Monrovia, Tuesday January 29, 2019: The Ministry of Internal Affairs and USAID funded Local Empowerment for Government Inclusion and Transparency (LEGIT) have signed an in-kind grant valued at Forty Seven Thousand United States dollars (47,000.00USD).

The Grant is expected to fund the training and capacity development of at least twenty five (25) staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in monitoring and evaluation. The staff will subsequently serve as training officers and Monitoring & Evaluation technicians to track and monitor the progress of the Liberia Decentralization Support Program through Local Government Act.

According to A release from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, USAID-LEGIT will hire an agency to provide the training, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs will provide the requisite personnel and office space for the trainees.

Speaking during the signing ceremony, Honorable Varney A. Sirleaf, Minister of Internal Affairs thanked the United State Agency for International Development (USAID) and the American People for the kind gesture. He expressed optimism that the training will help strengthen the devolution of power to the local people in the counties as envisioned by President George Manneh Weah and the Pro Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development.

For his part, Mr. Paul J. Kaiser, Chief of Party, for the USAID Local Empowerment for Government Inclusion and Transparency (LEGIT) thanked the Minister for presenting a “Strong Grant Proposal”

He noted that even though there have been lots of Monitoring mechanisms put in place during the course of the implementation of the Decentralization Program, more needed to be done in order to expand communication proactively in moving the president’s agenda forward.
He said that the grant was a confirmation of the special relationship the people of Liberia and the American people have shared over the year.