50x2030 Supports Liberia's 2024 Annual Agricultural Survey with Supervision Mission

The 50x2030 Initiative is providing crucial technical support to Liberia for the successful implementation of the 2024 Annual Agricultural Survey. A recent high-level mission aimed at supervising and ensuring the quality of ongoing data collection efforts.

Agriculture: The Backbone of Liberia’s Economy

Agriculture is a cornerstone of Liberia's economy, providing livelihoods for about 60% of the population and accounting for approximately 60% of the nation’s GDP in 2022. Liberia's agricultural system is largely characterized by shifting cultivation, which has impacted extensive forest areas. Accurate, timely data is vital for shaping effective policies to address poverty reduction and sustainable agricultural development in the country.

Recognizing the importance of reliable agricultural data, Liberia became a beneficiary country of the 50x2030 Initiative to Close the Agricultural Data Gap — a global partnership between the World Bank, FAO and IFAD that seeks to strengthen agricultural data systems in 50 countries by 2030. This initiative promotes evidence-based policy-making and supports national, regional and international development agendas such as Agenda 2063 and the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).

The Mission: Strengthening Data Collection

The primary objective of this high-level mission, conducted from September 7–14, 2024, was to supervise field data collection activities for Liberia’s 2024 Annual Agricultural Survey. 50x2030’s Data Production component, led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), involved traveling to enumeration areas across multiple counties, including River Gee, Sinoe and Grand Gedeh, to observe data collection processes, identify challenges and provide real-time technical support to field teams. The data collection phase began on August 28, 2024, and follows the Income, Labor and Productivity (ILP) module of the 50x2030 questionnaire.

50x2030 also held discussions with key stakeholders, including Liberia’s Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS) and the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), to finalize the 2023 Agricultural Census report and assess ongoing data collection efforts. The 2023 census, supported by the Data Production component of the 50x2030 Initiative, was Liberia’s first digital agricultural census in over 50 years and is set to fill critical data gaps for agricultural planning and development.

Building Capacity for Agricultural Data in Liberia

Throughout the mission, 50x2030 emphasized the need to strengthen collaboration between LISGIS and the Ministry of Agriculture, ensuring that Liberia’s agricultural data meets the needs of policymakers and data users. Discussions focused on the importance of the agricultural census and annual surveys, with the aim of providing reliable estimates to inform national and regional policy decisions.

In addition, the Initiative discussed potential future collaborations, including capacity-building initiatives for Liberia’s agricultural statistics teams. This includes addressing challenges in data collection tool design, data processing and developing a comprehensive data quality framework to improve agricultural statistics in Liberia.