Kulah Tokpah in Varney Gowah Town, Montserrado says climate change is destroying her crops and causing her to despair
VARNEY GOWAH TOWN, Montserrado – Kulah Tokpah arrives home from her farm, exhausted, her arms burdened with firewood for the meal she is preparing for men clearing her new plot of land. Her once fertile farm is now a patchwork of withered crops, cracked soil, and dead plants.
By Aria Deemie with New Narratives
Kulah and the men are clearing a swampy area, hoping it will retain more moisture. But even that is a gamble. The cost of replanting was crushing – 500 Liberian dollars per worker, totaling 2,500 LD ($US12) daily. It’s money she can’t afford. For Kulah and her four children, farming is survival. Her children, aged 9 through 16, rely on the farm for food, school fees, and medical care. But without rain, her bitter balls, peppers, and corn dried up before maturing.
“Rain supposed to be falling, but now no rain falling,” she says. “The things dem just dying in our hands.”
Meanwhile in Glanyah, River Cess, Princess Nanna is desperate. In September last year floodwaters swept through this town destroying the little furniture she had and washing away the contents of the provision shop that paid to send her five children to school. With no warning they had no chance to pack their belongings and escape. She was one of more than 100,000 people displaced in flooding across the country that killed at least nine people in the worst rainy season on record.
But reporting by New Narratives and Front Page Africa has found that Kulah and Princess should have had warning. As far back as November 2020 the Liberian government received the go-ahead to build a climate information system to provide weather forecasts and early warnings that would “reduce exposure of Liberia’s communities, livelihoods, and infrastructure to climate-induced natural hazards,” according to the project proposal. With $10 million in funding from the Green Climate Fund, a global mechanism funded by rich countries to help low-income countries adapt to climate change, the Climate Information System would help Liberia’s millions of subsistence farmers and vulnerable communities plan better for increasingly unpredictable weather.
And yet, nearly five years later, as Liberians face another rainy season, the system is still not functioning.
Report Claims Lack of Competent Staff, Inflated Salary Claims and Political Appointments Delay Project
According to the African Development Bank’s first annual performance report into the project, for the year ending December 2023, delays were caused by multiple failings by the administration of then-President George Weah. The report cited a lack of competent EPA staff, slow or delayed responses from the EPA, inflated claims for salaries, and the EPA’s selection of a “politically exposed person” to head the unit without this being indicated upfront. The African Development Bank, which was implementing the project, referred it to the Bank’s anti-corruption section to review “some of the issues for proper guidance”.
The revelations about the project come at the same time as the Legislature is asking tough questions about the $27 million coastal defense project, also funded in large part by the Green Climate Fund. New Narratives/Front Page Africa reporting found the Weah government’s failure to pay its $6.8 million share of the project had brought the project to a halt.
Experts say successive Liberian governments’ failures to implement these two major international projects expose potentially insurmountable obstacles to helping vulnerable Liberians make the rapid adaptation that they will need to avoid catastrophe in coming years. The World Bank predicts that if nothing is done Liberia’s economy will suffer a 15 per cent decline, leaving four in every five Liberians in poverty by 2050.
Liberia’s governments have been at the front of the line at global forums, demanding rich country funding for climate change adaptation. But if they cannot comply with the transparency and technical requirements for funding that is already available, experts say funding will be diverted to countries that can.
Flooding in River Cess county left thousands homeless in 2024 Credit: Eric Opa Doue
Years of Increased Flooding and Higher Temperatures Devastate Vulnerable Communities
Liberians are some of the only people left in the world without the tools to forecast weather. In countries like Kenya, Ghana, Zambia and Malawi, farmers receive SMS weather alerts to guide their planting and harvesting. Vulnerable communities are alerted days ahead of flooding events. In Liberia a network of 30 automatic weather stations that make up the Liberia Meteorological Service is no longer operational. The only station working is an outdated one at Robertsfield Airport.
In the years since the 2020 approval of the “Climate Information Systems” project, flooding and higher temperatures have devastated unprepared communities across the country. Farmers become more desperate as crops failed year after year. A survey by Front Page Africa/New Narratives in 2024 found every single one of 300 farmers interviewed in five counties said climate change had made their traditional practices useless. Without weather forecasts or irrigation they were entirely dependent on the once-predictable weather patterns that had supported farming here for generations.
Farmers have told stories of rising hunger, taking children out of school or sending them to the capital – where numbers of street children and child prostitution have exploded; of falling prey to trafficking scams and resorting to drug abuse.
“When farmers know that rain is expected, they can prepare,” says climate expert Doreen Lartey. “Even short-term forecasts help them decide how much water to store and what alternatives to explore. This kind of information helps them build resilience against the unpredictable nature of climate change.”
Lack of Competence and Refusal to Follow Rules Delays Project Start
The grant entered the Green Climate Fund’s official “pipeline” in January 2020. Funding was approved at the November 2020 Board meeting with the African Development Bank as the implementing partner. Independent evaluations of the Fund had found its processes could be too technical and demanding. To overcome this it had created a “Simplified Approval Process” for projects under $10 million. The process required “simpler documents” “fewer pages” and “easier form filling”. Despite this, delays meant the first tranche of $4 million did not reach the Liberian government’s bank account until more than two years later in December 2022.
From there the first step was for the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), then headed by Wilson Tarpeh, the executive director, to recruit a project manager and other staff to lead the project. But the “EPA didn’t follow the laid down rules and procedures in the recruitment of the Project Manager” and other key positions according to the African Development Bank performance report. As a result the bank annulled the recruitment process. An extension for the project start date to October 1, 2023, was sought and approved by the Green Climate Fund,.
By July the following year, the EPA had still made no progress so the African Development Bank sent a mission to help the EPA fast track recruitment and resolve “any bottlenecks”. During the mission the EPA developed a terms of reference for each role in the project unit, memorandums of understanding with implementing partners – International Committees of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, representing the Liberian Red Cross, and the International Center for Theoretical Physics, an Italy-based center for science, setting out roles and obligations of each partner, “in form and substance acceptable to the Bank.” The EPA and the mission agreed on a timeline to “fast track” the project.
But when the EPA came back to the Bank proposing their new choice to lead the project both the Bank’s Financial Management and Procurement divisions again withheld clearance. Mr. Tarpeh has told NN/FPA he appointed Jeremiah Sokan, previously a member of the Green Climate Fund board and the National Coordinator National Climate Change Secretariat, and currently representative for Grand Gedeh district #1.
The Bank found Mr. Sokan was a so-called “Politically Exposed Person” and that had not been flagged with the Bank when they were notified of his appointment. They also found he had a “potential conflict of interest” because he was involved in the project appraisal and preparation of the terms of reference for the position. And the Bank found the pay the EPA was claiming for was inflated and “not comparable to Liberia’s market rate value and practice.”
Extract from the African Development Bank’s 2023 annual performance review
George Weah lost the election in November 2023 and handed power to the administration of President Joseph Boakai in January 2024. Mr. Boakai appointed Dr. Emmanuel Urey Yarkpowlo to head the Environmental Protection Agency that month.
As a Fifth Rainy Season Begins Since Funding Approved, Still No Weather Warning Center
The new administration relaunched the project with a three-day “inception workshop” in July. A launch ceremony attended by key stakeholders including the African Development Bank, the National Disaster Management Agency, and multiple ministries was meant to mark a fresh start, with officials reaffirming their commitment to equipping farmers and vulnerable communities with reliable weather data.
Nine months later, as Liberians brace for another rainy season, the center is still not operational.
In an interview, EPA head Dr. Yarkpawolo, acknowledged the delays. He said he had appointed Nelson Jallah, an environmental scientist and former project manager with the international NGO Conservation International to head the project, with the Bank’s approval.
“The meteorological center is being implemented in conjunction with the airport,” he said. “There are some existing centers, but they are quite limited at this point, so we need to modernize them. The CIS Project involves a lot of training to get the center operational and functional. So, the project is underway, but it’s not done yet.”
The Green Climate Fund has not yet responded to New Narratives/Front Page Africa request for documents related to the project through its document request service. In an email, Andy McElroy, a senior media specialist with the fund, confirmed the corruption probe had been resolved.
“The EPA, under its current leadership, has completed the recruitment process and appointed the new Project Manager as per the approved procedures,” Mr. McElroy said. “This individual is part of the established Project Implementation Unit, which will oversee the project’s execution moving forward.”
McElroy said the 2024 annual project performance report will be released by September this year, after final reviews from the implementing partners.
Weah EPA Chief Defends Actions, Blames Africa Development Bank for Delays
Professor Wilson Tarpeh, former Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency
Professor Wilson Tarpeh, executive director of the EPA under the Weah government, rejected the Bank’s criticisms.
“We did not do anything wrong.” He insisted that Mr. Sokan went through the proper recruitment process and the Bank was wrong in its judgment.
“I can tell you at the time he was not a political appointee. Jeremiah was hired strictly as a technical staff,” Mr. Tarpeh said. “Sokan was selected project manager due to his expertise in climate change and finance.”
Mr. Tarpeh expressed surprise that the recruitment had been referred to the Bank’s anti-corruption section.
“I was taken aback when I heard about the corruption probe,” Mr. Tarpeh said, claiming he had not even heard of the report before it was presented to him by this reporter. “This was a project we ensured adhered to the necessary procedures. The hiring was based on merit.”
“The delay came mainly from the Bank,” Mr. Tarpeh claimed. “There were some transitional processes on their side that held up the project’s execution. I will follow up with the relevant authorities to ensure everything is properly addressed. We will work to clear up any misunderstandings and move forward transparently.”
Anthony N. Kollie stands at the outskirts of the land, once fertile, now dried up.
Farmers Struggle Without Information or Warnings
Here in Varney Gowah Town the delays are devastating. Anthony N. Kollie, 40, another farmer, shows this reporter his once-thriving farm now dried under the relentless sun.
“When we planted in January, we weren’t expecting the sun to be like this,” said Kollie, shaking his head as he looked at what used to be a swamp. “The sun rate is too high.”
He pointed to the remains of his cucumber and pepper plants. “We used fertilizer, we watered them, but they still died,” he said. “Even when we dug holes for water, we found nothing.”
The lack of rain had devastated his farm, and he worries about the next rice season. Anthony says weather reports would have changed everything. “If we had weather reports, we could plan. If we knew how hot the sun would be, we wouldn’t have planted light crops. Now everything is dying in our hands.”
Without a functioning weather system, farmers are left guessing when to plant, what to plant, and how to survive.
“We need the government to help us,” said Kulah Tokpah. “Because if not, we will keep planting, and everything will keep dying.”
Eric Opa Doue contributed reporting and photos from River Cess County. This story was a collaboration with New Narratives. Funding was provided by the American Jewish World Service. The donor had no say in the story’s content.
