Center for Policy Research - CPR

Op-Ed: Liberia at the Turning Point, Why the Arrest Agenda Offers Us a Real Shot at a Better Future

By Valiaku Kargbo, Executive Director, Center for Policy Research (CPR)

Liberia is at a critical turning point.

For too long, we have known what it means to survive instead of thriving, to struggle instead of soaring. Yet something is stirring in the soul of this country. You can hear it in the voices of our farmers calling for tools and fair markets. You can see it in our young people learning to code in cramped internet cafés. You can feel it in our mothers, who are tired of waiting in overcrowded clinics. What they are all asking for in one way or another is this:
A fair chance. A new direction. Real development that includes them.

This is precisely what the Arrest Agenda for Inclusive Development (AAID) seeks to deliver. Spearheaded by President Joseph Nyumah Boakai’s administration, the AAID is not just another government slogan. It is a clear roadmap to confront and correct the structural failures that have arrested our national progress for decades and to finally place people at the center of our national priorities.
As a policy analyst, I have seen countries lift themselves from instability to prosperity. Liberia can do the same but only if we are serious, strategic, and bold. The AAID offers us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do just that, especially in three sectors that touch every Liberian life: agriculture, the digital economy, and healthcare.

1. Agriculture: Our Nation’s Green Gold
Let us start with the obvious: Liberia cannot develop by importing what it can grow.
Liberia is blessed with fertile soil, abundant rainfall, and hardworking farmers. Yet we continue to spend over $200 million a year importing rice, our staple food. Our rural farmers, who form the backbone of this nation, remain trapped in subsistence farming with little access to tools, markets, or credit.
AAID recognizes agriculture not as charity work but as smart economics. It calls for:
• Massive investment in rural roads, storage facilities, and irrigation.
• Access to low-interest financing and farming cooperatives to scale up production.
• Modernized extension services to bring technology and climate-smart practices to the bush.
• Revitalization of cash crop industries, cocoa, coffee, and oil palm to create jobs and exports.

Imagine a Liberia that not only feeds itself but also becomes a net exporter to the region. A Liberia where farming is cool, modern, and profitable for youth. This is not a fantasy. It is possible, and under AAID, it is actionable.

2. The Digital Economy: Liberia’s New Highway to Growth
The world is changing, and Liberia must not be left behind.
From Kenya’s mobile banking revolution to Rwanda’s e-governance success, African nations are using digital innovation to leapfrog decades of underdevelopment. Why not us?
Today, 70% of Liberia’s population is under the age of thirty-five. Most have phones. Many are hungry to learn. But we lack the digital infrastructure, skills training, and policy frameworks to harness this demographic dividend. AAID sees the digital economy as the next big wave, and it is putting the right pieces in place:
• Laying fiber-optic infrastructure and expanding rural internet access.
• Launching digital skills programs in public universities and TVET institutions.
• Supporting tech startups with innovation grants, mentorship, and access to markets.
• Digitizing government services to reduce corruption and improve transparency.
• Expanding mobile money systems so that a market woman in Zwedru can pay school fees or receive a loan from her phone.

This is how we make development real for ordinary people. When the digital economy thrives, it creates new jobs, democratizes opportunity, and gives voice to the voiceless.

3. Healthcare: The Foundation of Human Dignity
We often say, “Health is wealth.” But too many Liberians still suffer from the lack of basic healthcare, long distances to clinics, stockouts of medicine, overworked nurses, and no medical records to track patient history.
AAID is putting healthcare back at the center of the national agenda:
• Revamping health infrastructure by renovating clinics, equipping hospitals, and building new facilities in hard-to-reach areas.
• Introducing a national digital health system to store patient records and ensure that health workers across the country can access the same information, saving lives in the process.
• Expanding training programs for nurses, midwives, and doctors while improving incentives to keep them in-country and in underserved areas.
• Prioritizing preventive care from family planning to maternal health to clean water and sanitation so we stop disease before it starts.
This is more than a policy. It is about restoring trust in our healthcare system so that no Liberian must die from treatable conditions, or travel across borders to give birth in safety.

Why the AAID Matters Now
Some may say: “We’ve heard this before.” They are not wrong. Liberia has had its fair share of plans, blueprints, and visions. But what makes AAID different is not just its timing; it is its focus on inclusion, ex*****on, and accountability.

This is not development for the elite or foreign investors alone. It is for the smallholder farmer in Nimba, the health worker in Grand Kru, the coder in Paynesville, and the schoolchild in Bomi. It is for the 2.5 million Liberians living in poverty and the millions more who dream of something better.

But this vision will not realize itself. It requires:
• Steady political will and honest leadership.
• Public-private partnerships to leverage resources and innovation.
• Community ownership with Liberians holding the government to its promises, and contributing ideas, labor, and trust.

A Final Word: The Future Is Still Ours

Liberia is not cursed. We are not doomed. We are simply a nation still finding its footing, but now we have a chance to plant it firmly.
The Arrest Agenda is not perfect, but it is promising. And more than that, it is possible if we believe, if we act, and if we demand that our leaders deliver not words, but results.

Let us not waste this moment. Let us arrest backwardness, arrest division, and arrest dependency and walk boldly into the kind of future our children deserve.

About the Author:

Valiaku Kargbo is an Entrepreneur, Policy Analyst, and Registered Lobbyist. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Policy Research (CPR), a think tank with a visionary step towards shaping a more evidence-based, inclusive, and forward-looking policy environment.

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