Nordic Republics to Step up Aid to Liberia

MONROVIA – The spokesperson of a four-man delegation from the Nordic parliament that visited the country under the auspices of the United Nations Population Fund Agency (UNFPA) has expressed a need to increase grant aid coming to Liberia.

The delegation was in the country to inspect some of the projects and programs sponsored by the UNFPA, in order to see how the funds were being put to use.

Upon visiting the Government of Liberia and the UNFPA-sponsored Fistula Rehabilitation and Reintegration Center (FRRC) in Jacobs’s Town, Paynesville, Erika Georgensen said her team was impressed with the level of work being done with the small funding package her government had provided Liberia through the UNFPA and other organizations.

In an interview with reporters, she described their visit to Liberia as rewarding because it gave them a clearer picture of the impact their country’s sponsorship was making in the country.

“It is [one thing] to see a report of what has been done with the money; but it is something different to be here yourself and to see and talk to the people that are [impacted by] the money spent,” she said.

Georgensen said when she returns home she will tell her ministers about the impact the funds are having. Sh eadded that she felt there was a need to increase the percentage of the grant they were sending to Liberia.

Also speaking at the FRRC was Dr. John K. Mulbah, project manager of the fistula rehab center. He said that the incidence of fistula was higher in the rural part in the country because of the level of teenage pregnancy there.

He said that pregnant girls of about 14 or 15 years old are potential victims of fistula because they have such limited access to c-sections.

Mulbah explained that girls are receiving treatment for fistula as well as vocational training to help them get reintegrated in the society by which they had been stigmatized because of their medical condition.

Some of the patients expressed how much the program had transformed their lives, confirming that apart from the treatment for their condition, they had also acquired vocational training to survive the stigma that people attached to them.