The International Recuse Committee (IRC) implementing the USAID-CHA project community health program in Bong, Lofa, River Gee, and Grand Kru counties has ended its project at the Ministry of Health in Monrovia.
Speaking during the opening ceremony, the Assistant Minister for Preventive Services at the Ministry of Health (MOH) noted that the Community Health Program has been a success since the Ama-Authur Declaration.
Dr. Cuallau Jabbeh-Howe said, that Liberia recognizes the need to build a stronger, and more resilient health system that will leave nobody behind and draw up successes from the pillar of the community health program that was done in Grand Gedeh County.
According to Min. Jabbeh, the Ministry of Health, and its partners designed and scaled the National Community Health Program to extend to Liberia’s primary health care of which 1.2 million constitute 29 % of the people living in the rural areas.
To support the MOH, IRC was instrumental in scaling up the National Community Health Program (NCHP) in four of Liberia’s 15 counties, Dr. Jubbeh added.
Making special remarks at the program, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Liberia expressed gratitude to IRC and its partners for their contribution to the health sector.
Dr. Cathrine Cooper praised Last Mile Health, Development Education Network- Liberia (DEN-L), Community Safety Initiatives (CSI), and the Government to Government (G2G) County Health Teams, River Gee, and Grand Kru for implementing the Community Health Activity program.
She emphasized, that the National Public Health Institute of Libera (NPHIL) and the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) were part of the one health platform supporting the MOH.
Liberia’s CMO narrated the Community Health Program played a significant role in the strategic development of the Ministry and health sector, noting the project was a flagship community health project that focused on scaling up in underserved communities, Like the Partnership for Advancing Community Health Services (PACS) supported by USAID.
The four-year project aimed to strengthen the Community Health Activity (CHA) capabilities to deliver superior healthcare services while improving the capacity of County Health teams and the communities to plan, manage, and monitor healthcare service delivery effectively.
It fixed, with a more significant framework, plan development priorities, and strengthened health nutrition, water, sanitation, and hygiene at the national and sub-national levels.
She maintained the USAID-Community Health Activity work to strengthen the Liberian community health system to provide care services in hard-to-reach areas while transferring the national Community Services ownership to the government of Liberia.
The Chief Medical official of Liberia also used the occasion to extend warmest appreciation to the people of the United States of America for their enormous contributions to the health and welfare of the people of Liberia.
For his part, the Community Health Services Director noted the USAID- CHA project started in February 2021 and ended in January 2025 with support from USAID of around 17 million United States dollars.
Mr. S. Olasford T. Wiah narrated the project supported 1,300 communities, four hundred thirty-four thousand plus population, trained 150 CHSSs, and 1,301 CHAs across the four counties.
He named the three objectives as; Increase coverage of the CHAs, Improve the quality of health services by providing capacity training to community health workers, and build the capacity of the County health teams in the four counties.
He said the achievement of the drugs kittens’ program will be introduced across the 15 counties as a way of supporting the supply Chain process which is a key result of the community health program.
He praised Mrs. Cecelia Kpangbla Flomo and the team of the Liberian Board of Nursing and Midwifery for developing an institutionalized CHSS curriculum to be introduced into the Community health program across the Country, which is a milestone achievement.
Making remarks on behalf of the Development Education Network-Liberia, the Executive Director Mr. Peter S. Dolo thanked IRC and the USAID family for the over 10 years of partnerships implementing the USAID -CHA community health Project.
According to Mr. Dolo, DEN-L currently has about 54 policies developed and more than 20 of these policies were developed by the International Rescue Committee (IRC). He noted that IRC played a major role in strengthening institutional systems and build the capacity of DEN-L Staff during the project periods since 2016.
“With the experience and capacity building skills in the Community Health Programs, DEN-L is confident that it could be a prime of any future USAID-Project, Mr. Dolo added”.
The DEN-L Executive Director said the Closure of the USAID-CHA project is not a divorce but rather a short separation.

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