Liberia

Using household data from 15 countries in Latin America and Africa, this paper explores linkages between informality and education-occupation matching. The paper applies a unified methodology to measuring education-occupation mismatches and informality, consistently with the international labour and statistical standards in this area. The results suggest that in the majority of low- and middle-income developing countries with available data, workers in informal jobs have higher odds of being undereducated as compared to workers in formal jobs. Workers in formal jobs, in contrast, have higher chances of being overeducated. These results are consistent for dependent as well as for independent workers. They also hold for men and for women according to the gender-disaggregated analysis. Moreover, in the majority of countries considered in this paper, the matching-informality nexus is also related to the extent of informality in a given area: in labour markets with higher informality, informal workers in particular have a higher chance of being undereducated. The paper discusses policy implications of these findings.

Informal employment, defined through the lack of employment-based social protection, constitutes the bulk of employment in developing countries, and entails a level of vulnerability to poverty and other risks that are borne by all who are dependent on informal work income. Results from the Key Indicators of Informality based on Individuals and their Households database (KIIbIH) show that a disproportionately large number of middle‑class informal economy workers receive remittances. Such results confirm that risk management strategies, such as migration, play a part in minimising the potential risks of informal work for middle‑class informal households who may not be eligible to social assistance. They further suggest that middle‑class informal workers may have a solvent demand for social insurance so that, if informality-robust social insurance schemes were made available to them, remittances could potentially be channelled to finance the extension of social insurance to the informal economy.

This paper explores how innovation in low and middle-income countries is enhancing their local and national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper also analyses how innovation could further address locally relevant development challenges by mobilising resources, improving processes and catalysing collaboration. Lastly it examines how international development organisations can improve their support for local and national innovation efforts.

This report contains the 2020 Peer Review Report on the Exchange of Information on Request of Liberia.

Illicit financial flows (IFFs) generated by the artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) sector in West Africa have historically contributed to conflict and instability, although it would be a mistake to classify this issue as a criminal matter, given its links to formal and informal networks and local livelihoods. This study examines IFFs associated with the ASGM sector in Ghana and Liberia and reveals a complex web of informal and illicit activity associated with IFFs, with detrimental consequences for development. It focuses on gold because of its prominence in the West African Region and artisanal small-scale mining (ASM), rather than large-scale mining (LSM). Further, ASMG is largely informal and consequently more vulnerable to exploitation by criminal networks, and plays a prominent role as a local livelihood. This case study is relatively narrow in focus, providing insights into the nature and scope of ASGM activities and their resulting IFFs, and making several observations on those areas where action could be taken in an effort to reduce IFF risks. The study selected Ghana and Liberia as two countries where research could be conducted, and where gold is a major industry.

Successful transitions are vital; providing the means to secure the gains achieved through UN missions. A carefully managed transition process is one of the best ways to guard against backslide and to ensure the continuity of essential peacebuilding and conflict prevention efforts. As part of this, it will be important to build and reinforce the essential foundations for economic stability, and to maintain financing for peace programming post-withdrawal. Therefore, the overall objective of this research was to address the systemic challenges of financing UN Mission transitions, by outlining opportunities to ensure that: the potentially negative economic impacts and disruptions of UN Mission transitions are mitigated; financing for peacebuilding programmes is sustained post mission withdrawal; and domestic economic growth is sustained and supported where possible. This paper combines global trends and research on peace operation transitions with findings from case studies in DRC (initial stages of MONUSCO transition), Haiti (handover from MINUJUSH to BINUH), Liberia (following UNMIL’s withdrawal) and Sudan (transition of UNAMID). The paper focuses on opportunities that the international community could integrate into programming, co-ordination and financing. Accordingly, the paper is structured around the three phases of transition – ongoing UN missions, the transition, and sustaining capacity and economic stability post-withdrawal.

This publication contains the Supplementary Phase 1 Peer Review Report for Liberia.