Swedish Mission Visits Liberia

Monrovia, Liberia  – Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation, Mr. Peter ERIKSSON, is heading a high-level Mission to Liberia and will arrive on October 8, 2020.

Mr. Peter ERIKSSON is expected to have an open-ended discussion with Liberia’s Finance and Development Planning Minister, Honourable Samuel D. Tweah, Jr., and key Ministers of government, on the country’s development challenges, and to identify areas where Swedish support fits. Priority areas where the discussion will focus on include the work for gender equality, women’s empowerment, anti-rape, and anti-SGBV.

Earlier this year, the Swedish embassy in Liberia in consultation with Liberian authorities developed a proposal for a 5-year Country Development and Cooperation Strategy to be implemented from 2021 to 2025. The new proposal is more or less a continuation of the current cooperation strategy with the addition of a new thematic area relating to Climate Change and the Environment.

The Swedish government is expected to approve this proposal before the end of this year. The discussion with Minister Eriksson is therefore an opportunity for the Government of Liberia to further influence the direction of this cooperation strategy in the context of the Pro-poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development. Minister Eriksson has outlined four priority areas for all Swedish Embassies for the working year 2020/21 which includes a focus on Feminist Foreign Policy, the Drive for Democracy, Climate Change, Environment and Biodiversity, and Anti-Corruption.

Sweden is one of the lead donors working with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Governance Commission for the implementation of the Liberia Decentralization Plan. They provide support to the Government’s national development strategy through numerous projects aligned with the MTEF Sector including the Liberia Nationally Determined Contributions through the Swedish International Development Agency relative to environment and biodiversity. This project is currently being implemented by the EPA with UNDP support.

The Swedes have also funded the work of the ODI’s Budget Strengthening Initiative (BSI) in Liberia since 2014. The project currently provides two resident advisors in the Budget and Fiscal Affairs Departments, as well as short term and remote support to the Liberia Project’s Dashboard and Debt Management Unit in the Department of Economic Management.