Every year or so, something happens somewhere in the world -- and Liberia feels it almost immediately.
As a war breaks out, shipping routes tighten and insurance premiums rise. Fuel prices go up; transportation follows. Market prices climb. And once again, the ordinary Liberian is asked to adjust.
This week, it is petroleum. Before this, it was the war in Ukraine. Before that, COVID-19. Before that, the Ebola crisis. Different causes, but the same outcome.
The explanation is always ready: global market conditions.
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And to be fair, that explanation is not wrong. Liberia is not alone. Many countries across Africa and the Global South face the same pressures. The world is interconnected, and shocks travel fast. But the question we must now ask, plainly and without comfort, is this: at what point does Liberia stop explaining and start preparing against these shocks?
Because if every external shock continues to land with this level of force on Liberia, then the issue is no longer just the shock. The issue is our exposure. A country cannot control global crises, but it can decide how vulnerable it will be when they come.
Take energy, for example. Liberia imports nearly all of its petroleum, which means the price at the pump is not set in Monrovia but shaped by events in distant waters and foreign conflicts. When tensions rise along global oil routes, Liberia pays -- and it pays immediately. So the real question is not why prices went up this week, but what long-term plan exists to ensure that fuel shocks do not keep shaking the entire economy. Where are the strategic reserves? Where is the transition toward alternative energy? At what point do we begin to reduce dependence on what we do not control?
The same line of questioning must be applied to our natural resources. Liberia is not a resource-poor country. Gold, iron ore, timber -- these are significant assets. Yet year after year, extraction continues on a large scale with limited visible transformation in national resilience. We are told that companies are investing, producing, and exporting, but what remains less clear is how much of that value Liberia is truly capturing. Is the Republic merely collecting taxes and royalties, or is it building ownership, equity, and long-term national wealth?
Other countries have confronted this dilemma with deliberate strategy. Botswana restructured its minerals regime to secure greater national benefit. Ethiopia invested heavily in power infrastructure to drive productivity. Even Libya, for all its contradictions, once used resource revenues to fund broad social programs. Liberia must now answer a simple but weighty question: what is our model?
This leads naturally to the issue of savings. For decades, Liberia has earned revenue from its natural resources, yet when crises come, the country still finds itself with limited buffers. There is no significant sovereign wealth fund to stabilize the economy when shocks hit, no deep reserve to absorb external pressure. It raises a difficult but necessary question: are we consuming today at the expense of tomorrow?
Beneath all of this lies an even more fundamental concern -- productivity. Liberia remains heavily import-dependent, buying what it could produce and exporting raw materials only to import finished goods at higher prices. When global prices shift, the country feels it twice. This is not merely an economic inconvenience; it is a structural weakness. A low-productivity economy does not just struggle to grow -- it struggles to withstand pressure.
None of this is to dismiss the government's immediate actions. Price ceilings, market monitoring, and supply stabilization are necessary steps, and they matter in the short term. But they do not answer the larger question that continues to loom over every price adjustment and every external disruption.
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What will Liberia look like when the next shock comes? Because there will be a next one. There always is.
At some point, the government must level with the people -- not just with explanations, but with a plan. A plan that speaks clearly to energy security, to how Liberia will capture value from its resources, to how it will build savings, strengthen productivity, and reduce exposure. A plan that reassures the public that while Liberia may not control the shocks, it is building the strength to withstand them. And why not also articulate the role of the public in this grand plan?
Until then, each new crisis will feel like the first. And each increase in fuel prices will carry the same quiet question at the pump, in the market, and in the home: How many shocks must come before we build our own strength?
