Addressing the delegates at the meeting Friday, Vice President Joseph N. Boakai explained the achievements of the Liberian Government through the Agenda for Transformation.

He said Liberia has adopted its first five-year development plan, the Agenda for Transformation and the National Vision 2030.

The agenda focuses on key pillars, including peace, justice, security, rule of law, economic transformation, human development, governance, public institutions and cross-cutting issues, a dispatch from Antalya, Turkey quotes the Vice President as saying.

He told the conferees that the launch of the Agenda for Transformation afforded Liberia the opportunity to dissect both the Istanbul Program of Action and the Agenda for Transformation.

The analysis, he said, found that eight programs of action of the IPoA were in line with the Agenda for Transformation of Liberia.

He informed the delegates that the Liberia Development Alliance, an institutional framework already in place responsible for coordination, monitoring and reporting the implementation of the AfT, was given the added mandate of IPOA coordination, monitoring and reporting.

According to the Vice President, the first report of the Istanbul Program of Action was submitted in 2012 and that early this year the Midterm report was submitted to the Office of the High Representative and Under Secretary General of the United Nations.

According to the dispatch, the Vice President cited the outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease and the decline in the prices of the export commodities of rubber and iron ore as major challenges the country is currently faced with.

He said to alleviate the decline in the country’s economic situation, the nation has focused on the building of productive capacities through the promotion of light manufacturing and the small and medium sized enterprises particularly in the agriculture sector.

Vice President Boakai also pointed out that the energy and power sectors are of great national priority as Liberia continues to count among countries with the highest tariff per kilowatt hour of electricity in the world.

He also cited the construction of the Mount Coffee Hydroelectric plant, the three heavy fuel oil plants, West Africa Power Pool covering the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea as the different interventions in the sector to generate more electricity for the population.

Vice President Boakai also spoke of the development of major road infrastructure as a priority of the Government in order to increase accessibility, reduce transport cost, road safety and connectivity especially for the people of the Southeast of Liberia, while agriculture continues to be the mainstay of the Liberian economy, the dispatch noted.
LINA PR/TSS/PTK