Montserrado County
Vision: Our vision is to create an economically vibrant county that harnesses the unique advantages offered by its diverse urban, peri-urban and rural human and natural resources to ensure equal socioeconomic opportunities for all citizens. With this vision in our minds, we focus on the three priority areas of roads, education, and health, while attending to the nation’s broader objectives in the Poverty Reduction Strategy. In this way, we move the County forward for the betterment of all its citizens and the development of Liberia as a whole.
Overview: Montserrado County is the seat of the Liberian Government. The county’s capital, Monrovia, was created in 1839 before Liberia declared independence. The county is the most densely populated. It accounts for about 70% of the total population and covers 737 square kilometers, about 2% of Liberia’s entire geographic area. However, the county is the location of 70% of public and private business organizations and their operations. Government ministries and agencies of government operate in the Monrovian areas. Today, the County administrators are working to restore the vital infrastructures broken or destroyed in the Civil conflict, reduce poverty, secure lives and properties, revitalize the economy, provide citizens social services, and preserve and protect the rule of law. Bensonville, the birthplace of the late William R. Tolbert, Jr. is an industrial city; it produces milled rice, sawn wood, soap, plastics, paints, furniture and fixtures, cement blocks, oils, processed fish, and confections.
County Government
County Abbreviation: MO
Created: 1839
Capital: Bensonville
County Flag: The flag contains green, brown, blue, and red. Half is red, and half is blue, split along a diagonal line running from the lower left-hand corner to the upper right-hand corner. Blue comprises the top half and symbolizes that Montserrado was the first county. The colors are red, blue and green. The blue color of the flag represents Montserrado as the first County at the time of independence. The red color represents the tribal wars between the settlers and the indigenous. The circle in the center represents the richness of the soil (agriculture).
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State Website:
Superintendent: Nyenekon Beauty
Snoh-Barcon
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Local Government:
Population
Resident:
Resident Population: 1,118,241
Districts: Montserrado County has 21 townships, seven cities, one borough, two chiefdoms, two statutory districts.
Race/Ethnicity: The County is highly diverse, with members of all of
Liberia’s 16 tribes are living together. Bassa- and Kpelle-speaking peoples are in the majority, making up 21% and 52% of the County’s population.
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Economy
GDP:
Unemployment:
Employment: The majority is engaged in business, primarily medium, small, and micro, and mostly informal. Others commute to white-collar jobs with Government ministries and agencies, international and national organizations
They are headquartered in Monrovia. Townships and cities in the rural parts of Greater Monrovia have less accessibility to social services compared to those residing in the Capital. These townships particularly suffer from deplorable roads and insufficient water and sanitation facilities.
County Budget:
Tourist Attraction: Montserrado County is an oasis of attraction, national museums, fine dining, beautiful beaches, and entertaining nightlife. The county is also the location of the historic Providence Island or Liberia’s Ellis Island, where immigrants and free American-American slaves disembarked in 1822. A visit to Monrovia provides tourists the opportunity to see an African newspaper published in the 1830s or stall through a gallery of black presidents dating back to 1847, the National Museum of Liberia, monuments of the country’s presidents, including its founder, the first president of the Republic, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, and Liberia’s Centennial Pavilion built-in 1947 to commemorate the hundred anniversary of Liberia’s independence, to name a few historical sites.
Education
UNICEF estimates that 1,229 of Liberia’s total of 3,082 schools are situated in Montserrado County. Most of these are, however, found in the capital of Greater Monrovia. The Ministry of Education School Census of 2006 shows a total number of
One thousand ninety-six schools, with 757 in Greater Monrovia, 252 in St. Paul River, 52 in Todee, and 35 in Careysburg. Whatever the figure, the fact remains that many children are forced
to walk for several hours to reach their schools and receive a sub-standard education in often dilapidated buildings. Another problem is getting qualified teachers to remote areas.
Geography
Land Area:
Location: Montserrado borders the Atlantic Ocean in the South, Bong County in the North, and Bomi and Margibi Counties in the West and East.
Health
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