Background

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Liberia was created by an act of the Legislature on November 26, 2002, and published as a handbill on April 30, 2003, to ensure sound environmental management and sustainable use of natural resources. The EPA operates based on three legal instruments: the National Environmental Policy (NEP), the Environmental Protection and Management Law of Liberia, and the Act Creating the Environmental Protection Agency. These instruments aim to harmonize functions between agencies, ensure long-term economic prosperity through sustainable development, and establish a legal framework for environmental management. The EPA received funding from the Green Climate Fund to implement a five-year project called "Enhancing Climate Information Systems for Resilient Development in Liberia" (the Liberia CIS Project).

About the CIS Project

The Liberia CIS Project is a US$ 11,431,969 GCF, AFDB, and GOL-funded project that is geared towards increasing the resilience of Liberia’s population and infrastructure to climate change. In particular, the project will strengthen the country’s adaptive capacity to integrate long-term climate risk reduction and adaptation measures more effectively into national planning and development by developing a well-functioning Multi-Hazard Impact-Based Forecasting and Early Warning System (MH-IBF-EWS).

The implementation of the project will entail training and equipping the existing Liberia Meteorological Service (LMS), Liberia Hydrological Service (LHS), Environment Protection Agency (EPA) and National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) to collect weather and climate data; introduce and maintain modelling, forecast weather events and provide early warnings systems; and scale-up evidence-based climate-informed decision-making, planning, and response actions Countrywide. The objective of the project is to strengthen Liberia’s climate-related observation and monitoring capabilities, early warning and early action systems, and other environmental-related information systems. The objective seeks to drive a paradigm shift towards evidence-based climate-informed decision-making, planning, and response by integrating green growth, environmental resilience, and adaptation into national development planning through effective climate information systems in Liberia.