Liberia’s Labour Minister, Cllr. Cooper W. Kruah, Sr., is challenging international NGOs, development partners, and related donor communities to navigate the rapidly changing landscape of Western aid cuts to address global inequities facing Liberia’s development programs. According to a release dated Monday, January 26, 2026, Minister Kruah emphasized the extra-protective role of INGOS in assisting the Liberian Government, which is among several nations worldwide hit recently by the narrow reductions, particularly as traditional funding sources face abrupt cuts, as well as total cessation in international development aid.” Minister Kruah cautioned INGOS and other development partners that: “As the aid architecture shifts toward fragmented, more politicized, and often less concessional financing, adapting to this new reality is essential for organizations to remain relevant and for more recipient countries to achieve long-term resilience.
Minister Kruah, making these remarks through his Chief of Office Staff, Mr. Stanley Barh at “The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Liberia International Non-governmental Organizations (LINGO) Forum” in Monrovia recently, stated that with major donors, including USAID, cancelling thousands of grants and cutting aid budgets, organizations must shift from reliance on traditional aid to diversified funding.
Minister Kruah stressed that this can have an even more positive impact on the labour and economic stimulus for the country, when the shifting landscape is transitioned to localized intermediary actors. He underscored the need for such aid landscape transition to adapt what he called “a portfolio approach,” combining low-risk and experimental initiatives to achieve more flexible results.
Underlining the impact of the aid cuts on the already high unemployment rate, the Labour Minister’s statement urged the INGOS and Liberia’s development partners that to survive in a ‘post-peak aid world’, the focus must shift toward emergent value aimed at using limited resources on projects to create significant, lasting impact by focusing on key leverage points and measurable, evidence-based outcomes.
He expressed optimism that, though Western aid is decreasing, emerging non-governmental donors are filling the gap with different priorities, focusing on infrastructure over social sectors. Minister Kruah maintained that understanding these new, more transactional, and political motivations is necessary for navigating new partnerships, such as those associated with China’s Belt and Road initiative or the South-South Cooperation, BRICKS and any other willingly available sources. He then commended the INGOS for their support to the Government of President Joseph Nyumah under ‘The ARREST AGENDA,’ and pledged continuous protection and support to their programs.
