The 2024 World Bank Africa Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) report reveals that Liberia’s public sector is poorly managed as the country performed worst in the Public Sector Management and Institution indicator with a discouraging 2.7 score from an average 2.9 required to pass the indicator.
To make matters worse, the country’s accumulated score of 3.0 did not meet the minimum 3.1 requirement to pass the scorecard on the average, indicating that the nation experienced zero change from the previous year.
The 2024 Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) report covers the period January to December 2023. In 2023, the average CPIA score for International Development Association (IDA)-eligible countries in Sub-Saharan Africa remained broadly like its 2022 level, at 3.1. However, more countries saw improvements in their overall scores compared to those that received downgrades, and fewer countries’ scores declined compared to the previous year’s CPIA assessment. According to the report, the narrowing gap between Sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the IDA countries has been undermined by the region’s much slower improvement in the governance cluster on public sector management and institutions; Liberia is found in this category.
The scores for the individual criteria show that the largest differences between Sub-Saharan Africa and the overall IDA averages fall into two general categories: constitutional strength and the rule of law (property rights and rule-based governance and transparency, accountability, and corruption in the public sector) and financial oversight (financial sector, quality of budgetary and financial management, and debt policy and management).
The report highlights key trends and best practices to guide policy makers and international investors on the policy developments in the region, following the World Bank’s annual CPIA of countries eligible for International Development Association (IDA) assistance. This assessment is based on the combined knowledge and monitoring of experts across the World Bank, as local teams in each country submit score recommendations in line with their ongoing engagement with governments in the region and monitoring of the development progress in each country, while global teams and management provide multiple.
The report further shows that Liberia’s highest performing cluster was in economic management, with a total score of 3.3, above the 3.2 average requirement.
Areas captured under this cluster are Monetary and Exchange Rate Policy, with Liberia’s accumulated score of 3.5 from the average 3.4 requirement, Fiscal Policy, with an accumulated score of 3.5 from a 3.1 average requirement, and Debt Policy Management, where Liberia fell short with a 3.0 score from an average of 3.1.
The country also failed to pass in Policies for Social Inclusion and Equity cluster with an accumulated score of 3.1 from an average of 3.3 requirement. Indicators captured under this cluster include Gender Equality, Equity of Public Resource Use, Building Human Resources, Social Protection and Labor, Policies and Institutions for, Environmental Sustainability.
