Liberia

Client: Ministry of Lands, Mines and Energy (MLME).

NVE Mandate: Assistance to MLME with development of a monitoring and management system for water and electricity resources in Liberia, with associated institutional support.

Contract Value/ Duration: MMNOK 51, covering period mid-2010 – 2015. Direct services provided by NVE are estimated at MNOK 34 (including 2 long-term advisers).

Type of Activities: Institution and capacity building, incl. amongst others legal framework within the water and energy sectors, hydrology, and rural and renewable energy. Gender aspects and women’s empowerment are important parts of the cooperation programme.

Work Completed 2010: Institutional Agreement between NVE and MLME signed in December 2010.

Activities/ Outputs:
A Project Document was finalized in 2010 on the request of MLME, outlining the various activities to be included in a 5-year institutional cooperation between NVE and the Ministry (representing Liberia’s water and energy/ electricity sector stakeholders). Thereafter an Institutional Agreement between MLME and NVE was signed later during 2010. The focus is on assistance to development of monitoring and management of the water and energy resources, with special attention to institutional strengthening. The 2010 activities in Liberia comprised:

• Recruitment of Norconsult to assist the MLME in ensuring that sufficient, low cost and timely generation is made available.
• Recruitment of the South-African consulting company NetGroup to assist the Board of the Liberian Electricity Company (LEC).
• Completion of the Project Document and the Institutional Agreement between NVE and MLME.
• Provision of 2 long term advisors. The process of recruiting a long term advisor for Liberia’s Hydrological Service was accomplished in December 2010; - the advisor will take up position in Monrovia in February 2011. For the Energy advisor, the process was still on-going and will be completed in January 2011.

Results/Outcome
At this early stage of the cooperation, with mostly short term ad hoc activities, few results can be reported. However, the overall recovery and development framework provided by GOL, combined with the NVE assisted analysis of water/ energy sector issues, has enhanced the Liberian authorities’ understanding of measures to be taken.

The quality of and commitment towards outline sector plans have been notably improved since the first contacts in early 2008.