World Bank Assesses Liberia’s Readiness to Respond and the Country’s Emergency Preparedness and Response (EP&R) Systems.

(Monrovia, Liberia; September 9, 2025): The World Bank has a delegation currently in the country on a field mission to assess Liberia’s capacity to respond to emergencies and her emergency preparedness and response systems. It can be recalled that the Executive Director of the NDMA, Hon. Atty. Ansu V. S. Dulleh Sr. made an appeal to the World Bank in 2024, requesting technical, logistical and capacity-building support to the NDMA for EP&R, so as to enable the Agency timely address emergencies, which helps reduce losses incurred by disasters and other hazards. The World Bank intimated that Liberia’s capacity to address crises and complex emergencies needed to be assessed to inform future investment and to seal potential gaps within its EP&R systems, which qualified Liberia for an R2R diagnostic assessment.

Meanwhile, the Ready2Respond (R2R) is a rapid diagnostic tool developed by the World Bank with input from international experts, intended to evaluate a country’s emergency preparedness and response system. The diagnostic assesses the system across five key components: Legal and Institutional Framework, Information, Facilities, Equipment, and Personnel. It uses a structured, attribute-based scoring system to collect data, providing quantifiable and verifiable results that inform investment planning. It also provides a stable platform based on quantifiable baselines to promote the emergence of constructive projects with immediate risk-reduction applications.

Furthermore, the R2R diagnostic for Liberia is a collaborative effort between the World Bank and the Government of Liberia. Funded and coordinated by the World Bank, an international consulting firm (MetricsLed) is providing its technical expertise to collect data, in collaboration with the Government of Liberia. MetricsLed reports directly to the World Bank, working jointly with a Liberian research firm – SDI, for county-level data collection and stakeholders’ engagement.

Additionally, the project has a three-phase approach that includes a literature review, a field mission for data collection and validation, and a final report with actionable recommendations. The findings will be reviewed and validated by the World Bank and the Government of Liberia. Stakeholders are expected to be invited to participate in structured interviews and consultations to contribute to the scoring and local ownership. The work will inform the World Bank’s planning of future support to the Government of Liberia by identifying investment options and capacity-building priorities.

Finally, the field mission is focusing on Monrovia and several counties, and data collection runs until end of September. This initiative is part of Hon. Dulleh’s plan and continuous engagement to see the NDMA gets the required resources intended to strengthen Liberia’s Emergency Preparedness and Response systems and build the capacity of the Agency to handle complex emergencies. The pictures below show members of the delegation in a conversation with NDMA’s Director of Information Technology, Ahmad Kamara.