Liberia’s Economic Diversification Bill: It’s Better, but Seems Too Late

Dec 27, 2015 | Samuel Goteh
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In the past centuries, Liberia’s model for economic development has been predominantly natural resource-driven and revenues generation for government’s operations have mainly come from the sales or trading of rubber, iron ore, timber and recently with the discovery of oil. In other words, Liberia’s economy and generation of revenues is dependent on the mercy of foreign aid donors, the White House, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and other donor agencies in the world. As Africa is the second largest recipient of official development assistance (ODA) in the world after the Oceania region in 2013, Liberia also categorically broke record as one of the largest recipient countries of foreign aid in Africa (OECD, 2015). A few months ago, President of Liberia, Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf forwarded an economic diversification bill to the house of parliament which was approved with immediate effect after reviewing such document.