REFLECTION ON THE WORLD BANK LIBERIA ECONOMIC UPDATE 2026: Beyond Growth—Addressing Structural Constraints to Job-Rich Growth in Liberia

Liberia is growing, but too many Liberians are still not feeling that growth in their daily lives. The World Bank’s Liberia Economic Update 2026, under the theme “Beyond Growth: Addressing Structural Constraints to Job-Rich Growth,” tells a truth that is difficult to ignore: a country can post impressive economic numbers while ordinary people struggle with empty pockets, insecure work, and rising hardship. For Liberia, this is not a theoretical debate. It is the reality behind the headlines—seen in households where prices keep climbing, work remains scarce, and hope is often traded for survival.

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By S Zohnjaty Joe Contributing author

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According to the World Bank, the economy expanded by 5.1% in 2025, driven mainly by mining, including a 17% rise in that sector. Liberia exported about $1.3 billion in gold, $528 million in iron ore, and $115 million in rubber. On paper, it sounds like progress. But the same report shows the unsettling story behind the numbers: while the economy grows, too many people are left behind. Seventy-eight percent of Liberians are stuck in informal, unpaid, or self-employed work—jobs that rarely provide stability, protection, or decent income. Even more worrying, extreme poverty rose from 34.6% in 2024 to 36.1% in 2025, and government capital investment fell from 8.5% of GDP to 5.7%. This pattern—growth without inclusion—is what economists call jobless growth or enclave growth. In plain language, the mine may be producing and the exports may be rising, but the communities around those mines remain trapped in poverty. Gold may leave Buchanan, yet the road to Buchanan remains broken. That is what “growth without development” looks like in Liberia: statistics moving forward while people remain stuck.

A key issue behind this failure to translate mining wealth into national benefit is how much value Liberia actually keeps from its natural resources. The World Bank estimates that Liberia captures only 15–20% of the fiscal value from mining, far below 50–60% captured in countries such as Botswana, Ghana, and Zambia. This means that for every $100 worth of minerals shipped out of Liberia, the government retains only $15 to $20, while the rest escapes through arrangements that do not properly serve the country. The report also points to significant revenue being lost through incentives—citing roughly $240 million in tax expenditures in 2024 alone, including tax holidays, exemptions, and concessions that behave like sweetheart deals rather than national contracts. Liberia is not poor in resources. The problem is that the deals are not consistently designed to protect Liberia’s future.

There is also a troubling fiscal contradiction at the center of the challenge. The World Bank highlights that capital expenditure dropped from 8.5% to 5.7% of GDP. That decline matters because capital spending is the fuel for the kind of development that creates jobs: roads that connect markets, energy that powers businesses, schools that prepare workers, and public systems that help private enterprise thrive. When capital spending is reduced while other spending remains, a country ends up trying to manage today’s problems rather than building tomorrow’s opportunities. The report notes relative macroeconomic stability—such as inflation moving from 3.1% in February to 5.8% in April, then hovering around 5% by June, along with monetary policy adjustments where the policy rate reached 16% in July amid exchange rate pressures. But stability without investment can become a slow trap. It can keep the economy calm while keeping poverty loud.

The World Bank’s outlook is honest, but it is also a warning. It projects average growth of around 5.3% from 2026 to 2028, assuming no major changes. In reality, that is the ceiling of Liberia’s current growth model. If Liberia wants to truly grow—meaning grow in a way that delivers jobs, income, and resilience—then structural change has to begin now. The report’s recommendations are correct: protect macro stability, but do not do it by starving productive investment; diversify and improve implementation, including enforcing value addition rather than selling raw exports as if that were the end of the story; reform State-Owned Enterprises because fiscal leakage through SOEs can quietly drain public resources; and expand productive opportunities through human capital. With 78% of employment tied to informal work, Liberia cannot afford to delay skills and training. TVET, digital skills, and agribusiness development must be treated as job engines, not as side projects.

This report also has direct relevance for Liberia’s development agenda—especially for initiatives like the water transport project and broader efforts toward inclusive jobs. The message is clear: Liberia cannot rely on mining forever to feed employment. Water transport, particularly when structured through a PPP approach, can create formal work that mining alone cannot provide. It can support captains and crew, ticketing and operations staff, mechanics and maintenance workers, and logistics-linked roles that keep value moving through the economy. It can also reduce costs for farmers and traders by improving access and reliability, while supporting climate-resilient connectivity. But the water transport model will only succeed if Liberia refuses to repeat the mining mistake—allowing most of the value to slip away to private operators while government captures little. Any PPP structure, including models such as 70% operator and 30% maintenance fund, must be protected by transparent revenue tracking, clear reporting, and enforceable accountability. Without that discipline, even well-intended projects can turn into enclaves—systems that look profitable on paper but leave communities no better off.

Ultimately, the second World Bank document—Public Finance Review 2026: From Stabilization to Fiscal Transformation—names the moment accurately. Liberia has stabilized. Now the country must transform. Liberians do not need more growth reports as if reading numbers could fill empty plates. Liberia needs growth that returns value to the nation, expands productive sectors, and places jobs at the center of policy. That means renegotiating mining arrangements to close the fiscal leak, investing the country’s resources in capital projects that create employment, and turning informal survival work into formal, dignified employment.

The bottom line is simple and sharp: the economy may be growing, but children are still hungry. Unless Liberia fixes the fiscal leak—from low retention toward real value capture—and unless informal work is transformed into secure jobs, poverty will continue to rise even when GDP climbs. Growth without jobs is not growth worth celebrating.