By: Akoi M. Baysah, Jr.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Liberia on Monday, January 26, 2026, held a high-level engagement with the Governance Commission (GC) to assess progress, challenges, and lessons learned in Liberia’s decentralization program.
The meeting focused on key policy instruments including the Revenue Sharing Law, the draft National Development Plan, and the national decentralization framework, with emphasis on incorporating inputs from local government leaders.
Speaking during the engagement, GC Acting Chair Prof. Alaric Tokpa stressed the urgent need for constitutional review to strengthen decentralization, noting that legal and fiscal reforms are critical to transferring real authority to local governments.
“Resources and budgets must be prioritized if we are to properly measure the impact of decentralization,” Prof. Tokpa emphasized, calling for sustained funding to ensure effectiveness.
Despite declining access to funding opportunities, Prof. Tokpa acknowledged progress in developing a stronger Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework, which he said would enhance accountability and performance tracking.
He further called for collective action to ensure the full implementation of the Revenue Sharing Law and the Local Government Act, assuring UNDP of the Commission’s readiness to lead assessments and monitoring processes nationwide.
UNDP has been a key supporter of Liberia’s decentralization agenda, including providing capacity-building support for County Service Centers across the country.
During the meeting, Prof. Tokpa also appealed for logistical support, particularly vehicles, to strengthen GC’s monitoring and evaluation activities, while commending the UNDP Liberia team for its continued engagement.
Meanwhile, GC Executive Director Jallah Kesselly underscored the importance of political will, warning that reforms cannot succeed without firm national commitment.
“Things don’t work well without political will,” Kesselly said, advocating for institutional safeguards to ensure the sustainability of decentralization reforms.
He also highlighted the need for increased funding to enable nationwide civic awareness, noting that many citizens still lack adequate understanding of how decentralization and revenue-sharing mechanisms function.
For his part, Commissioner Matthew Kollie, GC Oversight Commissioner for the National Integrity System (NIS) mandate area, lamented that past decentralization initiatives were largely donor-driven and failed to reflect community priorities.
Kollie stressed the need for reforms to be locally grounded, warning that systematic gaps had undermined previous implementation efforts. He called on UNDP to better align its programs with GC work plans to ensure coherence and impact.
Reaffirming UNDP’s commitment, Eric Boykai, National Programme Coordinator for the Liberia Decentralisation Support Programme, pledged continued support for a citizen-centered decentralization process free from undue donor influence.
He was accompanied by Alashi Basel, UNDP Independent Consultant. The meeting also examined fiscal decentralization and the operational performance of County Service Centers, ending with a renewed commitment by both institutions to strengthen collaboration in pursuit of effective governance and inclusive development.
