Sustainable Development Goals Blog#8

LIBERIA

             Liberia is located on the west African coast. Bordered by the Atlantic Ocean along its entire diagonal southwest coastline of 579 kilometers, Liberia borders Sierra Leone to the northwest, Guinea to the north. The climate of Liberia is covered with tropical rain forest, and the country's terrain ranges from coastal plains to plateau to low mountains. Liberia's climate is tropical.( Africa UNDP,2019)

Is Poverty an issue in Liberia?

Poverty is considered one of the main issues in Liberia. Liberia’s population consists mainly of smallholder farmers that struggle to produce enough to feed their families. The issue of the farmers reduction has led to poverty in Liberia reaching 68 percent and 35 percent of the population being malnourished.

Civil wars have contributed to the over 250,000 Liberian orphans who frequently suffer from malnutrition and are abandoned.

 Liberia’s education and health systems are both in need of great improvement. The lack of health care access often leads to high fatality rates among those with treatable or preventable diseases. The education goes, only half of Liberians are literate, and many Liberian children are kept out of school in order to help on their families’ farms.(UNICEF, Liberia,2019) 

US Role in Liberia 

Eradicating poverty in all its forms remains one of the greatest challenges facing humanity specially in Africa .The number of people living in extreme poverty dropped by more than half between 1990 and 2015  from 1.9 billion to 836 million – too many are still struggling for the most basic human needs. (UN,2019)

The focus of USAID in combating poverty in Liberia is collaborating with the Liberian government to help rebuild the infrastructure and revitalize mining and other utilization of natural resources in the country. Government strategies focus on stimulating the private sector by providing access to credit and infrastructure to Liberians.

Resources in Liberia

One of the main characteristics in Liberia is the landscape and resources available to make it a prosperous country.  The infrastructure can be rebuilt, and resources can be utilized to their full potential when the government is taking place.

 For this reason, one of the pillars of USAID’s action in Liberia is strengthening Democracy and Governance. Once infrastructure is re-built, and this can happen rapidly with the help of USAID, the resources flowing out of Liberia will benefit the global economy and western investment in the country.

In Liberia, UNDP supported the government to develop a Road map for the domestication of the 2030 Agenda and the African Union Agenda 2063 into the country’s next national development plan. The Road map outlines the key steps to translate the SDGs and Agenda 2063 into plans, policies and programs taking into consideration the fact that Liberia.(UNDP,2019)

The Sustainable Development Goals in Liberia and 

Implementation 

Ending poverty in all its forms everywhere is the primary focus of goal one. Despite it remains a major challenge, poverty eradication is the first Sustainable Development Goals. Statistics shows that over 800 million people are still living on less than 1.25 a day without access to basic services.

Africa, the world's poorest continent, has the highest population growth rate from 221 million in 1950 to 1 billion in 2009 with a high number of people living in poverty. In Sub-Sahara Africa, 40% of people live in absolute poverty. Reports suggest that the rate of poverty in Africa might increase due to food insecurity, conflict and climate change.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aims to end poverty everywhere on the globe by 2030.In order to implement the SDGs programs the way to achieve the goal involves increasing access to basic services, improving the living conditions of those in vulnerable situations, addressing climate change to develop the quality of life . (SDGs,2019)

Agencies Taking Actions

*United Nations Development Programs (UNDP)

*United Nations Children Funds (UNICEF)

*World Bank (WB)

*Food Agriculture Organization (FAO)

*African Development Bank (AfDB)

*United Nations Polulation Fund (UNFPA)

All these agencies have made a huge  difference by taking actions in whole entire world not just in Africa ,but  to most of the developing countries to make difference and change for better quality of life to the populations. 

References

United Nations in Liberia

        http://lr.one.un.org/content/unct/liberia/en/home/sdg/end-poverty.html

https://www.africa.undp.org/content/rba/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html.

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Funds

     https://www.unicef.org/liberia/what-we-do