As part of efforts to ensure effectiveness and improve project desired outcomes, today the Ministry of Gender, Children & Social Protection – Liberia through the Minister Honorable Gbeme Horace Kollie signed a 19 week contract with the Center for Research, Evaluation and Policy (CENREP) for the conduct of a Baseline Survey to inform interventions on gender and women empowerment.
The baseline survey is a key component of the overall LWEP impact evaluation (IE). The primary goals of the IE are to: measure and track LWEP results indicators; identify and measure the impacts of LWEP activities, related interventions, and
implementation processes on key outcomes; provide analysis and insight on the processes leading to measured indicators and outcomes; assist the Government of Liberia, the World Bank, and other stakeholders to improve the effectiveness of LWEP and of other similar projects; and contribute to the evidence base on the impacts of social norms, livelihoods, and women’s empowerment projects.
To achieve these objectives, the LWEP IE will engage in several research activities throughout the course of the project which may include baseline and endline surveys, focus group discussions, administrative data, and other innovative forms of data collection.
The research design will incorporate a randomized control trial (RCT) with randomly assigned intervention and control groups to address key research questions that cannot be answered through other research methods. See Section IV for more details on the research design.
The Survey will provide data from a total of thirteen thousand (13,000) respondents from across the Six (6) project counties which include: Rural Montserrado, Bomi, Gbarpolu, CapeMount, Grand Gedeh and Rivercess.
The baseline survey(s) will be conducted prior to the implementation of any LWEP activities at the household, community, and facility level. Primary data will be collected within various groups in target communities and counter factual communities, selected from a set of eligible communities. These groups include, but are not limited to: individual women and men and formal and informal health and education workers.
During the official contract signing ceremony at the Ministry of Gender on Wednesday, March 5, 2025, Gender Minister Gbeme Horace Kollie Challenged the firm to ensure the collection of quality data to inform interventions around gender and women empowerment.
In response, CENREP Managing Partner, Dr Christopher Topkah lauded the Ministry of Gender and World Bank for entrusting a local/Liberian based firm to conduct said research. He pledged his organization’s fullest commitment to ensuring the desired results of the baseline is achieved.
The Liberia Women Empowerment Project (LWEP) is is a 44.6Million dollar World Bank funded project implemented by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection. The project targets over 267,000 beneficiaries from 6 counties in Liberia.
French Embassy in Liberia Embassy of Ireland in Liberia U.S. Embassy Monrovia, Liberia UK in Liberia – British Embassy, Monrovia European Union in Liberia UN Women Liberia Sweden, Women NGOs Secretariat of Liberia Forum City Liberia Plan International Liberia medica Liberia Actionaid Liberia Women in Agriculture for Sustainable Development.
