Monrovia, Liberia (26th of November 2019) - Cities Alliance Director, Mr. William Cobbett, and Cities Alliance Liberia Country Programme Manager, Francisco M Juarez Lopez took part in a one-hour live radio discussion on urban development and the growth of cities in Liberia. The discussion took place in advance of today’s National Urban Forum aimed at poverty reduction and fostering sustainable and resilient Liberian cities.
Attracting over 250 participants, the 2nd National Urban Forum is a platform that brings together urban actors to discuss how to address the challenges of urbanisation. The Forum emphasises the importance of actors combining efforts to ensure the prosperity of cities and human settlements in Liberia. The first National Urban Forum took place in 2015, co-organised by the Cities Alliance and other local partners. At the time it was agreed that a process would be started to develop a National Urban Plan for Liberia, a process that has been on-going since, with The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) in partnership with UN-Habitat and Cities Alliance (CA) working together to develop this plan.
“The reason for the creation of the Urban National Forum is to bring together policy makers so they can understand the transformation that is taking place to the Liberian economy. It is not only the economy, it is the society and it is politics, and this will change Liberia forever…Africa is changing, so this is not peculiar to Liberia, but we can learn from other countries in terms of how to respond in terms of changing policies”
- William Cobbett, Director, Cities Alliance
