Liberia is one of the poorest countries, ranking 180th out of the 190 countries in the World Bank's development database. Based on the national poverty line, 59 percent of Liberians were poor in 2016, the latest year for which household survey data is available. According to World Bank...

Liberia continues to face substantial long-term development challenges. Resource constraints and substantial gaps in infrastructure and human capital have hindered Liberia's growth prospects and the authorities' efforts to improve living standards. Addressing these challenges will require...

This Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) examines Liberia's development trajectory through the lens of the country's vulnerability to climate change. It identifies Liberia's development risks and opportunities, models various scenarios of climate impact and intervention, and proposes...

Liberia, a developing nation, faces significant challenges in its energy sector, with limited access to electricity and heavy reliance on traditional biomass and imported fossil fuels. This review explores Liberia's energy landscape, policies, challenges, and opportunities, aiming to identify...

Liberia's real per-capita income is still about a third of the level prior internal conflicts. Notwithstanding the strong economic rebound recorded after the pandemic, a large infrastructure gap has remained, and the expected domestic revenue mobilization has not materialized. These two factors...

This country report provides a description of the emergence of a health care system under public responsibility in Liberia. The inception of the health care system refers to the first legislation stipulating entitlements to medical care. The report also includes a brief description of major...

This paper provides experimental evidence on the electoral effect of a large education reform in a developing democracy. Despite significantly improving school quality, the policy reduced the incumbent party's presidential vote share by 3 percentage points (10%). This does not imply that voters...

How have COVID‐19‐related restrictions affected consumption levels and life satisfaction in low‐income countries? We conducted phone surveys with 577 households in Liberia to compare consumption patterns across three points in time: November 2019 (pre‐COVID‐19), May 2020 (short term),...

Limiting access to agricultural lands and forests could undermine rural households’ livelihoods, change their allocation of labor, and affect their resource dependence. We estimate the effects of one such limitation—the transfer of land-use rights to private companies for commercial...

Liberian women make significant economic contributions yet are constrained from contributing even more due to their exclusion from productive opportunities. This study develops a macrosimulation model of the Gender Dividend that estimates the economic contributions of women and the societal...

In the last two years, Liberia's economic performance has improved. Inflation remained in single digits despite high global food and fuel prices and a relaxation in monetary and fiscal policies. Liberia's poverty rate is projected to have declined slightly in the last two years as GDP growth...

Gisela is among the large and diverse group of informal sector workers in urban Liberia who lack social protection coverage, have little interaction with formal financial institutions, and depend on informal saving groups to meet their financial needs. The financial vulnerability that this group...

Liberia's lack of effectiveness in handling judicial disputes has been consistently recognized as a weakness and one of the main obstacles to the country's transition out of fragility. Liberia performs poorly in international datasets benchmarking justice and the rule of law. For instance, in...

Advancing gender equality by strengthening women's empowerment is essential for improving development outcomes in Liberia. This report draws on existing literature and data review, as well as new qualitative evidence collected in Liberia. It shows that despite some progress, significant gender...

This paper provides experimental evidence on the electoral effect of a large education reform in a developing democracy. Despite significantly improving school quality, the policy reduced the incumbent party's presidential vote share by 3 percentage points (10%). This does not imply that voters...

The main goal of this research is to investigate actions and inactions within the Liberian Banking Sector regarding the employment and social inclusion of people living with disability in Liberia and provide recommendations, ensuring that the rights of persons with disabilities to employment and...

This Book is originally a Ph.D. thesis in Law with emphasis in Comparative Industrial Relations Law from Ahmad Ibrahim Faculty of Laws (AIKOL), International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). The project looks into comparative advantages of mediation in resolving industrial disputes in Liberia...

This research project traces how women's participation in the Liberian civil wars, as combatants and peace agents, reconstructs gender relations in the post-civil war context. The current literature examines the role of women in the governance of rebel groups, emphasizing how women operate...

This study utilizes Quantile regression as one of the tools to estimate the predictor variables effects of college entrance examination examinees’ across different quantiles. Comparing the two results of the Quantile regression and Linear regression, the estimates of the Intended College...

Given the moral condemnation of ethnic conflict and the scarcity of resources and/or political will for international intervention, understanding the conditions under which ethnic conflict may resolve itself without the elimination or subjugation of an ethnic group (or groups) is important. The...

This research project traces how women's participation in the Liberian civil wars, as combatants and peace agents, reconstructs gender relations in the post-civil war context. The current literature examines the role of women in the governance of rebel groups, emphasizing how women operate...

Public service reform often entails broad benefits for society and concentrated costs for interest groups. Do the electoral benefits outweigh the costs for politicians who implement reform? This paper examines the electoral effects of a randomized Liberian school reform which increased student...

Several small, short-term, or non-experimental studies show that cognitive behavioral-informed trainings reduce antisocial behaviors for 1–2 years. But there is no large-scale, long-term research on persistence. We follow 999 high-risk men in Liberia 10 years after randomization into: 8 weeks...

Evidence suggests that many firms in poor countries stagnate because they cannot access growth-conducive markets. We hypothesize that overlooked informational barriers distort market access. To investigate, we gave a random subset of medium-sized Liberian firms vouchers for a week-long program...

In most societies, a small number of people commit the most serious violence. Short-term studies have shown that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can reduce such antisocial behaviors. These behavior changes may be temporary, however, especially from therapy on its own. This is unsettled,...

Women may under-report intimate partner violence (IPV) due to several social and psychological factors. This study conducts a measurement experiment in rural Liberia and Malawi in which women were asked IPV questions via self-interviewing (SI) or face-to-face interviewing. About a third of women...

This is the third edition of the Liberia Economic Update (LEU), a series of annual reports that assesses recent economic developments in Liberia and assists the government and its development partners in identifying emerging issues and addressing persistent challenges. It presents a broad...

The Country Opinion Survey in Liberia assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in gaining a better understanding of how stakeholders in Liberia perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia, the...

Liberia is a fragile, low-income country. Per-capita income remains about a third of the level prior to the civil wars during 1989-2003. After a bout of economic instability, prudent monetary and fiscal policies reduced inflation to just over 5 percent in 2021 and budgets are financed without...

While cash transfers will tautologically increase contemporaneous consumption, it is unclear whether these gains will persist, especially in rural agricultural settings with limited productive investment opportunities. Using bi-monthly survey data from recipients of a large, unconditional cash...

In 2020, the United Nations reported the highest number of displaced persons ever recorded; more than half of this population was comprised of women and girls. Displacement and conflict substantially heighten the risk of gender-based violence, including intimate partner violence, for women and...