The government of Liberia has released the scorecard for the 90-Day Action Plan to accelerate the Lift Liberia Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) that came out of the august 14th Cabinet Retreat called for by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and organized by the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs to address the dismal implementation rate for the first year of the three year development agenda.

In a report released at a press conference at the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, the government said the current implementation of the PRS stands at nearly 90 percent completion of first year PRS deliverables. In addition, some unscheduled deliverables are also being completed as a result of the urgency and attention the Government has given the PRS.

The government said the high completion rate is a milestone in the implementation of its development agenda and a result of its commitment to vigorously accelerate implementation through a Rapid Results Approach instituted by the Secretariat of the Liberia Reconstruction and Development Committee (LRDC) at the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs.

Despite the constraints posed by the global economic crisis, which is now affecting Liberia, the government is making strives to laying the foundation for enhancing security, revitalizing the economy, improving governance and the rule of law, providing basic services to the Liberian people and rehabilitating roads and other infrastructure.

The hopes of Liberians are high and expectations are raised as the successful implementation of the PRS promised to improve their living standards after nearly 35 years of economic decline, including 15 years of civil war and destruction that collapsed the economy.

After the first year of implementation, the government reported in June 009 that progress on the implementation of the Lift Liberia agenda was "slow relative to potential". This report received a lot of negative press in spite of the boldness of government to tell it like it was. It was the first time, in recorded Liberian history, that the government had mustered the coverage to tell the Liberian people that things were not going as planned but that commitment to reverse course and accelerate implementation of the development agenda was still very high on the priority list of the government.

To demonstrate this commitment, the President, H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, requested that the Cabinet meet in a technical retreat session to review the entire PRS and identify ways to mitigate challenges and devise strategies to accelerate implementation by utilizing available opportunities and resources. The President made it clear that there was no room for compromise on the implementation of the Lift Liberia agenda.

At the conclusion of that Cabinet retreat, President Sirleaf emphasized that the government will aim for more than 100 percent completion rate as the Liberian people have been waiting too long and needed the relief promised in the Lift Liberia development plan.

Based on the request from the Liberian leader, the LRDC introduced the Rapid Results Approach (RRA) into PRS implementation. RRA is a results-based management approach used to sequence long term plans into results that are achievable within 90 - 100 days cycles.

The entire process of review led to the development of 90-day action plans to which each cabinet minister and heads of agencies committed to implementing as a demonstration of their commitment to accelerate PRS implementation.

At the close of the Cabinet retreat, all cabinet ministers and heads of agencies committed to accelerate the implementation of their PRS deliverables utilizing a "90 day action plan". In furtherance of this, the cabinet agreed for their technicians to meet twice a month on PRS interventions to ensure that challenges and constraints were spotted early enough and mitigated before they affected delivery.

In releasing the report, Planning and Economic Affairs Minister, Amara Konneh says, "as a result of the vigorous push to achieve success in implementing the government development agenda, we are pleased to report that the Rapid Results Approach government adopted at the August Cabinet retreat is showing positive results.

Current PRS implementation for the first year and a half stands at nearly 90% (up from 18% in June 2009), with unscheduled deliverables being completed in parallel as a result of the urgency and attention the government has given the PRS from the highest political authority in Liberia with support from our development partners."

Based on the efforts from the Cabinet retreat, coupled with RRA and other project management support given to various line ministries and agencies by the LRDC, the government has realized significant improvement in the implementation rate: Off the 47 deliverables earmarked for completion by November 2009, 35 were fully completed while 12 remained off track even though substantial progress was made on those;

As a result of the 90 day PUSH, 20 deliverables that had due dates in December 2009 were completed ahead of schedule;

Overall, based on the Cabinet review and 90 day PUSH, government's execution rate stands at 88% - between April 2008 and November 2009, 116 interventions should have been completed; at the moment, 102 have been completed while 14 are considered off track.

While the government recognizes that the Lift Liberia PRS development agenda still has a long way to go in directly impacting ordinary Liberians, the government is pleased that significant and substantial progress is being made toward its implementation, particularly the policy deliverables that will strengthen Liberian institutions for effective property rights protection and contract enforcement; macroeconomic stability; integrate Liberia in the world economy through trade; and maintain social cohesion and political stability - all of which will help reduce poverty in Liberia in the long run.

"As we prepare for the next round of the Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire (CWIQ) survey, which will empirically show us the impact the PRS interventions have had on poverty in Liberia, we can all agree on one thing: Liberia is making incremental progress on its long road to recovery, albeit considered minute by some relative to the size of the needs and expectation of the Liberian people," Minister Konneh noted.

The report concluded that "as we end the 2009, it is important for the Liberian people to know that the Government is aware of their plight and is doing everything possible, within the constraints of resources and capacity, to address the challenges of poverty in Liberia . While we are not there yet, we can all agree that we are closer today than we were four years ago, and that it will take the effort of all Liberians, to make poverty reduction a reality in Liberia ."

The full report is available on the Lift Liberia website at www.liftliberia.gov.lr. The Ministry of Planning launched the website a few weeks ago to help disseminate information on Liberia 's development agenda.