Following an appeal to the international community to start planning recovery efforts for Ebola-affected West Africa, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim outlined during his visit to Liberia an 18-month strategy to support economic recovery in the one of the hardest-hit countries by the epidemic.
Speaking to reporters in Monrovia after meeting Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Kim announced a five-pronged strategy that will focus on bolstering Liberia’s agriculture sector, urban infrastructure and local entrepreneurship in an effort to spark an economic turnaround.
“Agriculture is a key pillar of the Liberian economy and we are concerned that agricultural production has dropped as a result of the Ebola epidemic,” he said, according to a World Bank statement. “We will help Liberian farmers recover from this crisis. We must make sure that the Ebola epidemic is not followed by a food security crisis.”