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By Jeff Massah
Monrovia, Liberia – June 18, 2025 – Stakeholders from across Liberia’s agricultural sector have reaffirmed their commitment to advancing compliance with the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), recognizing it as critical to safeguarding market access and strengthening the country’s cocoa and rubber industries.
The commitment was made during a high-level EUDR workshop organized by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) through its Trace2Invest Project and hosted at the World Bank Group Liberia Country Office in Monrovia. The one-day forum brought together representatives from government institutions, regulatory agencies, private sector actors, farmer organizations, and development partners to advance collective action on EUDR compliance and traceability.
The IFC, through the Trace2Invest Project, is actively supporting the Government of Liberia in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Liberia Agriculture Commodity Regulatory Authority (LACRA) to develop systems that will enable sector-wide compliance, secure access to European markets, and attract private investment into Liberia’s cocoa and rubber value chains.
Opening the workshop, IFC Resident Representative Kobina Daniel emphasized the importance of collaboration among public and private sector stakeholders in preparing Liberia to meet the requirements of the EUDR.
He noted that the regulation should not be viewed solely as a compliance obligation but as an opportunity to modernize Liberia’s agricultural sector and improve its competitiveness in international markets.
“The EUDR is not simply a European Union regulatory requirement; it is a potential game-changer for Liberia’s agricultural and commercial future,” Daniel said.
He explained that the regulation requires exporters to demonstrate that commodities such as cocoa and rubber are produced legally, free from recent deforestation, and fully traceable to their geographic origin.
According to Daniel, cocoa and rubber remain vital pillars of Liberia’s economy, supporting more than 600,000 livelihoods and generating over US$170 million in annual export earnings. Approximately 65 percent of Liberia’s cocoa exports and nearly 30 percent of its rubber exports are destined for the European Union, making compliance essential to maintaining access to these lucrative markets.
While acknowledging existing challenges in traceability systems, geospatial mapping, and farm-level data management, Daniel stressed that Liberia has a unique opportunity to strengthen transparency, improve agricultural governance, and position itself as a competitive supplier of sustainable commodities.
He highlighted ongoing support from the World Bank Group through the Rural Economic Transformation Project (RETRAP) and the Trace2Invest initiative, which are helping establish a national due diligence and traceability framework for cocoa and rubber production.
“No single institution can achieve EUDR compliance alone,” Daniel said. “Success will require coordinated action among government agencies, private sector actors, farmers, and development partners.”
Also addressing the forum, LACRA Director General Christopher D. Sankolo described EUDR compliance as one of the most important issues facing Liberia’s commodity sectors.
Sankolo recalled that when discussions around the EUDR first began in 2024, many stakeholders had limited knowledge of the regulation and its potential implications for Liberia’s agricultural exports. He noted that LACRA had initiated stakeholder consultations and developed an implementation roadmap, but progress was constrained by limited resources.
“We developed a roadmap and assigned responsibilities across institutions, but one of the biggest challenges was financing its implementation,” Sankolo said.
He welcomed IFC’s intervention and expressed confidence that the support would help Liberia accelerate its preparedness efforts. Highlighting the importance of market access, Sankolo emphasized that farmers are motivated by opportunities to sell their products.
“Agriculture is driven by markets,” he said. “If farmers have access to reliable markets, they will continue to invest and expand production. Without markets, there is little incentive to farm. That is why EUDR compliance is so important to Liberia’s cocoa, rubber, and other commodity sectors.”
He pledged LACRA’s full cooperation and support in working alongside government agencies, development partners, and farmers to ensure Liberia remains competitive in international markets.
For his part, Deputy Minister for Policy and Planning at the Ministry of Agriculture, David Akoi, acknowledged that Liberia’s initial response to the EUDR was marked by uncertainty and skepticism due to limited understanding of the regulation and its implications.
“At the beginning, many stakeholders, including government institutions, did not fully understand what the EUDR meant for Liberia and our farmers,” Akoi said.
He stressed that Liberia’s concerns were not rooted in opposition to international standards but rather in the need for meaningful consultation, awareness, and alignment with national agricultural priorities.
Akoi called for a coordinated national approach to implementation, warning against fragmented efforts by individual institutions.
“The EUDR requires a whole-of-country approach,” he said. “The Ministry of Agriculture, LACRA, NAFAA, the Forestry Development Authority, private sector actors, and development partners must work together under a common framework if we are to succeed.”
The Deputy Minister welcomed the workshop as a significant step toward building consensus and strengthening understanding of the regulation among stakeholders. He also reaffirmed the Ministry of Agriculture’s commitment to leading and coordinating Liberia’s EUDR preparedness efforts.
“We now recognize that EUDR compliance is not only about meeting European Union requirements,” Akoi stated. “It is also about strengthening Liberia’s own systems for traceability, transparency, market access, and sustainable agricultural development.”
A key highlight of the workshop was a presentation by Michael Amoah, Consultant with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), who helped demystify many of the misconceptions surrounding the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and its implications for Liberia’s agricultural sector.
Drawing on practical experiences and lessons learned from neighboring West African countries, particularly Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, Amoah outlined how both countries have made significant progress in preparing their cocoa sectors for EUDR compliance through investments in farmer registration, farm mapping, traceability systems, and multi-stakeholder coordination mechanisms.
He emphasized that the EUDR should not be viewed as a trade barrier, but rather as a new global standard that rewards sustainable production, transparency, and responsible land-use practices. According to Amoah, countries that move quickly to establish credible compliance systems will be better positioned to maintain and expand access to premium international markets.
Amoah explained that under the EUDR, operators and exporters seeking access to the European market must demonstrate that commodities such as cocoa and rubber are produced on land that has not been subject to deforestation after the cut-off date established by the regulation. In addition, products must be traceable to their exact geographical origin and supported by verifiable due diligence systems.
The IFC consultant further stressed that Liberia has a strategic opportunity to learn from the experiences of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire and avoid some of the challenges they encountered during the early stages of implementation. He encouraged stakeholders to adopt a coordinated national approach that brings together government institutions, regulatory agencies, exporters, farmer organizations, development partners, and financial institutions.
His presentation generated extensive discussion among participants and helped build a clearer understanding of the urgency of preparing Liberia’s cocoa and rubber sectors for compliance ahead of the regulation’s full implementation.
As a key outcome of the workshop, stakeholders agreed on several priority actions to advance Liberia’s EUDR readiness. These include strengthening inter-agency coordination, establishing a robust institutional framework to guide implementation, increasing awareness and sensitization efforts among farmers and value chain actors, creating a technical coordination secretariat to prevent fragmented implementation, and pursuing joint resource mobilization to support compliance activities.
Participants expressed optimism that with stronger collaboration, adequate resources, and sustained technical support, Liberia can successfully meet EUDR requirements while enhancing the long-term sustainability and competitiveness of its cocoa and rubber sectors.
