[{"bbox": [72, 146, 1142, 1087], "category": "Table", "text": "<table><tr><td></td><td>environment insufficient to attract investment</td><td></td><td></td><td>and facilitating investors, and implementing key reforms</td></tr><tr><td>2/3/5</td><td>Donor dependency syndrome unconducive for transformative, long-term and large scale impact on Liberia's food systems and economic development</td><td>Medium</td><td>High</td><td>Focus on partners that demonstrate the most capacity and ability/willingness to invest themselves in transforming practices.<br/>Focus on political engagement at Ambassador level through joint TEI meetings, visits, and engagements with high-level government officials.</td></tr><tr><td>1</td><td>Global and regional downside risks on economy and budget due to COVID-19 flare-ups, on-going global supply chain disruptions and the ongoing Ukraine-Russia crisis</td><td>High</td><td>High</td><td>The Action will address some of the key concerns/risks, notably risk of reduced food security, by enhancing smallholders' access to farming inputs (crops and fish) and accompanying services as well as enhancing food safety of locally-processed produce³⁶.</td></tr><tr><td>2/3/4</td><td>Lack of political will, transparency and oversight</td><td>Medium</td><td>High</td><td>Effective policy solutions, including measures to enhance the transparency of procurement processes and prevent conflicts of interest, as well as measures to ensure enforcement and detection will be in place.</td></tr><tr><td>2/3</td><td>Human rights violation committed by private sector, such as practices from different actors that generate the degradation of the environment, of living and working conditions and granting concession to companies -land and territories</td><td>Medium</td><td>High</td><td>The Action will ensure that private sector is carrying out and implementing corporate social responsibility policies, supported by effective monitoring and accountability mechanisms and a 'Do not harm approach'.<br/>The Action will ensure that the private sector actors will implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, carry out human rights due diligence and prevent the use of child labour in their activity.</td></tr></table>"}, {"bbox": [83, 1088, 236, 1111], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## Lessons Learnt"}, {"bbox": [83, 1120, 1132, 1200], "category": "Text", "text": "The EU has ongoing investments in the cassava, rice, horticulture, fish (aquaculture and coastal), cocoa and coffee value chains and supports capacity strengthening (public sector governance support, public-private partnership facilitation, support to research and extension and TVET) of the actors involved."}, {"bbox": [83, 1211, 1132, 1557], "category": "Text", "text": "The projects under the 11th EDF EU-Liberia agriculture programme (EULAP), with an overall objective of reducing poverty, increasing income and resilience against shocks in the rural areas and improving food and nutrition security in Liberia, were designed to target increased productivity, commercialisation and competitiveness of selected value chains. So far, however, EULAP projects have first and foremost delivered on increased productivity, much less on commercialisation and competitiveness aspects. Limited success on commercialisation applies to production, but equally to processing and other downstream value chain activities, encompassing value addition. Projects have also under-performed on market/trade linkages and establishing/strengthening connections between value chain agents, notably smallholder producers to other private operators along the chain. Said private sector operators (e.g. agro-input distributors, processors or buyers/exporters) are often constrained by limited finance/financing options and business development service provision themselves. As a consequence, the different value chain processes and actors are not properly interrelated, resulting in projects with little sustainability of effects generated and low impact overall. Further, most EULAP projects have used a sequential approach, spending considerable energy on creating and training farmer/community groups, often running out of time when working their way down the value chain,"}, {"bbox": [83, 1595, 1142, 1646], "category": "Footnote", "text": "³⁶ In line with short- and medium-term measures recommended in the ECOWAS-FAO-WFP (2022)'s key findings on the risk and impact of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis on food security in the ECOWAS region."}, {"bbox": [1026, 1680, 1142, 1704], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 13 of 28"}]