Massa Kollie, a farmer in Bomi who has turns to soap making prepares iron soap for sale
- Rural poverty in Liberia rose to eight in every ten people before Covid 19 according to the World Bank
- Urban poverty decreased, leading to growing inequality between urban and rural areas
- Experts warn inequality and poverty in rural areas – potentially exacerbated by USAID cuts – can drive a breakdown in security
By Evelyn Kpadeh Seagbeh with New Narratives
TUBMANBURG, Bomi County – Under a hot afternoon sun, Massa Kollie stirs a mixture of caustic soda and oil, her bare hands working methodically. Sweat trickles down her face and arms as she labors to make iron soap with no safety gear.
It’s a livelihood born of necessity. Massa, 54, says her crops have failed year after year. This season, relentless heat forced her to find alternative means to survive. Her ill husband no longer has the strength make the large farms he used to before the changing climate reduced their yield. Massa is forced to buy red oil and caustic soda on credit to make soap to sell. With the profits she hopes to feed her five children and return the principle to her lender. School is out of reach.
“Life is very tough,” says Massa. “These days, to even send your children to school, you have to struggle, so I am mixing caustic (soda) to fix soap so my children can sell tomorrow at least to get little thing for the home to go on.”
A 2024 World Bank report revealed a troubling rise in poverty across Liberia’s rural areas finding eight out of every ten residents lived in poverty in 2016. That was a rise of more than 11 percentage points on the year before. Meanwhile poverty in urban areas dropped to three in every ten.
The data is nearly ten years old, relying on the 2016 Household Income and Expenditure survey, but in the absence of any other data, “they still represent the most accurate picture of the country’s situation prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report said. The Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services successfully completed a census in 2023 in preparation for the next household survey which will begin shortly and be completed within a year’s time.
Experts say things have likely got worse since that survey. With a national budget of only $800 million and a heavy reliance on donor support, Liberia remains deeply impoverished. It ranked twelfth among the twenty poorest countries in the world and 177 out of 193 countries on the Human Development Index, regarded as the best measure of countries’ progress. With some rural services provided by USAID experts worry that President Donald Trump’s decision to slash US foreign aid could accelerate rural distress.
Massa and many other rural residents who spoke with this paper say they have been let down by successive governments.
“At the hospital, if you don’t have money, you won’t get treatment. Where am I to get money when my husband isn’t working?” she says. “Things are tough, and every morning I worry about what to do.”
J. Gbanja Kollie, 63, hasn’t worked in formal employment for decades
Ongoing Government Failure Laying Ground for Conflict Warn Experts
The growing inequality between urban and rural settings worries human rights advocates. They say the neglect of rural Liberia by rulers led to Liberia’s 1980 coup by President Samuel Doe and the following two and a half decades of conflict.
Government must prioritize a people-centered budget, focused on ensuring that all Liberians have access to essential services and resources, said John Stewart, former commissioner of Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which examined the roots of Liberia’s conflict.
Mr. Stewart warned the same failures, corruption and inequality – what he and other justice advocates call “structural violence”- risk tipping Liberia into conflict again. Anger at growing inequality is again rising. “Look at the members of the House and Senate,” Stewart said. “They receive over $15,000 a month, while the average worker earns only $200 to $400.”
Growing Anger at Perceived Inequality in Rural Areas
Massa’s husband is one of many rural Liberians who told Front Page Africa/New Narratives that they are angry. Like many rural Liberians 63-year-old J. Gbanja Kollie hasn’t worked in formal employment for decades. In 1995 he lost his job as a clerk at the Liberia Wood Management Company, in Gbarpolu, then in Lofa County, when rebel forces, led by then-warlord Charles Taylor, invaded the company quarters.
Gbanja and his family eventually settled here in Tubmanburg. When he heard that companies like Western Cluster, an iron ore mining company, were hiring skilled workers, he enrolled in the plumbing program at Bomi Community College. He graduated in 2015.
Since then Gbanja has been unable to get a job at Western Cluster or anywhere else. Farming has been his family’s only source of income. But now soaring temperatures and unpredictable rainfall brought on by climate change, have cut his production of cassava greens and other vegetables. Years of heavy labor – carrying heavy wood for charcoal, clearing dense bushes by hand and digging- have taken a toll on Gbanja’s health. Hardship has forced his relatives – in even worse difficulty – to send three children to live with him, adding to his family’s struggles.
“From Ellen’s time up to the present, things have just been difficult,” he says referring to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, in office from 2006 – 2018. “We parents can’t get job and even getting food is hard.”
Kon B. Sherman, a 51-year-old security guard in Tubmanburg, has a job but it pays just $US198 and $LD9,000 a month. He says he struggles to provide for his family and has been unable to send three of his five children to school. There is no sign of life getting better for them. He blames the government.
“In Bomi here, we are suffering,” Kon said. “We can put those people in that House (the Legislature), but it’s very hard for them to look at us.” He doubts he will bother voting next election.
Climate Change is Hitting Farmers Hard
Existing problems including poor education and healthcare and roads have been exacerbated by climate change. Almost all Liberia’s rural dwellers survive by farming. In mid-2024, New Narratives surveyed farmers in six counties, revealing climate change had made farming unviable for every survey participant. Nine in ten farmers expressed a desire to migrate in search of better opportunities.
The results are predictable: The numbers of people at illegal mine sites have grown. More and more children have been taken to urban centers, leading to an increase of children living on their own where they are often subjected to neglect and abuse. More and more Liberians are falling prey to trafficking scams.
Marie roasting cassava near a main street after relocating from her Village in Grand Bassa to the City
Eight months ago, Marie Martey White, a mother of five, made the difficult decision to leave her village in Grand Bassa and relocate to Montserrado. Her move was driven by several failed years of farming and a catastrophic motor accident in 2021 that left her husband with a life-threatening brain injury.
Even before to the accident, climate change had left Marie and her husband unable to maintain their farm. The family fell further into poverty. Marie turned to roasting cassava and coconuts in Montserrado.
Although the earnings – LD $3,000 a day – are minimal, Marie is relieved that it’s an improvement from the severe hardship she faced in her village.
“Life was not easy in the interior. The country is hard, no money, and no job, and the children were not going to school,” Marie says.
Marie participates in a daily savings club, called “Susu,” with nine other women. Each member contributes LD $1,000 daily, and on a rotating basis, one woman from the group receives the pooled LD $10,000, a sum Marie says is more than she could earn in a month in her village.
Old man Kon Sherman works as security guide at Liberia Civil Service Agency sub office in Tubmanburg
Richard Ngafuan, Director General of the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services, declined to comment on the World Bank Report but he said the administration of President Joseph Boakai was working on its “ARREST Agenda” to improve the lives of all Liberians.
“Our focus is to reduce the overall multidimensional poverty in both rural and urban areas, and the individuals we are talking about are all Liberians irrespective of where they are,” Mr. Ngafuan said.
With scientists predicting climate change will only get worse in coming years, and no serious government plans in place to help farmers adapt, experts warn rural poverty and migration will only increase. They say those forces will test Liberia’s social and political cohesion.
This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the “Investigating Liberia” project. Funding was provided by the American Jewish World Service. The donor had no say in the story’s content.
