Five years after a destructive 14-year war, formidable challenges still hinder Liberia’s drive to recovery. Poverty is pervasive while food insecurity and malnutrition are widespread. Maternal and child mortality rates are staggering and the gross enrolment ratio indicator, as per the 2008 Human Development Report, ranks Liberia 147th out of 157 countries. The very complex operational environment, characterised by management and logistics obstacles and inadequate staff capacity, undermine the Government’s ability to take the lead in addressing these challenges, necessitating a continuation of recoveryfocused interventions in order to lay a foundation for sustainable development in Liberia.
A high food price impact assessment in June 2008 found that severe food insecurity in greater Monrovia more than doubled since 2006, with direct consequences on the nutritional status of women and children. Nevertheless, rural food insecurity is still markedly higher than in urban areas, as indicated in both WFP and government reports in 2006 and 2008. Some 19.6 percent of rural households have poor food consumption compared to 7.5 percent in urban Liberia. Nationally, food insecurity remains high with 35 percent of all Liberians having borderline food consumption, and 14 percent considered highly food insecure as a result of poor food consumption or dietary diversity (1).
While the price of rice, Liberia’s staple food, stabilized in November 2008, it has remained well above the levels of 2007, and an increasing price trend has started in the rural areas beginning March 2009. Such increases in rice prices, occurring in the period immediately after the harvest, are unusual in Liberia and signal continued market volatility.
The objective of this PRRO is to contribute to Liberia’s ongoing transition recovery by rebuilding rural livelihoods, reducing malnutrition, and strengthening national capacities to reduce hunger. The PRRO will pursue this objective through four major areas: livelihood asset rehabilitation; school feeding; nutrition interventions; and capacitybuilding, including local purchase through Purchase for Progress (P4P). These activities of the PRRO support WFP Strategic Objectives 3, 4, and 5, and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 1 to 6, and are in line with WFP’s Gender Policy approved by the Executive Board in February 2009.
The Government launched a Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) in mid-2008, incorporating key elements of the National Food Security and Nutrition Strategy through two of the four PRS pillars: Pillar II (revitalizing the economy) and Pillar IV (rehabilitating infrastructure and delivering basic services). This PRRO directly support both pillars. The Government’s growing technical and financial capacity is expected to enable WFP to begin a hand over of activities and to start laying the groundwork for development programming from 2011.
(1) Classification is based on the standard WFP VAM food consumption analysis, which uses a food consumption score (indicator of food frequency and dietary diversity) as a proxy for calorie consumption.
