BUCHANAN, Grand Bassa – The general orientation training for county coordinators of the World Bank-sponsored US$10 million Youth Opportunities Project has begun in Grand Bassa amid delays in the project implementation.

The three-day workshop got underway on Thursday in Buchanan with ten of the county coordinators and some national staff in attendance.

The project is expected to cover 15,000 beneficiaries across the country, 50 percent of whom are females, and it is being implemented by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, and the Liberia Agency for Community Empowerment.

According to the national coordinator of the project, Jesse H. Bengue, the workshop aims to train newly recruited staff. The ten coordinators were drawn from Montserrado, Margibi, Bong, Nimba, River Gee, Grand Bassa, Maryland, Grand Gedeh, River Cess and Gbarpolu.

Five counties were not represented at the training due to difficulties in getting qualified coordinators as per the World Bank criteria. The counties are Sinoe, Grand Kru, Grand Cape Mount, Lofa and Bomi. The national coordinator said although the advertising periods of the vacancies have passed, there were still opportunities to get coordinators for those counties.

Bengue also noted that the project would last for five years from September 30, 2016, to October 30, 2020. He said the delay in getting the project started was due to the meticulous steps required by the World Bank.

“We are not just implementing directly,” he said. “We are hiring service providers to help us implement [the] hiring of service providers; we have to follow the World Bank procedures, so the delay is there but we have to follow the Bank recruitment process.”

The project was launched last year by the Liberian government to empower youth across the country.

Featured photo by Sampson David