Summary

• Women in River Cess, who were some of the intended recipients of a 2023 US$1.7 million fund that investigators say was stolen, have expressed anger at the theft of badly needed money by officials from the Weah administration.

• They have also faulted the government’s transparency saying they knew nothing about the fund before the arrests made news.

• Liberia’s Asset Recovery and Property Retrieval Task Force indicted seven people in April over the alleged diversion of money. There is no word on when the case will go to trial.

By Joyclyn Wea and Nemenlah Cyrus Harmon with New Narratives

TARKUN TOWN, River Cess County – Before daylight, MissionMai Sam heads for her coconut and palm farm. The mother of eight and her husband who cuts palm for a living, have spent years growing and selling what she can, hoping to make the farm bigger and earn enough to keep all of their eight children in school.

So, when Sam, 48, learned that a Weah government program had set aside money to help vulnerable rural women like her, and that it was stolen by government officials, she was angry.

“They are wicked,” Sam says. “They send their children to big big school, then we here are suffering.”

In April, Liberia’s Asset Recovery and Property Retrieval Task Force, indicted seven people over the alleged diversion of money from the 2023 Vulnerable Small Business Support Program, which was meant in part to fund the Rural Women Empowerment Fund. Those charged include former Mawine G. Diggs, Weah government commerce minister and officials connected to the ministry, the National Rural Women Structure of Liberia and the Liberia Marketing Association.

Court filings from June said US$493,000 and more than LRD 190 million (US1.2 million) was budgeted and disbursed but did not reach the beneficiaries and was instead used for personal gain. Those indicted face charges including theft of property, economic sabotage and criminal conspiracy.

The case has become the latest test of President Joseph Boakai’s anti-corruption drive. He created a Task Force in March 2024 to trace and recover stolen public assets. Since then, the Task Force has announced four rounds of indictments covering more than 60 cases and tens of millions of dollars in alleged theft. But nearly two years after it was established, it has won just one case.

 In October, a jury at Criminal Court “C” found eight of 13 defendants guilty in the separate Saudi Rice corruption trial.

Those found guilty included former Foreign Affairs Minister Dee-Maxwell Saah Kemayah and former Internal Affairs Minister Varney A. Sirleaf. Three defendants were acquitted and the jury reached inconclusive verdicts for two others. The case concerned 29,412 bags of Saudi-donated rice valued at about US$500,000; prosecutors alleged 25,054 bags had been diverted or misapplied.  The Task Force says  it would defend the verdicts against possible appeals.

Women interviewed here in River Cess say money the funds say could have helped them expand farms, keep children in school, and become less dependent on others.

In Yarkpa’s Town, Jestina Johnson has sold dry and frozen goods for 20 years, buying from Buchanan and Monrovia and reselling them to support six children. She says she heard only vague talk that money had been sent for market women. She never received any.

Johnson says she was told she needed an identification card, but she did not understand what kind. She already had a business card and nobody clearly explained what additional document was required. By the time she thought to ask again, the opportunity had passed.

She now wants justice, not just arrests. “Let’s carry them to court,” she says.

Even the county authorities tasked with distributing the funds say they knew nothing about the project. Oretha W. Carlos coordinates the Gender Ministry’s work in River Cess and serves as an official of the Rural Women Empowerment Project, the local structure through which the fund was supposed to operate.

She says she learned about the fund from this reporter, not from the government she served.

“I am the secretary; I am not aware,” Carlos says. She said she would feel bad if money intended to help rural women was sent and then kept in other people’s hands.

Saikon Johnson Hiennis works inside her small shop in River Cess County, where she has traded for more than a decade.

Even small amounts can go a long way for these women. Carlos says L$30,000 (US$176) she received through the rural women’s structure after a conference in Gbarnga, Bong County helped her expand a small shop selling rice, clothes and cooked food. With six children in school, she says properly managed support can help women pay school fees and build something their children can inherit.

Saikon Johnson Hiennis, who has traded in River Cess for more than a decade, says she heard about the fund on radio and from people passing through from other parts of the country. Her concern now is whether those arrested will lead anywhere.

“There’s a saying in this country now that when something happens after two to three days, it dies down,” Hiennis says. She wants to see justice done publicly so people can see that accountability is real.

Taskforce officials urged the community to be patient saying the indictment is only the start of a process that must move through the courts according to Liberian law before assets can be forfeited.

“Indictment is actually the beginning of the process towards conviction,” says Joseph Daniels, the Task Force’s public relations officer.  “Without indictment we are heading nowhere.”

In June, Criminal Court ‘C’ denied Diggs permission to travel to the United States for medical treatment after an independent medical assessment found insufficient evidence that she needed care abroad. She remains barred from leaving Liberia. Daniels says no trial date has been set by the court.

Daniels blames the delays on an overloaded Criminal Court ‘C’, which handles corruption cases and the nine-month Supreme Court stay that temporarily froze the Task Force’s authority after a company under investigation challenged its legal standing.

Daniels points to another case as evidence that recovery efforts are still moving – the Task Force has traced about £8 million (US$10.70 million) to a British bank account and is pursuing proceedings in the United Kingdom, with support from partners in Ghana and the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigations.

The backlog has strengthened calls for a dedicated anti-corruption court. Supporters argue that a specialized court could reduce the burden on Criminal Court ‘C’ and move corruption cases faster. President Boakai submitted a National Anti-Corruption Court bill to the Legislature in May 2026.

The proposal has also moved slowly. The Senate Judiciary Committee paused its review in May over process concerns and began consultations in June on competing versions of the bill which is also tied to a bill that would establish a war and economic crimes court. Advocates are urging the Legislature to pass both bills before Liberia takes the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council next month.

Civil society groups have welcomed the indictments but warned that prosecutions alone will not solve Liberia’s wider corruption problem. Center for Transparency and Accountability in Liberia, a transparency watchdog, has argued that the country also needs stronger procurement rules and public financial management.

In Tarkun, Sam is less interested in the mechanics of indictments, court motions, or legislative bills. She wants the government to finish the case and make sure rural women do not simply disappear from the story once the arrests fade from the news.

“Government should not forget about it,” she said. “Let them give our money so we can make our farms.”

This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the “Investigating Liberia” project. Support for this reporting came from individual donors.

By Joyclyn Wea, gender and health correspondent with New Narratives

Summary:

• The 5th Emmet A. Dennis National Scientific Conference opened in Monrovia this week, bringing researchers and policymakers together to examine evidence from Liberia’s health system.
• Organizers said the conference is helping young scientists present and publish research. Officials promised to take its findings into health policy discussions.
• Experts said new research on Ebola preparedness and previous findings on Lassa fever show why local evidence matters, and the measure of success is what changes in communities afterward.

CONGO TOWN, Monrovia — Scientists, health workers and government officials gathered for the Emmet A. Dennis National Scientific Conference,  a national gathering of Liberian researchers presenting evidence they hope will shape how the country prevents disease and cares for patients. This is the fifth annual conference.

The three-day meeting at the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Ministerial Complex brings together Liberian researchers, students and health policymakers to discuss infectious diseases, maternal health, health financing, climate-related health threats and other challenges. Organizers said nearly 100 research paper summaries were submitted for the conference, with roughly 90 accepted for oral or poster presentations.

“We want to find Liberian solutions for Liberian problems and perhaps for global problems as well,” said Dr. Sia Wata Camanor, acting director general of the National Public Health Institute of Liberia, in her opening remarks.

The conference offers a snapshot of Liberia’s growing research community since the 2014–2016 Ebola epidemic, the biggest outbreak anywhere of the deadly disease which left nearly 5,000 Liberians dead. Experts said it also poses a test: whether findings presented before government officials will become decisions that make health services safer and more effective for ordinary Liberians.

The Ebola epidemic exposed serious weaknesses in disease detection, laboratory testing and emergency response. Liberia established the National Public Health Institute in its wake in 2016. Two years later, the Institute and its partners launched the scientific conference, named for Dr. Emmet A. Dennis, a pioneering biomedical researcher and former University of Liberia president.

One goal was to help district and county surveillance officers turn information gathered in clinics and communities into research they could analyze, present, and publish. Another was to develop younger Liberian scientists and ensure that national health priorities were not set entirely by foreign partners.

At the opening, Camanor said the conference now connects students, universities, laboratories and public health agencies. She announced that organizers would issue a communiqué after the meeting and share it with the government, the Ministry of Health and partners.

Bode Ireti Shobayo, the Institute’s director of public health and biomedical research and chair of the conference planning committee, said selected presentations can be turned into policy briefs and scientific manuscripts. The Institute will also mentor researchers to prepare papers for international academic journals.

“We want to go beyond just presenting for presenting’s sake,” Shobayo said in an interview before the conference.

Uriah Harrington, speaking on behalf of President Joseph Boakai, said the conference is key to helping the country shift away from responding only after crises emerge.

“We must transition from reactive passive response to proactive science-driven governance,” he said. The administration pledged to support domestic research capacity, mentoring and evidence-based health policy, but the remarks did not specify new funding amounts or plans.

Partners said the success of the conferences to date could be seen in changes in Liberia’s scientific workforce. A representative of the African Field Epidemiology Network, a non-profit network that trains African health workers to be “disease detectives,”  said its field epidemiology training work in Liberia has expanded since it was established in 2015 from frontline to intermediate training, with some professionals pursuing advanced courses abroad. A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention representative said Liberian epidemiologists now lead outbreak investigations and produce their own research.

Dr. Stephen B. Kennedy, a University of Liberia researcher and Institute board chair, said Liberians have developed the skills to study infectious diseases and contribute to international vaccine research, even as shortages of money, laboratory infrastructure and supplies limit what they can do. “We have the expertise, we have the capacity.”

But the ability to present a paper is different from changing policy or action. Shobayo could not say how many recommendations from earlier editions had been adopted or provide a public record showing which decisions and services had changed.

He pointed to recent work on Lassa Fever as one example of the promise offered by Liberian researchers. A 2022 study co-authored by Shobayo found the disease appearing outside its traditional hotspots in Nimba, Bong and Grand Bassa counties and contributed to the government’s decision to expand its activities to other counties.

But some experts have questioned whether the conference’s contributions to national policy and actions have been enough. Joseph Somwarbi, a pharmacologist and former chair of the House Committee on Health, said policymakers should make those links visible to the public.

“What are the indicators?” he asked, calling for evidence of the decisions taken and benefits to affected communities.

Alpha Tamba, with the World Health Organization, urged organizers to publish the findings and make them accessible, including to the communities they are meant to serve. He said that would give health workers, journalists and residents a way to follow what happens after the speeches and presentations.

This year’s presentations included The National Public Health Institute’s nationwide Ebola preparedness assessment done earlier this year. Officials previously reported a 69 percent overall readiness score and 47 percent for logistics. The Institute has not published the detailed scoring method or facility-by-facility findings that experts said were necessary to fully interpret them. When the results were released in September, health workers welcomed the assessment but said the government needed to follow up to close the gaps to make sure they feel safe.

For three days, the conference will put Liberian evidence before people with the power to act on it. Its larger measure will come later: which recommendations the government accepts, what resources follow, and whether patients and communities can see the difference.

This story was produced in collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia project. The funder had no say in the story’s content.

Summary:

• A global study found nearly three in every four workers in Sub-Saharan Africa are “struggling,” not “thriving.” In Liberia, that struggle is visible in classrooms and clinics where public servants work through low pay, stress, and poor conditions.
• Teachers and midwives interviewed for this story described low take-home pay, delayed payroll placement, overcrowded classrooms, understaffed clinics, and salary bureaucracy that leaves many exhausted and others walking away.
• Economists and labor advocates warn the cost hurts everyone: weak classrooms and clinics mean weaker learning, poorer health, lower productivity, and a future workforce Liberia may not be preparing.

By Tetee Gebro and Joyclyn Wea, health and gender correspondents with New Narratives

BENSONVILLE, Montserrado County – Before sunrise, Elaine Duowai prepares lesson notes in a house where electricity is not reliable. By morning, she is walking to Euphemia Barclay Elementary School, where some pupils are already missing from the rows of benches before the day begins.

Some stay home because families cannot afford transport, food, or school materials. Others are sent to help parents sell or work on nearby farms. Duowai teaches the children who come. She worries about the ones who do not.

“Sometimes I look at the empty benches and feel weak,” Duowai said. “The children are not lazy. Their families are just struggling.”

The work is also hard inside the classroom: too few materials, absent pupils, children carrying adult burdens, and teachers expected to supply patience when the system supplies little else.

Then there is the pay. After one trip to central Monrovia to correct a salary problem, Duowai said she was told she needed money she did not have to open a new bank account. She returned to school with the problem unresolved and her strength nearly gone. Her husband, also a teacher, died in 2024. She is still fighting bureaucracy to access his benefits. She makes soap at night to feed her family and then gets up at sunrise to begin the school day.

Hers is the face of a wider warning for Liberia. In the latest State of the Global Workplace: 2026 Report produced by U.S. based polling company Gallup, nearly three in every four workers in Sub-Saharan Africa are “struggling” rather than “thriving.” The annual employee study, based on more than 141,000 employed respondents worldwide, also found high daily stress across the region.

In Liberia, that finding shows up in public schools and clinics where workers continue to report for duty while low pay, delayed payroll placement, crowded facilities and weak systems drain the very people expected to keep the country moving. Interviews with teachers, midwives and economists describe a labor crisis that is not only about salaries, but about morale, working conditions and the cost of asking essential workers to survive on purpose alone. Especially when the country’s lawmakers take home as much as $US15,000 a month, more than most lawmakers in wealthy countries.

Duowai is clear about why the issue matters: the classroom is where Liberia’s future nurses, doctors, accountants, farmers, engineers and public officials begin. If the government forgets the classroom, she said, it forgets the people who will one day run the country.

Mary W. Mulbah-Nyumah, president of the National Teachers Association of Liberia, said the Gallup finding sounds familiar. She says low pay and repeated administrative frustration are weakening teachers before they even reach the classroom.

Nyumah taught in Liberia’s public school system for two decades before leading the association. She remembers years when teachers received salaries only twice a year, and only for one month at a time. She survived by trading, relying on food support and taking extra work. She says that old pattern has not fully ended; it has only changed form.

Today, some teachers still wait years to be placed on the payroll. Others are paid but say what reaches them after deductions cannot cover transport, rent, food, children’s needs and the small classroom expenses they often absorb themselves. In schools with too few books, desks or teaching materials, the emotional cost builds alongside the financial one.

Nyumah said the country is relying on teachers’ sacrifice to keep schools open. If too many leave, children lose more than lessons. They lose time, preparation, and the chance to move into adulthood with the skills needed to escape the poverty their parents are fighting.

Public-sector pay in Liberia has long lagged the cost of living. Successive governments have promised to address the problem. The Boakai administration has pointed to payroll verification, a promised $US150 gross monthly salary floor, and civil-service testing as steps toward cleaning up the payroll and reducing “no-show” jobs awarded in corrupt deals. Some of that is happening.

The Civil Service Agency said it integrated 3,406 essential workers in education, MCSS, and health into the national payroll in 2025, including 2,148 teachers and technical workers and 1,050 health workers. But the government’s own 2025 budget said fully absorbing all volunteer workers would cost about $US15 million, far more than the $US2.6 million allocated that year to begin the process.

Nearly two years into the administration, workers interviewed for this story said the reform is still uneven.

Maxim Bleeten and Augustus Walker, public relations officers at the ministries of education and health, did not respond to requests for comment by the deadline.

Jerry Barclay, assistant coordinator and instructor in the Department of Economics at the University of Liberia, said wages are among the strongest signals a government sends to its workforce. When workers are underpaid, unpaid or emotionally exhausted, he said, absenteeism rises, errors increase, service quality falls and productivity declines.

A weak health sector means sick workers may not recover quickly enough to return to farms, offices or classrooms. A weak education sector sends less-prepared students into the labor force. When schools and clinics struggle, Barclay says, agriculture, finance and other parts of the economy eventually feel it.

At Johnsonville Public Clinic, Larwuo B. Walker, a registered nurse and midwife, sees the same pressure from the health side. Six midwives cover shifts that stretch from morning into night for a community of thousands. On some nights, she says, midwives sleep in chairs because there are not enough people to cover the work. Some women arrive in critical condition after delaying care because they were afraid or could not afford to come. Unnecessary birth injuries to mothers and babies that result in lifelong hardships often follow.

Walker holds a Bachelor of Science in Midwifery, but her monthly take-home pay is less than $US200. She has stayed in the clinic because she knows she is often all the stands between patients’ life and death.

Barclay said that is the breaking point policymakers often miss. Purpose can keep people in service for a time, but it cannot pay transport fare, rent, school fees or market prices. When a worker’s income stays fixed while prices rise – as they are now – living standards fall. Eventually, he says, productivity falls too.

Barclay said Liberia should treat spending on teachers and health workers as an economic investment, not only a social cost. If the government says it cannot afford better support for them, he said, it should also count the cost of weak schools, exhausted clinics and skilled workers leaving essential sectors for jobs that offer more dignity.

Nyumah said the teachers’ association will keep pushing salary complaints, payroll delays and volunteer-teacher cases to the ministries. Until then, teacher Douwai will prepare soap at night, wake before daylight, and walk back to school where her students, and the country’s future, depend on her.

This story was produced in collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia project. Funding was provided by a private donor and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. The donors had no say in the story’s content.

Summary

• The long-delayed trial over Saudi-donated rice intended for vulnerable and disaster-affected Liberians but was allegedly diverted to line officials’ pockets has begun in Monrovia.
• Some flood victims in River Cess said they know little about the case and are receiving few updates as the trial moves forward.
• Victims said justice should mean more than prosecution. They want missing public assets recovered and affected communities to benefit.

By Joyclyn Wea, gender correspondent with New Narratives

INTERNATIONAL TIMBER INDUSTRY VILLAGE, River Cess County — When Eric Kollor learned that former government officials were finally on trial over thousands of bags of Saudi-donated rice meant for vulnerable and disaster-affected Liberians, he was surprised. The case had been moving through the courts in Monrovia, but Kollor, one of the flood victims the assistance was supposed to help, did not know the trial had begun.

Kollor still remembers the 2024 flood that swept through International Timber Industry Village, widely known as ITI Village, damaging homes, the bridge, the police station and leaving families struggling. Residents were told government relief, including food and blankets, was coming. Kollor said none of it reached him.

“I want justice to be served well,” Kollor said.

 Advocates said the trial is testing more than whether former officials illegally handled thousands of bags of Saudi-donated rice. It is also testing whether Liberia’s accountability system can deliver something meaningful for disaster victims who said promised assistance never reached them.

 Saudi Arabia donated 29,000 bags of 25-kilogram rice to Liberia in 2023 for vulnerable and disaster-affected people in Margibi and River Cess counties. Prosecutors allege that 25,054 bags of rice, worth about US$425,918, were stolen, misapplied, or improperly distributed. For families in flood-hit communities such as ITI Village and nearby Glanyah Town, the bigger question is whether prosecution and recovery of public assets will ever translate into help for the people the rice was intended to serve.

More than a year after senior former officials were arrested over the handling of that donation, their trial is now underway in Criminal Court “C” in Monrovia. The defendants have pleaded not guilty and are presumed innocent unless proven guilty. The trial began August 17 after months of delays.

In Glanyah Town, Veronica Wesseh had heard about the case. But for her, putting former officials on trial is not enough. She wants the missing assistance recovered and affected families to benefit.

“Let them bring our food. We are waiting for it,” Wesseh said.

For residents of ITI Village and Glanyah, the case has reopened painful memories of a disaster that destroyed homes and left many families waiting for assistance. A previous New Narratives investigation found that the 2024 floods swallowed 27 homes in the two communities and left at least one person dead. Six months later, residents said much of the government assistance they had been promised had still not arrived.

Across Liberia, floods affected about 100,000 people in 2024, according to Liberia’s disaster authorities. River Cess, Bong and Grand Cape Mount were among the hardest-hit counties. Wesseh remembers days of heavy rain before floodwater entered Glanyah.
She said soldiers later brought small quantities of rice, gari, salt and other supplies to the community. But she said many residents did not receive the larger assistance they had been told was coming.
The disaster reflects a growing national challenge.

The World Bank has warned that worsening climate impacts could shrink Liberia’s economy by 15 percent and push another 1.3 million people into poverty by 2050 if the country does not strengthen its ability to adapt. That makes the handling of disaster relief especially important for communities likely to face more flooding in the years ahead.

The Assets Recovery and Property Retrieval Taskforce, which investigated the Saudi rice case, said affected communities were involved in parts of the investigation.

Joseph F. Daniels, public relations officer of the Taskforce, said investigators visited communities in River Cess, Margibi, Bomi and Sinoe and spoke with residents and community leaders. He said some residents remain in contact with investigators and may testify for the state as the trial unfolds.

But Daniels acknowledged that this does not mean every affected resident is receiving individual updates about what is happening in court. Before the trial began, he said, the Taskforce issued public statements and appeared on radio programs, mostly in Monrovia, to explain developments in the case. It also relies on journalists to help keep the wider public informed.

A court gag order now limits what the Taskforce can publicly say while the case is underway, Daniels said. He said broader public updates are expected after the trial ends. For now, that communication has not reached everyone.

Anthony Ben Jones, a former stipendiary magistrate and elder with relatives in Glanyah, said some residents are only now beginning to understand the details of the case. In ITI Village, Kollor learned that the trial had begun only during his interview with New Narratives.

For victims, that information gap adds another layer to a case already centered on whether public assistance reached the people for whom it was intended. 

The Task Force said its goal goes beyond securing convictions. Daniels said its responsibility is to investigate the alleged misuse of public assets and recover anything that can be retrieved.

But recovery does not automatically mean flood victims such as Kollor and Wesseh would receive the recovered rice, money or other assets. Daniels said decisions about who receives disaster assistance would fall to the National Disaster Management Agency, the government institution responsible for identifying disaster victims and distributing relief.

That leaves an important unanswered question for residents. There is no guarantee that prosecutors will recover the missing rice or its value. Even if assets are recovered, there is no guarantee they will be returned directly to the communities and families who say they went without assistance.

For victims far from the Monrovia courtroom, justice may be measured differently: by whether accountability eventually delivers something tangible to the people who were supposed to benefit in the first place.

This story was produced by New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia project. The funder had no say in the story’s content.

Summary

• Charlyne Brumskine is one of five judges selected for the prestigious role serving on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Community Court of Justice, which hears cases against regional governments, from 2026 to 2030.
• The lawyer, who brings more than 23 years of legal experience to the court, is the first Liberian woman to serve in that role.
• Brumskine says she wants more West Africans to understand and have access to the Court, including through proceedings outside its headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria.

By Joyclyn Wea, gender correspondent with New Narratives

When Charlyne Brumskine learned she had been selected to the coveted post as a judge on the Ecowas Community Court of Justice, her thoughts turned to her late father.

Charles Walker Brumskine, the prominent lawyer and three-time presidential candidate who died in 2019, had hoped to serve as vice president of the Economic Community of West African States Commission himself, his daughter said.

“My father did not get it. You can imagine how proud I feel to have been able to achieve that,” Brumskine said.

Brumskine is one of five judges selected to serve on the regional court from 2026 to 2030, alongside judges from Nigeria, The Gambia, Togo and Benin. The Court’s bench rotates among Economic Community of West African States member states every four years.

Brumskine is not the first Liberian to serve on the Court. Liberian judges Micah Wilkins Wright and Yussif D. Kaba previously served on the bench. But she is the first Liberian woman.

“Is a privilege that I do not take lightly,” Brumskine said. “I am continuing the legacy of Liberian women who came before me, those who plaited the mat on which I sit. But I am also a forebearer of those who will come after me. I am simply keeping the seat warm for them and providing a blueprint of how Liberian women must represent our country with dignity, excellence, and purpose.”

Based in Abuja, Nigeria, the Community Court of Justice is the judicial arm of the Economic Community of West African States. It interprets regional laws and treaties, settles disputes involving member states and Economic Community of West African States institutions, and hears human rights cases.

Its human rights jurisdiction gives the Court particular importance to ordinary citizens. Individuals can bring qualifying human rights complaints directly before it without first exhausting all remedies in their national courts.

One recent example saw a group of survivors of the 1990 St. Peter’s Lutheran Church massacre, in which up to 600 people were killed by Armed Forces of Liberia soldiers, sue the Liberian government, accusing successive administrations of failing to investigate and prosecute those responsible. But in October 2024, the court threw out the case, ruling it lacked jurisdiction because the violations fell before the court’s human rights mandate existed.

Brumskine said about 90 percent of the Court’s cases concern human rights, covering issues ranging from human trafficking and unlawful detention to freedom of expression and due process.

Liberians have used the Court in other cases. Kabineh Ja’neh, the former Supreme Court associate justice, challenged his impeachment there in 2020. The Court ruled in his favor, finding the government had violated his right to a fair hearing and ordering the government to pay him compensation and restore certain rights. Liberia later sought a review, but the Court rejected the application and ordered compliance with its original judgment.

In another recent case, the Court in July 2025 dismissed an application involving Abrahim Sheriff, raised in Guinea but claimed to be of Liberian origin, who brought a case against Liberia and Guinea at the Court, alleging both governments unlawfully arrested and detained him on unfounded claims of armed insurrection and mercenary activity, subjecting him to torture and enforced disappearance and confiscating $180,000. 

Those cases, Brumskine said, demonstrate the breadth of issues that can reach the regional bench. But she said she hopes that Liberians will not have to go there.

“I hope that our government, our judicial system, affords our citizens the opportunity to fundamental rights so that no one appears before me or before any of the justices from Liberia,” she said.

Despite several landmark human rights rulings, the Court faces mounting criticism over poor compliance by member states, with enforcement of its binding judgments remaining one of its toughest challenges since it began operations in 2001. That weakness was on display in the Lutheran Church massacre case, where the court’s narrow reading of its jurisdiction let the Liberian government avoid accountability.

The Court’s independence is also being tested by politically sensitive cases, including a suit by Ghana’s suspended and later dismissed Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkornoo, who is seeking $10 million in damages over her removal. Most recently, the court has been drawn into regional migration politics, hearing a case accusing Ghana of unlawfully detaining and deporting refugees transferred from the US under a secret deportation agreement — the first case filed under the 1979 ECOWAS Free Movement Protocol.

Brumskine comes to the Court with more than 23 years of legal experience. She has also been active in politics and was Alexander Cummings’ running mate in the 2023 presidential election.

During the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf administration, Brumskine worked with the Ministry of Justice on Liberia’s anti-human trafficking framework and with the Ministry of Commerce as Liberia negotiated accession to the World Trade Organization. During the George Weah administration, her law firm served as external counsel to the Central Bank of Liberia.

She is founder of CMB Law Group and has taught at the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law and the Liberian School of Law. She is licensed to practice law in Liberia, New York and Washington, D.C., and has worked across private practice, public policy and international negotiations.

That background differs from Economic Community of West African States judges who often reach the regional bench after careers in national judiciaries. But previous service as a judge was not required. Candidates could qualify with at least 20 years of relevant professional experience as a judge, lawyer or legal academic.

The selection process was competitive.

The Liberian government submitted three nominees after being allocated a seat on the rotating bench. The three were interviewed in Sierra Leone in April by the ECOWAS Community Judicial Council, made up of chief justices from across the region. Jutonu Kollie, Ministry of Justice communications officer, did not respond to questions about the identities of the other two finalists by deadline.

Brumskine recalled sitting before nine regional chief justices who were sitting as the Economic Community of West African States Community Judicial Council, the body responsible for screening and recommending candidates for the court judgeship as part of her interview panel, wearing headphones as interpreters translated among English, French, and Portuguese speakers. The questions ranged from Economic Community of West African States treaties and human rights protocols to regional affairs and legal philosophy.

The Judicial Council ranked the three candidates and sent its recommendations to the Economic Community of West African States Council of Ministers before the Authority of Heads of State and Government gave final approval.

Brumskine said one of her priorities will be helping ordinary West Africans better understand a Court many do not know exists. She wants the Court to become more visible outside Abuja, including by holding activities and proceedings in member states.

“Let the Court come to Monrovia,” she said. “Let people come and see and hear and feel what the Community Court of Justice is. Let’s take it to Accra. Let’s take it to all the different countries in the region.”

She said she believes that access matters particularly for women and other citizens seeking remedies for human rights violations, including human trafficking, which has been growing in Liberia and where the government has done little to protect victims. She stressed that the court is for all West African citizens, not just the elite, to hold governments to account.

“A woman in Buchanan can take her case to the Economic Community of West African States Court of Justice if she meets certain criteria,” Brumskine said.

Her appointment means yet another Liberian woman has attained a prestigious post outside the country while women in the country continued to struggle for representation in leadership. Women hold just 10 of 103 seats in the Legislature. Brumskine said progress has been slow, but she sees her own responsibility as extending beyond occupying a regional seat.

Bowoulo Taylor Kelley, vice president of the Association of Female Lawyers of Liberia, said Brumskine’s appointment demonstrates what Liberian women can achieve when given the opportunity. “These barriers do not reflect a lack of talent,” Kelley said. “Rather, they reflect systems that must be deliberately opened and made fairer.”

At her Monrovia law firm, she said she is mentoring three young women lawyers to take on greater responsibilities eventually. “It’s my role to train. It’s my role to mentor so that when Charlyne Brumskine goes out, they are stepping up to take my place locally,” she said.

For Brumskine, however, the immediate task is the Court and the four years ahead.

“To be a judge, it is the pinnacle, it is the height, it’s the peak of our professional career,” she said. “And not just a judge in Liberia. To be a regional judge.”

Brumskine’s term begins in Mid-October 2026.

This story was produced in collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia project. Funding was provided by a private donor and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. The donors had no say in the story’s content.

Summary:

• Advocates said Davidetta Browne Lansanah, who stepped down after 12 successful years leading the National Elections Commission in March, showed the positive impact of women’s leadership in Liberia.
• Lansanah joins other examples of women leading with results, from former president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to women peacebuilders and those now serving in government.
• The question now, said advocates, is whether Liberians will turn those examples into a political opportunity for more women. Advocates said a bill before the Legislature that would require parties to put women up for 30 percent of seats is the test.
  When Davidetta Browne Lansanah stood down from her role at the helm of the National Elections Commission in March, after 12 years on the job, she carried with her a record that women’s rights advocates said should settle once and for all an old argument in Liberia: women can lead.

By Joyclyn Wea, gender correspondent with New Narratives

At the Commission, Lansanah worked through 2 presidential elections, disputed results, political pressure, and one of the closest presidential races in Liberia’s recent history when President Joseph Boakai defeated former President George Weah by fewer than 21,000 votes. Advocates said the fact that the country accepted the result and moved on peacefully was a testament to the people’s trust in Lansanah’s leadership.

In an interview with FrontPage Africa/New Narratives, Lansanah said that she should never have been in doubt.
“Females have quality,” Lansanah said. “Females can run any institution. I am a living demonstration of that.”
Lansanah submitted her resignation to President Boakai, choosing to leave one year early to rest because she had worked for 12 years without leave. She was replaced by Jonathan K. Weedor, who served over 16 years as a commissioner and acting co-chairman.
Lansanah was appointed to the Commission during the administration of former President Sirleaf and stayed on under former President Weah and President Boakai. She helped guide the Commission through difficult elections and public pressure. She said she did the work with discipline and commitment.

Advocates said Lansanah’s 12 years at the Commission left a strong legacy. They point to the 2023 election as a serious test not just for the Commission but of Lansanah’s leadership. Political tensions were high. But the process ended without the kind of crisis many Liberians feared.

“She has a record that will live on,” said Malcolm Joseph, chairman of the Elections Coordinating Committee, Liberia’s largest domestic election observer group. “In other countries, that kind of close election could have been resisted and led to something else.”
Lansanah said she is proud of the role she played. But she said her biggest achievement was not only the elections she helped manage. It was also the people she helped build inside the Commission.
She said the technical staff at the Commission is capable, hardworking, and ready to do more with the support they need.
“If you ignore them, you will fail,” she said.

On women’s leadership, Lansanah said the issue is simple: Liberia cannot continue to say women are capable while leaving the political system almost entirely in the hands of men. Her own career, she said, should help answer the question of whether women can handle serious public responsibility.

Her departure comes at a time when Liberia is again debating how much space should be reserved for women in politics. The most recent elections delivered a Legislature where less than 11 percent were women. Electors had few women to vote for because they were nominated for few of the seats.

The House of Representatives has passed an electoral reform bill with one provision that would require political parties to include at least 30 percent women on their candidate lists for legislative elections. It’s modeled on laws in other countries in Africa that have seen significantly higher representation by women. Most countries with fast-growing economies have high representation of women in the legislatures.

But the bill is not yet law. It has been in the Senate since May. It was not passed before the Legislative break as legislators continue to debate elements of the bill.

For many women’s rights advocates, the debate is not only about fairness. It is also about results.

Liberia has already seen women lead at the highest level. Former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became the first woman elected president in Africa. Women also played a major role in pushing for peace during Liberia’s civil war. To date, President Boakai has appointed 8 women to his 20-member cabinet. At a women’s town hall meeting in July 2024, he praised women’s leadership, saying the women he had appointed were “capable and they are performing.” He added, “This is why we need more and more women.”

Experts said Sirleaf’s presidency also gave an example of what women’s leadership could deliver after war. Though critics cite her reluctance to prosecute corrupt officials and failure to implement Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations, her administration secured major debt relief, rebuilt relations with international partners, restored some basic services, and kept the country on a path of peace after years of conflict. In 2011, the international community celebrated her achievements when she shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Yemen’s Tawakkol Karman for their work for women’s rights and women’s role in peacebuilding.

But advocates said appointments are not enough.

Cabinet ministers serve at the will of the president. Lawmakers, on the other hand, are elected by the people. They write laws, approve budgets, and represent communities. That is where women remain badly underrepresented.

In the 73-member House of Representatives, only eight lawmakers are women. In the Senate, women hold only three of the 30 seats. That means men still control most of the decisions by the Legislature.

The numbers from the last election show how hard it is for women to even get on the ballot.

In 2023, only 152 of 1,030 candidates for the House of Representatives were women, according to the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa. Only seven women ran for the Senate out of 100 candidates. Only two political parties met the 30 percent target for women candidates.

That is why Lansanah said she spent years calling for a stronger law.

Liberia’s election law already tells political parties to “endeavor to ensure” that at least 30 percent of their candidates are women. But there is no punishment for parties that fail to do so. Women’s groups said that language has allowed parties to promise support for women while still leaving them off their tickets.

The new bill passed by the House is meant to change that. It said political parties should submit candidate lists with at least 30 percent women. Supporters said it could help increase the number of women in the Legislature and give voters more choices.

But the bill has also caused concern.

Women’s groups said the current version still leaves an escape route for political parties. Under the bill, the Electoral Commission may accept a party’s list if the party shows “good cause” that, despite its “best efforts,” it could not meet the 30 percent requirement.

To many advocates, that sounds too much like the old law. They want the Senate to remove the “good cause” and “best efforts” language and require parties that fall short to correct their lists or face consequences.

“That’s not enforceable,” said Representative Ellen Attoh-Wreh, chair of the Women’s Legislative Caucus of Liberia. “If parties can simply convince the Commission they tried, then the quota becomes optional.”

Lansanah said she plans to rest, finish law school, and find another way to serve Liberia. But she said she is not leaving the fight for women’s leadership.

Her message to the country is the same one she carried out of the Commission: Liberia has already seen what women can do when they are trusted with power.

Now, she said, it is time to make room for more of them.

This story was produced in collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia project. Funding was provided by a private donor and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. The donors had no say in the story’s content.

Summary

• A nationwide consultation found that women across Liberia share the same concerns: affordable healthcare, better roads, support for farming, and access to finance.
• Women said leaders have known about these problems for years, but their priorities remain largely absent from policies and legislative action.
• Organizers said they will now push lawmakers and government agencies to act on recommendations developed from the consultation.

By Joyclyn Wea, gender correspondent with New Narratives

Liberian women said they are tired of explaining their problems. After years of consultations, meetings, and promises, many of the 160 respondents to a new nationwide consultation across Liberia’s 15 counties said the country’s leaders already know what they need: affordable healthcare, better roads, support for farming, and access to finance.

“We have had so many dialogues,” agriculture entrepreneur Nyamah Dunbar told lawmakers, government officials, and development partners gathered in Monrovia last month for the launch of the consultation findings. Echoing her sisters in the survey, she declared: “I am ready for action.”

Attendees at the dialogue organized by women’s rights organization Sisters’ Aid Liberia said the findings revealed a troubling gap between what women said they need and what political leaders focus on.

The “consultation revealed a glaring disconnect between political messaging and the everyday realities of our women,” Amelia Sieh, a program officer with Sisters’ Aid Liberia, told the meeting.

The finding is significant because women make up more than half of Liberia’s electorate and play a major role in the country’s economy. According to the World Bank, women account for about 80 percent of Liberia’s agricultural labor force and produce most of Liberia’s food crops.

Yet participants said their priorities remain insufficiently reflected in party platforms, policy commitments, and legislative actions.

Women said they continue to walk long distances to reach health facilities. Some communities lack essential medicines and trained healthcare workers. Others struggle with poor roads that make it difficult to reach clinics, schools, and markets. For many women, these challenges are connected.

A woman who cannot access healthcare may be unable to work. A farmer who cannot move crops to market loses income. A trader who cannot access financing may never expand her business.

The result, participants said, is a cycle that keeps many women trapped in poverty.

Health advocates warned that the consequences can be deadly.

Naomi Tulay Solanke, executive director of Community Healthcare Initiative, which provides sexual and reproductive health services and health education to women and girls, said many women lack access to basic health information, qualified healthcare providers, and quality services.

Lack of access to emergency care during childbirth was killing three women a day. World Bank data estimates that 628 women die for every 100,000 live births in Liberia, one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

“No woman should die while giving birth,” Solanki told the gathering.

Women farmers described a similar pattern of neglect.

Dunbar said women have long been the backbone of Liberia’s agricultural sector, but continue to face barriers in accessing financing, equipment, and business opportunities. She argued that many institutions still view farmers as poor and dependent rather than as entrepreneurs capable of growing successful businesses.

Cross-border traders reported difficulties obtaining loans and dealing with high interest rates, saying these barriers limit the growth of women-owned businesses.

Government officials attending the dialogue acknowledged many of the concerns.

Agriculture Minister Alexander Nuetah said the government is working to improve feeder roads and expand support to farmers. Other officials highlighted efforts aimed at improving services for women.

But for many of the women at the event, the question was not whether leaders understand the problems.

It was whether they would finally act on them. That is what organizers said they hope to achieve next.

Amelia Sieh said Sisters’ Aid Liberia plans to engage legislative committees responsible for health, agriculture, public works, gender, and trade to push for action on recommendations developed during the dialogue.

Advocates said that for women like Dunbar, success will not be measured by another consultation or conference.

It will be measured by whether the priorities women have raised across Liberia’s 15 counties finally begin to appear in the policies, budgets, and laws that shape their lives.

This story was produced in collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia project. Funding was provided by a private donor and the Swedish International Development Agency Development Cooperation Agency. The donors had no say in the story’s content.

Summary:

• Five years after Liberian organizations united to push for sexual and reproductive health rights, advocates say they have changed public debate, trained thousands of young people and won support from some religious leaders.
• But the coalition’s biggest goal remains unfinished. The Public Health Bill, including controversial abortion provisions, has been stalled in the Senate since 2022.
• With donor funding ending, advocates say sustaining the movement now depends on Liberian institutions carrying the work forward.

By Joyclyn Wea, gender correspondent with New Narratives

Five years ago, organizations working on sexual and reproductive health across Liberia reached the same conclusion: acting alone was not enough. With funding from the Swedish government, they formed the Amplifying Rights Network, a coalition that has since trained community leaders, mobilized thousands of citizens, and helped move women’s reproductive health into national debate.

Partners in the coalition are celebrating those gains this week as the project comes to a close. But as cuts to reproductive health and education funding by major donors cast a cloud over the celebrations, activists admit some of the project’s biggest goals remain out of reach. The coalition has yet to secure long-term local ownership of the movement or win passage of the reforms it has spent years advocating for. Its defining goal, passage of the Public Health Bill that would expand access to legal abortion under limited circumstances, remains stalled in the Senate, leaving many women facing the same risks the coalition was created to address.

“When you serve the Liberian people in the government, let your community also feel the impact of the work you do,” said Kutaka Devine Togbah, director of the Human Rights Protection Division at the Ministry of Justice.

The project started as Liberia continued to face some of the region’s most difficult reproductive health and rights challenges. Out of every 100,000 births, 628 mothers die, or 2 to 3 every day – one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world. Nearly one-third of women who want contraception still cannot get it, while adolescent pregnancy remains among the highest in West Africa.

A Ministry of Health and Clinton Health Access Initiative study found that more than 14,500 women sought treatment for abortion-related complications in 2021 alone, and roughly one in ten died or nearly died. These realities helped convince civil society organizations that coordinated advocacy was urgently needed.

Five years later, advocates argue the coalition has changed more than public awareness.Dwede Tarpeh, national program officer for democracy and human rights at the Embassy of Sweden, said the coalition’s impact should be measured by the people it empowered, not the projects it completed.

“There are thousands, literally thousands of young people who have more knowledge and agency than they did three years ago, and that is because of you,” Tarpeh said. 

H. is one example of the impact. She was 17 when she became pregnant. She had no idea how pregnancy happened. In her community, discussions about sex were considered taboo.

Too afraid to tell her mother, she confided in a friend instead. Together, they visited an older woman in their community, who told them to grind a glass bottle into powder and drink it to end the pregnancy.

“I nearly died,” she recalled in a recent interview. (New Narratives is withholding her name because of stigma.) Drinking ground glass is one of several extremely dangerous methods of abortion that are widely practiced in the country, and a contributor to thousands of women seeking emergency medical treatment as a result. “For more than one week, I suffered terrible pain.”

H. survived after being taken to a hospital. Today she studies social work at Bong University and is looking forward to pursuing a career and having children when she is ready.

Ida Nowai Kaiser, executive director of the Rural Women’s Rights and Care Foundation, said that teaching rural girls about sexuality education and access, the biggest change over the past five years has been learning that difficult conversations become easier when organizations stand together.

She said she remembers planning a “Safe Abortion Day” awareness program in Bong County, rural Liberia, when local health officials allegedly urged her organization to cancel the event.

“If it were only our organization, we would have stopped,” Kaiser said.

Instead, nine other coalition members stood beside them and pushed through with the event, demonstrating what Kaiser terms as power in coming together.

The Network organized Liberia’s first national conference focused entirely on sexual and reproductive health rights, bringing together about 1,700 participants across two conferences. It engaged more than 100 religious and traditional leaders, mobilized roughly 3,700 people nationwide to advocate for the Public Health Bill, introduced Braille materials and sign-language interpretation at its 2025 conference, and helped develop guidance for journalists covering reproductive health issues.

Those efforts, supporters said, helped shift conversations that were once considered politically untouchable.

The Network’s supporters said its biggest achievement was helping ordinary Liberians, especially young people, gain the confidence and knowledge to make informed decisions about their health and rights.

Yet the coalition’s defining campaign goal remains unresolved.

The coalition has spent years supporting the passage of the revised Public Health Bill, legislation that would modernize Liberia’s public health law and expand access to reproductive health services. One provision extending legal abortion has become the bill’s biggest obstacle.

The House of Representatives approved the legislation in 2022, but it has failed to win passage in the Senate ever since.

Last month saw the biggest sign that the coalition may have contributed to a national change on reproductive health when the Inter-Religious Council publicly urged lawmakers to pass the Public Health Bill, marking a significant change after years of organized religious opposition.

Dabah M. Varpilah, chairperson of the Liberian Senate Committee on Health, did not respond to a request for comment on whether she now has a two-thirds majority needed to pass the bill. But some advocates said it may well be enough legislators to back the bill. Advocates said that the move reflects changing attitudes.

The coalition now faces another challenge.

With the Swedish government withdrawing its embassy from Liberia, members are now looking to government institutions, the United Nations, and other international donors to sustain the work.

Togbah said the need remains urgent.

The day before Rights Networks’ anniversary celebration, he said, he saw two pregnant teenage girls in his own neighborhood.

“Were these pregnancies by choice or by error?” Togbah wondered.

This story was produced in collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia project. Funding was provided by a private donor and the Swedish International Development Agency Development Cooperation Agency. The donors had no say in the story’s content.

Summary:

• In April, Ghana became the third African nation to reject a U.S. Trump administration health deal.
• Across Africa, similar deals are facing scrutiny over complaints about data sovereignty, specimen sharing, co-financing, weak consultation, and who benefits from innovations developed from African data or biological samples.
• Liberia signed a five-year, US$124 million health MOU in 2025. At a recent civil society panel, Liberian advocates said the urgent questions are who controls citizens’ health information, how long it can be shared, and whether Liberia has the laws to protect it.

By Joyclyn Wea, gender correspondent with New Narratives

Ghana has become the third African country to reject a proposed U.S. health agreement, with government officials saying the deal would have given U.S. entities broad access to sensitive national health data, including metadata and analytical tools, without sufficient safeguards or prior approval.

The deal included provisions that would have allowed U.S. entities access to Ghana’s sensitive health data without necessary safeguards, Arnold Kavaarpuo, executive director of Ghana’s Data Protection Commission, told the Associated Press. The government said the move was also designed to build the Ghanaian government’s ownership of the health sector and reduce reliance on donors.

Ghana’s move followed Zimbabwe and Zambia, which have also rejected the deal. Zimbabwe objected to U.S. requests for long-term access to sensitive health data, virus samples, and epidemiological information. In Zambia, the proposed compact has faced delays and public pushback over data, specimen sharing, and reports that health assistance was linked to cooperation in the copper and cobalt sectors. In Kenya, the High Court suspended the agreement after a consumer rights lobby cited health-data safety concerns, and the deal has since drawn public protests over a planned US Ebola facility.

Under the Trump administration’s America First Global Health Strategy, the US has struck such health deals with more than 30 countries, most of them in Africa. The new model, which began in late 2025, replaces the agreements previously run through the now-dismantled US Agency for International Development (USAID). The deals offer billions of dollars to some of the African countries hit hardest by Washington’s aid cuts, supposedly to shore up public health systems and fight disease outbreaks.

In December, Liberia signed a five-year health cooperation Memorandum of Understanding with the Trump administration, promising up to US$125 million in U.S. assistance, while Liberia is expected to increase domestic health spending by nearly US$51 million.

The deal will replace the old USAID-managed programs with direct government-to-government compacts. The MOU covers HIV/AIDS, malaria, maternal and child health, and global health security.

The U.S. government says the model promotes national ownership and reduces aid dependency by asking partner countries to finance more of their health systems.

But critics say it moves risk onto poorer countries faster than budgets can absorb. Experts say Liberia will face a 63 percent reduction in annual U.S. health support compared with 2024 levels. Two former USAID officials with experience in West Africa, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by the Trump administration, told FrontPage Africa/New Narratives that government-to-government funding in West Africa has never worked.

The previous U.S. government-to-government health program in Liberia — which ran from around 2011 and covered eight counties — operated under a reimbursement model. The Liberian government could only receive funds after proving it had met specific health targets, verified by an independent third party at a cost of roughly one to two million dollars per year.

A 2024 State Department review found that Liberia failed to meet eligibility criteria related to addressing corruption, which placed the entire program under review before USAID was shut down.

The new Health Compact does not include a comparable verification mechanism. One former USAID official said she has been unable to get a clear answer on how funds will be tracked. “I don’t think they care about the oversight,” she said. “I think they’re just going to give them the money and ask for some good results they can share.”The full MOU and annexes, including any provisions on data access, sharing of biological material, or implementation benchmarks, have not been released. That makes it difficult for civil society and affected communities to assess what Liberia agreed to and what safeguards exist.

But from what has been leaked, advocates in Liberia have flagged a range of issues.

The first is data. At a recent civil society panel, Owens Lavall, CEO of Easy Tech Solutions, a Liberian technological company, said health information is “very, very sensitive” because it can reveal HIV status, pregnancy, contraception, reproductive health, outbreaks, and other conditions that can expose people to stigma or discrimination if misused. “We do not just want anybody to have access to our data.”

He also questioned why any data-sharing arrangement linked to a five-year compact should last much longer than the agreement itself. “Why will a five-year agreement say we will share our data for over 20 years – up to 25 years? Is this in the interest of Liberia?”

Africa Center for Disease Control officials have warned that African countries must retain ownership and control over data that could help produce vaccines, diagnostics, or treatments, and that they should have priority for any treatments developed with the materials.

“Data is money,” said Dwede Tarpeh, gender and human rights program coordinator at the Swedish Embassy in Liberia. She warned that African populations could help develop products that Liberians may later be unable to afford.

The second concern is funding. The America First model requires countries to increase domestic health financing while U.S. support declines. Liberia has no financing obligation in the first year but could shoulder about 90 percent by year five. The concern is that the pace of transition is too fast. Panelists asked whether costs would shift to patients, depending on public clinics.

The Ministry has not explained how Liberia plans to meet those rising co-financing obligations, or whether maternal health, HIV, malaria, and community health programs could face gaps during the transition.

The third concern is process. “Civil society was not consulted,” said Joyce Laykah Kilikpo, of the nonprofit Public Health Initiative of Liberia.

The Ministry of Health has issued a Request for Expressions of Interest from organizations seeking to implement parts of the compact, but advocates say it does not answer who will deliver which services, under what conditions, at what cost, and with what safeguards.

They said that without the full agreement and annexes, the public cannot know whether the compact protects personal data, limits access to biological samples, guarantees benefit sharing, or allows renegotiation if implementation creates problems. The Ministry has not publicly explained whether Liberia’s agreement contains data-sharing provisions like those Ghana rejected, whether the U.S. requested access to pathogen samples or disease surveillance systems, or whether implementation disagreements have emerged.

It has also not explained how Liberia plans to meet rising co-financing obligations if U.S. assistance declines, or whether maternal health, HIV, malaria, and community health programs could face gaps during the transition.

The Liberian organizations that spoke with New Narratives stopped short of calling for cancellation. But they said Ghana’s decision should force Liberia to slow down, publish the details, and answer basic questions before implementation becomes irreversible. Dolo said Liberia should not proceed without safeguards: public release of the full MOU and annexes; legislative and legal review; passage of a Personal Data Protection Act; clear limits on data access; and sovereignty clauses keeping Liberian health data under Liberian law.

“Liberia should learn from Ghana, Kenya, and other countries that have pushed back on similar agreements,” said Lela Dolo, head of Help a Mother and Newborn Initiative, a Liberian nonprofit.

New Narratives sent written questions to the Ministry of Health in May about implementation disagreements, health data safeguards, and whether Ghana’s rejection should prompt a review. The Ministry did not respond by publication time.

Kilikpo said it was “not too late” to bring civil society into implementation, though the window was narrowing.

This story was produced in collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia project. Funding was provided by a private donor and the Swedish International Development Agency Development Cooperation Agency. The donors had no say in the story’s content.

Summary:

• Liberia’s Inter-Religious Council, the umbrella body representing the country’s major Christian and Muslim institutions, is urging lawmakers to pass a stalled health bill that would expand access to abortion in certain cases, breaking with years of opposition to the measure by religious leaders.
• Supporters say the bill is needed to reduce deaths and injuries from unsafe abortions and make it easier for doctors to save women facing life-threatening pregnancy complications.
• The Catholic Bishops’ Conference, the official body representing Catholic bishops nationwide, has rejected the Council’s position, setting up a renewed battle in the Senate over one of Liberia’s most controversial health laws.

By Joyclyn Wea, gender correspondent with New Narratives

In a major boost to efforts to pass a health bill that would expand access to abortion in Liberia, the Inter-Religious Council, the umbrella body representing the country’s major Christian and Muslim institutions, has called on lawmakers to pass the legislation, breaking with years of religious opposition that has helped stall the bill in the Senate.

“The health, safety, and dignity of individuals within families constitute a core component of family strengthening,” the Council said in a statement released last week.

The Council’s intervention is significant because religious opposition has been one of the strongest barriers to passage of the Public Health Bill, a sweeping reform measure intended to modernize Liberia’s decades-old public health system. While the bill contains provisions on disease surveillance, emergency preparedness, vaccinations, environmental health, and occupational safety, public debate has focused on provisions that would expand access to abortion under defined circumstances.

Supporters of the bill were surprised and grateful for the Council’s change of heart.

“That’s what I wanted,” said Joseph Somwarbi, a pharmacist and former legislator who said he lost his seat because he supported the bill. “And if people have understood that and find it necessary that our women and girl children should live, then there’s no better time than now.”  

They said Council support could be what is needed to get it passed.

“Every time we delay this bill, women remain at risk, especially women in rural Liberia,” said Amelia Siaffa, acting executive director of Sister Aid Liberia, a women’s rights organization that advocates for sexual and reproductive health and gender equality.

The bill has been stalled in the Senate since 2022 without enough votes to pass it, despite repeated efforts by health advocates who argued it would reduce the country’s exceptionally high maternal and infant deaths and injuries linked to life-threatening pregnancy complications and unsafe abortions.

But the Council’s position immediately drew opposition from one of Liberia’s most influential religious groups.

In a statement, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Liberia, the official body representing Catholic bishops nationwide, said it was “not in agreement” with the Council’s endorsement of the bill and reaffirmed its opposition to abortion provisions contained in the legislation.

Citing what they said were Biblical teachings and Catholic doctrine that human life begins at conception, the Conference said they “unequivocally reject the concept of justified abortion” contained in the proposed law.

The Bishop’s statement was signed by Archbishop Gabriel Blamo Jubwe of Monrovia, Bishop Anthony Borwah of Gbarnga, and Bishop Andrew Jagaye Karnley of Cape Palmas.

The dispute emerged after the Inter-Religious Council publicly distanced itself from the “Strengthening Families Conference,” an annual regional gathering led by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a 19th-century American church whose beliefs diverge from mainstream Christian denominations on key doctrines and opposes elected abortion. The Church, whose followers are widely known as “Mormons”, has been growing rapidly in Liberia in recent years thanks to aggressive recruitment activities.

The Council said it had not been consulted about the conference and criticized what it described as approaches that fail to adequately address challenges affecting Liberian families, including maternal mortality, teenage pregnancy, gender-based violence, poverty, and limited access to healthcare and education.

Conference organizers, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, did not respond to emails and follow-ups until the deadline.Supporters of the Public Health Bill said the Council’s intervention represents a potentially important political breakthrough. Religious opposition played a major role in slowing the bill’s progress before the 2023 elections, when some lawmakers worried that support for the legislation could hurt their reelection prospects.

Under Liberia’s current law, abortion is permitted only in limited circumstances, including rape, incest, serious fetal abnormalities, or when a pregnancy threatens a woman’s health. Even then, obtaining approval can be difficult because the law requires authorization from two doctors – a significant obstacle in many rural areas where doctors are scarce. Advocates say many of Liberia’s poor young women do not know they are even pregnant until far into the pregnancy, and they would not have the money or knowledge needed to approach doctors for an abortion.

The proposed legislation would allow abortion up to 14 weeks of pregnancy if performed by a doctor.

Supporters argue that the amendment is not intended to create abortion on demand but to reduce deaths and injuries caused by unsafe abortions and allow doctors to respond more quickly when pregnancies that have gone wrong threaten a woman’s life.

Liberia faces a serious maternal health crisis. World Bank data shows 628 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, one of the highest rates in the world. A 2021 study by Liberia’s Ministry of Health and the Clinton Health Access Initiative found that more than 14,500 women sought treatment for abortion-related complications in a single year. One in 10 suffer die of severe injuries.

For D., a young Liberian woman who still lives with chronic pain after seeking help from an untrained provider as a teenager, those statistics are deeply personal.

She was 15, pregnant, and terrified her parents would find out.

“The man put me on a long bed,” she recalled in an interview earlier this year. (FrontPage Africa/New Narratives is using only her initial to protect her from stigma.) “Then he had plenty of iron in a pan. Then he used that. He put it inside me.”

Doctors later told her the procedure had damaged her body. Today, she fears she may never have children.

Advocates say stories like hers explain why reform has become such an urgent issue.Somwarbi also argued that the current law places women facing life-threatening pregnancies at unnecessary risk.

Somwarbi said the amendment would allow doctors to act more quickly in emergencies, rather than forcing patients to navigate approval processes that can delay care. He argued that requirements for multiple doctor approvals are often impossible to meet in rural Liberia and contribute to unsafe abortions.

He said this issue is so important that he was willing to lose his seat to defend the bill.

“People were afraid simply because they felt that it was going to hinder their election, for which I am a victim,” said Somwarbi. “For me, I felt that the life of another person is more important than elections.”

This story was produced in collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia project. Funding was provided by a private donor and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. The donors had no say in the story’s content.