The President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, will lead a Bank delegation on a working visit to Liberia on March 10 and 11, 2016, to hold discussions with Liberian officials and review the Bank's projects and programmes in the country.

During the visit, President Adesina and senior management will hold discussions with Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, several ministers and other government officials, development partners, diplomats and media representatives.

The Bank's delegation will meet the Ministers of Finance and Development Planning; Commerce and Industry; Agriculture; Public Works; Lands, Mines and Energy; Gender and Social Protection; Health and Social Welfare; Transport; and Youth and Sports.

President Adesina will engage with Liberia's Agriculture Task Force on how it can work with the Bank to ensure that Liberia makes a smooth transition towards a more sustainable growth model.

The AfDB Group's Liberia portfolio comprises 17 operations valued at US $392 million. It includes 11 national public sector operations (67% of the portfolio value), four regional projects (27%), and two private sector operations (6%). The portfolio is spread across six sectors: transport, 33%; health/Ebola, 24%; agriculture and rural development, 23%; water and sanitation, 10%; energy, 9%; and financial sector and governance, 1%.

The Bank supported Liberia during the Ebola crisis, which claimed thousands of lives from 2014 until January 2016. The Bank more than doubled its budget support resources to over US $56 million, in addition to three other projects that provided over US $18 million in direct support to Liberia, funding for the Ebola Trust Fund, as well as various regional programs. This helped the government to meet payments to health care workers, fund efforts to halt the epidemic, and then restore basic services.

The visit will close with a press conference by Adesina and his host, President Johnson Sirleaf at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Monrovia.