Published: June 5, 2026
MONROVIA — Sweden said goodbye to Liberia on Thursday, closing out nearly two decades and USD 170 million in bilateral development cooperation with a farewell ceremony in Monrovia, as civil society groups warned the exit leaves gaping holes in health, governance, and media funding that no other donor has yet filled.
The Embassy of Sweden gathered more than 100 government officials, civil society leaders, implementing partners, and international donors at the Sinkor Palace for an event held under the theme “Celebrating Results and Partnership.” The ceremony served as the embassy’s last occasion to honor joint achievements across governance, gender equality, economic inclusion, anti-corruption, and natural resource management before Sweden closes its Monrovia mission for good.
“Over the years, we have had the honor of working with many partners: Liberian and international CSOs, UN agencies, development banks, and grassroots organizations,” said Kerstin Jonsson Cissé, Head of Development Cooperation at the Swedish Embassy. “Together we have contributed to Liberia’s transition from a post-conflict country to one building a more prosperous future.”
The Swedish Embassy formally announced last December that the Swedish government would phase out its bilateral development cooperation with Liberia and close the Monrovia embassy during 2026, with operations set to terminate by the end of August. The decision, described as difficult, is a direct consequence of reduced funding in Sweden’s overall budget for global development cooperation.
Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Benjamin Dousa characterized it as the biggest change in Swedish aid “ever in Sweden’s history,” announcing simultaneously that development assistance to Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Bolivia would also be phased out. Dousa said the government made the decision in order to divert development funds to Ukraine for its defense against Russia.
USD 170 Million and Dozens of Projects
Sweden’s bilateral cooperation strategy for Liberia from 2021 to 2025 alone allocated approximately SEK 1.85 billion (roughly USD 170 million) across roughly 39 active projects at any given time. That figure excludes contributions made through multilateral agencies and EU-managed programs over the prior decade.
The portfolio covered almost every major sector of Liberian public life. The Carter Center and LEON received about USD 11.8 million between 2017 and 2025 to expand community access to justice, with project records indicating Carter Center community justice advisors have opened roughly 11,000 legal cases at the village level since the program began.
The UNFPA Country Program (2020–2026), with a budget of around USD 6.7 million, reports distributing reproductive health supplies across eight counties and estimates that the Swedish-supported interventions helped prevent approximately 374 maternal deaths and 1,481 child deaths during the program period.
Mercy Corps, which received about USD 5.1 million to implement a youth employment and MSME development program in Montserrado and Nimba counties, had its interim country manager, Jacob Sambolah, summarize the program’s guiding philosophy bluntly at Thursday’s event: “Vulnerable people are not problems to fix, but engines of growth, if the systems allow it.”
Swedish support also financed CENTAL’s anti-corruption programming, now in its second phase (2024–2027, approximately USD 1.6 million); the Naymote Partners for Democratic Development civic engagement project; and a New Narratives independent journalism grant of approximately USD 700,000 spanning 2022 through 2026.
The Beyond-the-Grid Fund, managed by NEFCO and REEEP, allocated about USD 10.6 million to expand renewable energy access nationwide. A joint Conservation International Blue Ocean Programme, running from 2019 to 2026 with roughly USD 4.8 million, created Liberia’s first-ever national mangrove inventory. The Land Authority Support Program with Swedish agency Lantmäteriet invested around USD 10.4 million over two phases to improve land governance and promote gender-inclusive land administration.
In elections, Sweden contributed approximately USD 4.3 million through UNDP to support the 2021 and 2023 electoral cycles, including logistical and institutional strengthening for the National Elections Commission.
Two Panels, One Shared Concern: Sustainability
Thursday’s program was structured around two interactive dialogue panels designed to foreground candid conversation rather than formal presentations.
The panel, titled “Opportunities, Rights, and Empowerment,” discussed inclusive economic development, gender equality, climate change, and natural resource management. Participants highlighted that access to markets, financial inclusion, and intersectional rights-based approaches must be built into resilient systems, not rely on donor-driven program cycles.
Panel 2 — “Accountability, Transparency, and Social Cohesion” — examined civic engagement, anti-corruption efforts, and decentralization. Partners gave examples of accountability work operating at community, county, and national levels and voiced guarded optimism about the sustainability of gains, particularly around the National Anti-Corruption Court and ongoing decentralization reforms under the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The subtext running through both panels was the same question: what happens when the Swedish checks stop coming?
Alarm Bells in Health and Civil Society
Sweden’s exit is already raising alarms in the sexual and reproductive health space, where the embassy’s funding supported the Amplifying Rights Network, a coalition of 10 civil society organizations. Network members say the first losses will likely be felt in rural counties, where mentorship and sexuality education programs may shrink sharply, reducing access in communities already facing high rates of teen pregnancy and limited access to contraception.
The cut also comes as U.S. health support to Liberia has narrowed under a new five-year compact that civil society groups say does not replace lost support for sexual and reproductive health and rights.
The convergence of Swedish and American reductions in the same programmatic space within months of each other has deepened anxiety among Liberian health advocates about the near-term outlook for women and girls in underserved counties.
A Strategic Realignment, Not a Severing
Sweden has been careful to frame the closure not as abandonment but as realignment. The embassy confirmed that Sweden’s contributions to Liberia through the European Union and multilateral organizations will continue unchanged, and emphasized that the decision is not related to any policies or events within Liberia.
Diplomatic relations with Liberia will persist, managed through concurrent accreditation from another country in the region. Sweden has indicated that trade and investment ties, especially around Liberia’s natural resources and Swedish expertise in technology and sustainable industries, are expected to become the new main focus of the bilateral relationship.
Nonetheless, Liberia’s civil society has been unsparing in assessing what is being lost. Naymote’s executive director said Sweden had “contributed immensely to the advancement of democracy in Liberia” and that the partnership’s closure “is something we never anticipated at this time,” adding that “Liberia will truly feel the absence of the embassy and its work.”
The closure leaves a structural gap that Liberia’s government, remaining donors, and civil society will need to navigate. Sweden was, at the time of the announcement, the country’s largest remaining bilateral donor — a status made more consequential by parallel reductions in U.S. and EU programming.
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