If necessary to incorporate changes concerning the emergency issues and development in Liberia,’’ said the AfDB Country Director in Liberia, Amu.