Faster Internet Aims to Speed Journey to Self-Reliance
Better connectivity and improved governance will make for healthier and better educated Liberians
Walk around Monrovia today and you will see workers busy digging trenches along the sides of major streets to lay fiber optic cables that will bring high speed internet connectivity to many Liberians. This is the result of a public/private partnership involving USAID, Google and the Government of Liberia, known as Connectivity Squared or C-Squared.
Why the partnership? Here are some facts to consider.
Liberia is among the least connected countries in the world, with only 5 percent of its citizens having access to broadband internet. And where access is available, it is prohibitively expensive for the average Liberian, many of whom survive on no more than a dollar a day.
It is clear to us that affordable internet access will provide Liberia a unique opportunity to overcome many of its challenges and to unlock its vast potential, driving the country towards greater self reliance.
Here are few more key facts.
With a per capita GDP of $400, Liberia ranks among the poorest countries in the world. It has only 300 doctors for a population of 4.5 million. Internet access will open up immense possibilities for telemedicine, and allow doctors to spend less time on paperwork — typically about two hours every day — and more time treating patients, leading to healthier and more economically productive Liberians and reducing strains on government services.
The agriculture sector on which Liberians heavily depend for a living still operates at the subsistence levels. Basic infrastructure — roads, electricity and water supply systems — is virtually non-existent in many places, making it difficult to develop a manufacturing sector and leaving the country heavily dependent on commodity exports whose prices have suffered sharp declines. Given Liberia’s difficult road conditions, affordable broadband internet access will make it easier to reach rural farmers with agricultural extension services including information on how to prevent and treat pest infestation, and recommendations for which crops and seed varieties farmers should consider planting and when they should plant.
Liberia’s education system is woefully weak, plagued by an acute shortage of qualified teachers and adequate learning facilities. In such a school system, internet access would allow one trained teacher to literally reach thousands of students. Faculty at the higher education level will have access to critical materials for research and teaching, enabling them to better contribute to national policy dialogue and make the university an incubator for technology and innovation.
Critically, during the Ebola crisis, poor internet access and slow paper-based communications systems made it difficult to know how the epidemic was spreading or how to contain it. As a result, Liberia lost nearly 5,000 lives to the disease, including 8 percent of its doctors, nurses and midwives. High speed internet access will help Liberia respond more timely to future health shocks.
While internet access in most developed countries has become an ingrained feature of modern life, here in Liberia that access has the potential to put the development journey of this country on an incredible trajectory that will benefit all its citizens.
In addition to connectivity, we are also partnering with the government to strengthen its institutions.
After two years of working through our Revenue Generation for Governance and Growth Activity, the Liberia Revenue Authority is changing the face of tax administration, putting in place a more efficient system, with clear and easy rules that should ultimately lead to increased revenue generation. For the first time, Liberia has a system that allows people to use commercial banks, online platforms and mobile phones to pay their taxes. That, in turn, has helped to minimize incidence of corruption by reducing physical contacts between the taxpayers and tax officials who had previously collected taxes in person.
We are also helping Liberians erect sound democratic and governance institutions, particularly by strengthening the systems for conducting inclusive, free and fair elections. Additionally, we have invested in helping Liberia build an independent and competent judiciary and develop a free and professional media sector.
Today, those efforts appear to have borne fruit. Since 2005, Liberia has held three presidential and legislative elections, all deemed to be free and fair. The first elections in 2005 were historic in that they marked the first time a woman was elected to lead an African country. The most recent elections held in 2017 were equally historic as they paved the way for the first peaceful transfer of power from an incumbent administration to an opposition party in almost 150 years.
The advent of a new administration vested with a democratic mandate now provides us fresh opportunities for engaging Liberia on how it can smartly tap its vast natural resources to create sustained growth that truly benefits all Liberians — and we are eagerly taking advantage of those opportunities.
About the Author
Anthony S. Chan is the Mission Director of USAID’s mission in Liberia. Follow him at @USAIDLiberia.
