Liberia’s Health Ministry trained seven counties on financial management under the PBF Program to boost accountability and service delivery. Officials stressed sustainability as donor funding declines, with the World Bank-backed training seen as vital for strengthening Liberia’s health system.
The Ministry of Health in Liberia, through its Performance-Based Financing (PBF) Program, recently conducted a four-day financial management training workshop in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County. The training brought together health representatives from seven counties, including Montserrado, Bomi, Gbarpolu, Rivercess, Sinoe, Grand Kru, and Maryland. Its goal was to strengthen the capacity of Officers-in-Charge, second screeners, accountants, and procurement officers to effectively manage financial resources, improve reporting, and ensure transparency and accountability in the use of Performance-Based Financing incentives.
Deputy Minister for Administration, Hon. Martha C. Morris, officially opened the training, stressing that PBF has helped improve healthcare delivery, especially in primary care, by enabling facilities to develop business plans based on earned performance incentives. She urged participants to use the training to promote measurable, meaningful, and impactful spending.
The sessions covered a wide range of topics, including PBF funds flow and disbursement, financial procedures at healthcare facilities, procurement management, petty cash handling, audit and quality control, business planning, and financial reporting. Facilitators included senior staff from the PBF Program, Procurement Unit, Office of Financial Management, and the Ministry’s Project Implementation Unit.
Participants welcomed the training, with representatives from Redemption Hospital and the Gbarpolu County Health Team expressing gratitude and pledging to cascade the knowledge gained within their own facilities and counties.
In his closing remarks, Dr. Gorbee Logan, representing Chief Medical Officer Dr. Catherine Cooper, highlighted the importance of the training in the context of declining donor contributions to Liberia’s health sector. He emphasized that the PBF Program remains one of the Ministry’s strongest initiatives for sustaining healthcare and announced plans to complement it with the Community Revolving Drug Fund to address medicine shortages. Logan urged participants to apply the training not only to PBF management but also to other programs and mechanisms.
The training, funded by the World Bank through the Institutional Foundations to Improve Services for Health (IFISH) Project, reflects ongoing efforts to build the financial management skills of healthcare workers and county health teams, ensuring better efficiency and accountability in Liberia’s health sector.
