By Lewis S. Teh
Monrovia, Liberia, April 3, 2025 – Accountability Lab Liberia with funding from UN Women, Peacebuilding Fund and UNFPA begins a two-day comprehensive orientation and refresher capacity building training for 12 civil society organizations (CSOs) within Montserrado and Lofa counties. The program is part of its accelerating digital opportunities for youth civic participation project.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, April 2, 2025, at Icampus in Monrovia at the start of the training, program and learning director at Accountability Lab Liberia, Nyema J. Richards, said the project is geared towards youth civic participation, how young people can get involved and contribute towards national governance.
“Now, you know, we live in a digital world and things are moving away from physical interaction to everything happening online and in digital spaces. So, it’s about taking the next step with the young people to see how they can get involved in their own Jerusalem, in their own communities, in their own spaces”, he explains.
Mr. Rchards notes that the training is meant to equip youths on how they can continue to engage their leaders constructively by using digital spaces, by promoting peace, including anything that they’re passionate about.
“So, we’re not confining their participation. We’re not prescribing their participation. We’re just saying that in terms of advocacy and participation, the new highway is the digital highway”, he says.
He recalls that about a year and a half ago, UNFPA was the initial funding partner of the project, adding that they subsequently identified 12 CSOs from the wider spectrum of Montserrado and Lofa to pilot the project.
According to him, their role was to buy necessary tools: smartphones, computers, program them and give them calling cards to get on the digital space.
They sought partnership with UN Women to be able to do the training with the young people. “So, about four months ago in November, December last year, there was this call for application where UN Women were looking for a partner who has worked with young people who were involved in training and capacity building and that’s how Accountability Lab Liberia was vetted and accepted to take on this role.”
Mr. Richards continues that AL role is to build capacity in digital literacy, adding “What we organized today is a training of trainers. So, the group of people you saw there are going to be the ones leading the training for the individual organizations in the different communities.
He says the pilot is targeting close to 500 young people that will be trained in digital literacy, both in Montserrado and in Lofa. “And if that goes well, towards the close of the project, UN Women is quite interested in scaling up. We don’t know to what level they will be able to run the project and secure funding, but it seems promising that they have committed themselves to doing this” he adds.
Accountability Lab Liberia, he says, is a nationally registered nonprofit organization that belongs to training local network of Labs in ten countries, including Liberia with headquarters in the United States.
“Our Mission at the AL is to make government work for everyone; we work with active citizens, responsible leaders and accountable institutions”, he says, and notes, “The way we work at the lab is by shifting norms and behavior around issues of accountability, ensuring that integrity becomes the expected behavior within the society.”
The objective of the project is to improve digital skills, support YG to set up and deliver digital literacy training, monitoring and mentorship.
The exercise is designed to build participants’ skills step by step, starting with the basics and moving up to advance skills that can help change community.
He details that while the teaching is generally about social media software, they try to look at those that are most common to Liberia right now, saying “We see everybody gravitating towards TikTok, for example, they are making small videos. They’re posting their stuff. They’re on Facebook. They’re on WhatsApp. So, we’re looking at broadly social media outlets but how to be able to navigate safely on the social media and to propagate whatever campaign they’re passionate about.”
The executive director of Girls Tech, Kate D. Hinder, says the training aligns with their goal as Growth Tech Club because they are involved in empowering young girls and young women with digital skills.
Kate continues: “This is a great joy, especially since we implemented the phase one of this project where we launched a program called the e-voices, where we have young girls and young women running their own digital campaigns with issues affecting them in promoting peace in their community, their schools, as well as their homes. So, coming back for the phase two of this YPI project is a plus for the Growth Secretary that we did well.”
As a tech enthusiast, this is a tech space, and the world is not going to go back. Get on board, do whatever means you can. Today we are promoting peace as well as assessing all digital opportunities. Don’t stay back, come on board and let’s move this tradition forward, she urges young people in Liberia.
Meanwhile, the youth coordinator for the Federation of Liberian Youths or FLY, Decontee D. Walker, says the training means a lot to her, adding “for me as an advocate, especially for girls’ rights, this project is important because it helps sustain peace through utilizing the digital needs, which, of course, we all understand that in Liberia is something that we are lacking in the youthful space.”
“We have smartphones, but we don’t utilize it in reference. So, this project, I believe, will help open the minds of youths on the importance of digitalization.”
