The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Liberia, and two government agencies including Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) and the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS) have embarked on a two-day Joint Price Monitoring & Technical Training in Gbarnga, Bong County for 30 price monitoring technicians from the 15 subdivisions of the country.
The Price Monitoring Technical Training workshop is aimed at capturing and facilitating experience-sharing and equipping MoA and LISGIS field-level staff to engage in collection, analysis and reporting of market data. This is to better communicate, improve the contents of the monthly market monitoring bulletins, and strengthen partnerships and networks, according to a dispatch.
Speaking in Gbarnga yesterday, Thursday, at the start of the training session, Ministry of Agriculture’s Acting Director of Food Security and Nutrition, Tarnue Koiwou said: We are being supported by our partners WFP and FAO. This is not their exercise. This is our responsibility and so we must take ownership of this going forward.
WFP and other partners, Koiwou said, have been helping us to establish the MoA market information system and noted that the Ministry must sustain it and make price monitoring work well for this country.
The price monitoring bulletin is relevant to universities, development partners, regional partners, people and organizations in America and elsewhere but most importantly for us in Liberia, Koiwou said further.
Also speaking, the WFP-Liberia’s Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping Officer, Emmanuel Anderson, lauded the Government of Liberia for its enduring partnership with the World Food Programme on price monitoring activities.
He said WFP’s work in the country is carefully aligned with priorities of the Government of Liberia’s Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD) as WFP has a global mandate to support some of the most vulnerable members of society, with different social protection interventions.
Twenty-three (23) markets are currently being monitored with approximately 20 food commodities and other non-food items involving 27 data collection personnel and enumerators from LISGIS’ field offices in all 15 counties.
This includes markets as far away as Foya in Lofa County; Saclepea in Nimba County; Barclayville in Grand Kru County and as close as markets in Monrovia among others.
Liberia is increasingly vulnerable to high food price shocks as has been witnessed since 2008. The government has been concerned about the rise in food prices and as such, it has been undertaking regular joint Government-WFP market monitoring exercise for which an MOU was signed between the Government of Liberia (MoA, LISGIS) and WFP.
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