[{"bbox": [96, 153, 1134, 313], "category": "Text", "text": "inadequate ongoing engagement between the various institutions at national level, resulting in poor coordination. As a result, a majority of stakeholders, particularly in the private sector, do not recognise the current LASIP II. Dedicated thematic or sub-sector policies and strategies suffer from similar coordination flaws and are hardly implemented. Further, Government of Liberia institutions with mandates in food systems do have insufficient or irregular knowledge generation to base their policy decisions and subsequent prioritisation and cost-effective planning on."}, {"bbox": [96, 324, 1134, 617], "category": "Text", "text": "Before the civil war, Liberia's government invested considerably in agriculture and fisheries development and was also successful in attracting private resources. Over the past years though, Liberia's national budget allocation to agriculture and fisheries has hovered around 1-1.5% of the total budget, without evidence of disbursements to the sector beyond salaries. Based on the calendar year 2022 draft national budget, agriculture (in a broad sense) is expected to receive 3.1% of the total public resource envelope - including on-budget and off-budget (project loans and grants) allocations²³. Donors and their implementing partners further complete the spectrum of public investment in food systems. Some food sub-sectors, such as oil palm or fisheries, to a lesser degree rice and cocoa, have benefited from private sector (as in profit-making) investment. However, these commercial operations often run in isolation from, or at best, coexist with smallholders' low-input/low-output cultivation, creating a duality that has been identified as a major contributing factor to conflicts in the country²⁴. Tapping into private funding in general has remained largely uncharted territory since Liberia emerged from its decade-long unrest/conflict period."}, {"bbox": [96, 627, 1134, 920], "category": "Text", "text": "The low level of public and private investments translates into absence of (small) machinery to work the land, lack of irrigation or water control, low access to quality farming inputs, advisory and extension services, with high dependency of production systems on climate variability and change, resulting in low production and productivity. Access to land and secure tenure rights are also issues that hamper investment in agriculture. The implementation of the 2018 Land Rights Act remains work in progress. Farmers rely on labour-intensive systems and often practice slash-and-burn shifting cultivation (as opposed to slash-and-mulch), or other methods that disregard the changing climate they are subject to and the ecosystem functions they could benefit from (e.g. carbon sequestration, nutrient recycling, temperature and moisture regulation). The labour-intensive nature of farming systems in Liberia makes affordability of labour and access to inputs even more critical for nationwide food production. Lack of information on land use and land use mapping hampers the ability of the government to develop climate- and ecosystem-sensitive policies and implement climate- and ecosystem-smart agriculture practices."}, {"bbox": [96, 931, 1134, 1118], "category": "Text", "text": "Inadequate and unreliable infrastructure (roads, storage and processing facilities, as well as electricity/power supply and internet connectivity) caused by weathering climatic conditions hampers access to markets and thus the buying and selling of inputs and outputs; these conditions, in addition to poor food safety and handling practices, also result in high post-harvest losses and hamper value-addition activities. As a consequence, income-earning opportunities are undermined and food security is low. At the local level, farmer- and community-based organisations have limited organisational capacities that limit their opportunities to deal with the impact of climate change and improve their living standards."}, {"bbox": [96, 1129, 1134, 1370], "category": "Text", "text": "Value chain development (cash & staple crops, fish) has been hampered by low levels of skills and entrepreneurship, limited access to inputs and advisory and extension services²⁵, restricted finance for investments and business development services across the chain, absence and weak organisation of essential value chain actors (incl. producers) and disrupted connections between value chain processes, poorly informed policy making with under-resourced implementation, restrictive private sector policies, limited infrastructure (roads and energy) as well as porous international borders (with food produce and products crossing borders informally). Liberia is keen to export agriculture and fishery products to the EU market²⁶, yet its infrastructure for and organisation of food quality and safety are not integrated across the value chain (from producer to consumer) and not yet up to the existing and future regulatory requirements of the EU market."}, {"bbox": [96, 1381, 1134, 1462], "category": "Text", "text": "Therefore, the ambitious goals mentioned above require a structural transformation of the economy, in which the development of safe and sustainable food systems can play that strategic, transformational role. Through this Action, the EU addresses gaps that are consistent across Liberia's food systems/value chains. Therefore, the EU"}, {"bbox": [85, 1500, 614, 1525], "category": "Footnote", "text": "²³ World Bank Group, 2021. Unpacking Liberia's 2022 Budget."}, {"bbox": [85, 1524, 1143, 1573], "category": "Footnote", "text": "²⁴ MoA, FAO, IFAD, The World Bank, 2007. Comprehensive Assessment of The Agriculture Sector in Liberia (CAAS-Lib) Volume 1 - Synthesis report."}, {"bbox": [85, 1573, 1143, 1622], "category": "Footnote", "text": "²⁵ Few Liberian farmers report using improved seeds (4.7%) or improved farming practices (3.2%) (unpublished MoA-WFP rapid FS assessment, Oct 2020). Less than 5% of Liberian farmers have access to extension services (HIES, 2016)."}, {"bbox": [85, 1622, 1038, 1647], "category": "Footnote", "text": "²⁶ Liberia could export to the EU under the Everything but Arms (EBA) arrangement for least developed countries."}, {"bbox": [1037, 1681, 1143, 1705], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 7 of 28"}]