IPNEWS: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in partnership with the Government of Liberia and the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), is taking a major step toward strengthening national disaster preparedness and resilience.
As part of Liberia’s commitment to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, UNDP conducted a mission to initiate the deployment of its Preparedness Learning Pathway—a global capacitydevelopment initiative designed to enhance institutional, strategic, and operational readiness for disaster response.
Since 2018, UNDP has supported Liberia’s disaster risk reduction efforts through the establishment of an Emergency Operations Center, training of technical staff, and development of a national disaster risk assessment and response strategy.
These investments have contributed to the formation of County Disaster Management Committees in Bomi, Bong, Grand Bassa, and Sinoe counties.
During the mission, UNDP focused on assessing Liberia’s capacitydevelopment needs for disaster risk reduction, with emphasis on early warning and anticipatory action, engaging UN agencies and partners to align programmatic support for preparedness, and designing a national workshop under the Preparedness Learning Pathway to build technical skills and foster knowledge exchange among stakeholders
The Preparedness Learning Pathway provides modular training, mentoring, and a global community of practice, enabling decisionmakers and practitioners to anticipate, prevent, and respond more effectively to crises.
The approach has already been successfully deployed in the Bahamas, Bahrain, Albania, North Macedonia, and Montenegro.
The UNDP mission was led by Ioana Creitaru, Programme Specialist and Global Advisor on Early Warning and Preparedness, Disaster Risk Reduction & Recovery, from the UNDP Crisis Bureau in Geneva, Switzerland.
Through this initiative, Liberia will strengthen its ability to anticipate and respond to disasters—helping ensure that communities across the country are safer, more resilient, and better prepared for future shocks.
