Monrovia — Samuel D. Tweah, Liberia's Finance, and Development Planning Minister at a one-day meeting with the African Development Bank Vice-President for Private Sector Infrastructure and Industrialization declared that Liberia is making significant progress in other areas of Development, but there are still infrastructure constraints that need to be addressed and solved.
The one-day high-level meeting with Solomon Quaynor, the African Development Bank Vice-President for Private Sector Infrastructure and Industrialization on Tuesday, March 4, 2023, was held at the Ministry of Finance in Center Monrovia.
The Liberian Finance Minister also extended profound thanks to the bank on behalf of the Liberian government for selecting Liberia and two other countries in Africa to benefit from the Youth's Entrepreneurship Investment Bank Project (YEIB).
The meeting, which is part of the Vice President's visit is intended to address the critical issues by ensuring a successful project appraisal, working closely with major private sector companies and commercial banks to understand the existing and potential private sector development opportunities to explore areas of collaboration and partnership.
He noted that the government is excited to have a partnership with the African Development Bank to move in a specific direction like youth employment opportunities in the private sector.
"Today's meeting will open a broader picture that will drive a transformative impact in the lives of Liberians, especially youth."
However, the youth entrepreneurship opportunity will provide the space for financial and non-financial solutions in the private sectors by taking what he termed as an eagle system approach where business development services and capacity building for youth entrepreneurs are achieved.
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For his part, the African Development Bank Vice President for private sectors infrastructure and Industrialization who led the team, Hon. Solomon Quaynor noted that the bank is currently developing an innovation for the use of entrepreneurship in investment banks.
According to him, the bank is rolling out the entrepreneurship program across Africa after a lot of design work has been done in which they have selected the first three countries in Africa: Liberia, Nigeria, and Ethiopia to benefit from the implementations before other countries can follow.
"This entrepreneurship program is an equal system approach to support youth entrepreneurs both to access finance and access to business development services. This project is the Bank President's vision and passion along with my team to actualize youth entrepreneurship because he believes that youth entrepreneurship is a vaporable investment as a class," Quaynor said.
The one-day meeting was attended by the African Development Bank Vice-President for Private Sector Infrastructure and Industrialization, Country Manager of the African Development Bank to Liberia, Mr. Benedict Sorie Kanu, Liberia Finance and Development Planning Minister, Senior Management Team along with the Principal Director of MFDP.
