(Monrovia, Liberia; December 11, 2025): UNDP’s Global Focal Point on Early Warning and DRR expert, Madam Loana Creitaru is currently visiting Liberia to assess the capacity, technical and logistical gaps in the country’s preparedness to respond to, and manage disaster risks. In a one-day technical working session held with technicians from emergency management institutions across government, Madam Creitaru emphasised the importance of Liberia’s capacity need assessment and how is it essential for strengthening Liberia’s disaster risk management (DRM) systems and improving national resilience.
Imtroducing the purpose of her mission, she noted that the UNDP has decided to enhance its support to Liberia’s current disaster response mechanisms; as such, it needs to Identify weaknesses in the country’s disaster preparedness, so as to help provide support that would improve coordination and institutional effectiveness.
The guest also stated that her assessment is geared towards providing support to enhance response and recovery during and after disasters, ensuring efficient use of limited resources, strengthening policy and legal frameworks, supporting community resilience and local-level preparedness, and improving international partnerships and funding opportunities between development partners (One UN, World Bank, ECOWAS, AU, etc), which often require evidence of institutional needs before providing support.
Speaking at the opening of the technical working session, NDMA’s Executive Director Hon. Atty. Ansu V. S. Dulleh Sr. expressed his appreciation for the assessment visit which forms the basis to attract funding, build donor confidence, align Liberia’s DRM priorities with global frameworks and adapt to climate change and hazards – flooding, sea-level rise, coastal erosion, storms, epidemics – that require updated skills, tools, new technologies, training, and trategic planning to address them.
Hon. Dulleh concluded by saying that supporting long-term institutional development and identifying capacity gaps are very key in DRM. They feed into human resource development, organizational restructuring,and disaster management roles to ensure that Liberia grows stronger over time.