ABOUT
The Liberia Diaspora Affairs Unit was endorsed by the Liberian Cabinet in 2010 within the Ministry of State for Presidential Affairs, under the auspices of the Minister of State Without Portfolio with the direct supervision to develop a comprehensive Draft National Diaspora Engagement Policy. This program should have been initiated in 2013 but suffered delayed due to several factors especially the outbreak of the Ebola epidemic in 2014.
With Funding from the World Bank (WB), the Program was successfully activated in September 2015. In October and November 2015, study tours of Ghana and Ethiopia as well as consultative dialogues were done with Liberians in the US cities of Sacramento and Washington D.C. respectively. In January of 2016 a Homecoming event was successfully organized in preparation for the production of the draft national diaspora engagement policy. By July 2016, a draft National Diaspora Engagement Policy was produced.
The Program has now moved into the next phase: engaging diaspora Liberians for their direct involvement in the growth and development of Liberia as stated in President Weah’s Inaugural Address. The Program seeks to engage diaspora Liberians in three areas:
• Social
• Economic
• and Political
In order to reactivate the office of the Liberia Diaspora Affairs Unit, the International Organization for Migration has approved minimum funding to operationalize the Unit and also the creation of a comprehensive database of professional Liberians in the diaspora through a project titled “Capacity Building for Diaspora Engagement”.
