THE RELEASE OF the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Fiscal Year 2027 scorecard has handed Liberia a familiar and double-edged verdict. On one hand, the nation has reason for measured pride: Liberia cleared the mandatory “hard hurdles” — passing the Control of Corruption and Personal Freedom indicators and meeting the overall Half Scorecard requirement. These are no small feats.
THEY SIGNAL TO the world that governance under President Joseph Boakai’s administration is trending in the right direction, and they keep alive the possibility of a five-year compact that could transform the country’s economic trajectory. But a pass on the scorecard is not a pass for the Liberian people. And it is certainly not a passing grade for Liberia’s women and children.
THE FY27 SCORECARD exposes, with uncomfortable clarity, where the nation is failing its most vulnerable citizens. Liberia failed the Child Health indicator with a score of 0.402 — below the median of 0.447. It failed the Girls’ Primary Education Completion Rate, scoring 59.0 against a median of 72.4, a gap that speaks to structural weaknesses in early childhood development and basic education.
IT FAILED WOMEN in the Economy, narrowly missing the median, a result that confirms legal and regulatory barriers still shackle women’s full participation in the labor market. It failed Employment Opportunity with a score of 0.139 against a median of 0.455 — a stunning indictment of formal job creation. And it failed Access to Credit, scoring 0.471 against a median of 0.507, revealing how financial exclusion keeps Liberian women trapped in the informal sector and micro-enterprises with little room to grow.
MOST TROUBLING IS the regression. In the FY 2026 scorecard, Liberia passed Gender in the Economy at 84 percent and Access to Credit at 73 percent. One year later, both have slipped into failure. This volatility is a warning: gains in women’s empowerment are not yet institutionalized. They remain fragile, reversible, and too often dependent on circumstance rather than deliberate policy.
MEANWHILE, DEFICITS IN primary education and child health have persisted across both cycles — a chronic condition that no amount of governance reform can excuse. Here is where the government must resist the temptation to treat the MCC scorecard as a diplomatic formality — a box to be ticked on the way to a December Board decision in Washington. The scorecard is not merely a gateway to funding. It is a diagnostic instrument. It is a working tool. And it must be used as such.
THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD take each failed indicator — Child Health, Girls’ Primary Education Completion, Women in the Economy, Employment Opportunity, Access to Credit — and assign them to the ministries and agencies responsible, with clear timelines, measurable targets, and public accountability. The Ministry of Education must explain, in specific terms, why girls are not completing primary school and what interventions — from school feeding to menstrual health support to safety in schools — will change that trajectory.
THE MINISTRY OF Health must account for the child health deficit and outline concrete investments in immunization, nutrition, and maternal care. The Ministries of Finance, Justice, and Commerce must dismantle the legal and regulatory barriers that keep women out of the formal economy and away from credit. The Central Bank and financial regulators must expand financial inclusion strategies that reach women where they are — in the markets, in the villages, in the small businesses that hold up entire communities.
THIS IS NOT simply about earning a better score in the next report, though that would be welcome. It is about building a better society. A country cannot claim to be on a path to prosperity when its girls are less likely than boys to finish primary school. It cannot boast of governance reforms when its children’s health lags behind the median of its peers. It cannot celebrate economic competitiveness when women — more than half the population — are largely locked out of employment opportunities and credit.
THE MCC’s WORKFORCE Development indicator was marked N/A this year, leaving a gap in the human capital strategy. That gap must be filled with urgency, not ignored.
The December Board meeting will require Liberia to convince MCC’s directors that its strong governance framework can address these critical deficits. That is a necessary argument to make. But the more important audience is domestic.
THE GOVERNMENT MUST convince the Liberian people — women, children, families — that these scorecard failures will not be filed away until next year’s report. They must become the basis for action: budgeted, monitored, and reported to the public.
Liberia has a genuine opportunity. The governance wins are real. The international market access, property rights, and market competitiveness scores are encouraging. The
MCC PARTNERSHIP, IF secured, could be a catalyst for infrastructure and reform. But no compact, however generous, can substitute for the deliberate work of ensuring that women can work, borrow, and thrive; that girls can finish school; and that children can survive and grow healthy. The FY27 scorecard has done Liberia a favor. It has told the truth.
THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD take that truth seriously — not as a hurdle to clear in December, but as a mandate to build a fairer, stronger, and more inclusive Liberia for the generations who will inherit it.
