Liberia: UN Women Begins Cash Disbursement to Women’s Savings Groups in Eight Counties

KAKATA, Margibi County—Nearly 1,500 women organized into 49 savings and farming groups across eight counties began receiving grant money on Friday under a UN Women project whose Liberian sponsor said in the same breath that the money is not enough.

By Yawah Y. Jaivey

Rep. Ellen Attoh-Wreh of Margibi District 3, chairwoman of the Women’s Legislative Caucus of Liberia, thanked India, Brazil and South Africa for the US$167,000 behind the project but told the launch ceremony the allocation falls short of what grassroots women need. She said she hoped results would persuade the three governments to add more.

The disbursement moves the project past two years of community meetings and group formation and into the phase the women have been waiting on, direct cash into groups that until now had constitutions, elected officers and training but no capital.

The project, “Women’s Legislative Caucus in Liberia Promoting Voice, Leadership, and Gender-Responsive Governance for Sustainable Development,” is being ran by UN Women Liberia with the caucus and CareFound Liberia. It is financed through the IBSA Fund, the India, Brazil and South Africa Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation, administered by the U.N. Office for South-South Cooperation.

Yemi Falayajo, deputy representative of UN Women Liberia, said the organizers have formed or strengthened 49 of a targeted 50 village savings and loan associations and agricultural cooperatives, or 98%. At an estimated average of 30 members a group, the project counts about 1,470 women in those associations.

“The project does not simply provide funds and expect women to manage on their own,” Falayajo said. She said the grants come with training, community-based facilitation and continued mentoring, and that running a savings group teaches members to make collective decisions, keep records, manage shared money and settle disputes.

The eight counties are Montserrado, Bong, Lofa, Margibi, Gbarpolu, Grand Bassa, Grand Cape Mount and Grand Gedeh.

Beyond the savings groups, the project has trained 24 community-based facilitators, 16 women and eight men, who are to pass on training to about 3,800 rural women and girls in the eight counties. According to the project’s progress brief, that training covers literacy and numeracy, financial and digital literacy, entrepreneurship and business management, savings group operations, gender equality, leadership, peacebuilding, and sexual and reproductive health and rights.

The same brief says awareness meetings held between May 11 and May 31 drew 373 people, 305 of them women, including local officials, traditional and religious leaders, women’s and youth groups and caucus members. Counting those meetings, the facilitators and the savings group members, the project puts its direct reach at about 1,867 people.

India’s ambassador to Liberia, Manoj Bihari Verma, said his government was glad to work with Brazil and South Africa on livelihood support for Liberian women. He said the beneficiaries would become agents of change, and that communities grow stronger when women have more economic opportunity and more inclusive when women lead.

Falayajo also pointed to an August peer-learning mission to India by members of the caucus, who met Indian legislators, government institutions and women’s organizations on political representation, gender-responsive budgeting, digital inclusion and economic empowerment. The lesson, she said, was to stop treating women as recipients.

“Women must lead, make decisions and shape the development of their communities and countries,” Falayajo said, describing the shift as one from women’s development to women-led development.

Attoh-Wreh said securing the money took lobbying and sacrifice abroad. County focal persons, facilitators and savings group representatives from all eight counties attended the ceremony.