I really feel as if I’ve been screaming into the void, however the message bears repeating: the age of Synthetic Intelligence is upon us. For Liberia, this isn’t a distant menace however a gift and monumental alternative. If we fail to behave decisively—to construct the foundational digital techniques required to take part—we can be left behind.
By George Okay Fahnbulleh, [email protected], Contributing Author
Nowhere is this chance extra obvious than in healthcare. AI is a real pressure multiplier, able to remodeling well being outcomes in a nation with an acute scarcity of physicians and medical specialists. We’re now not speaking about summary, costly expertise. With the open-source launch of highly effective instruments like Google’s MedGemma, which might run on a single graphics card, state-of-the-art AI is now inside our attain.
The advantages will not be theoretical. In diagnostics, AI can analyze medical photographs and information with a pace and scale no human can match, decreasing diagnostic errors by as much as 30% and slicing reporting occasions in half. It could possibly place expert-level information within the arms of non-specialist clinicians in rural and distant areas, bridging the huge hole in healthcare entry. For a system strained by restricted sources, an AI assistant that enhances a radiologist’s productiveness by 50% is not only an effectivity acquire; it’s a lifeline.
So why the inertia? Why is that this self-evident revolution passing us by?
The reply lies in a cripplingly fragmented method to expertise. To counsel this can be a failure of “my method” is to overlook the purpose completely. The issue just isn’t the messenger; it’s the absence of a coherent, centralized technique. Expertise implementation is like setting up a constructing—it calls for a strong basis. In Liberia, we’ve none.
As a substitute, each authorities company has made a aware choice to hoard and conceal its information. I make this declare with 100% certainty. We see the stark penalties in all places. A current Government Order instructing the Nationwide Identification Registry to easily meet its 2011 mandate laid naked such profound failures that it prompted the President to determine a 10-agency committee simply to determine what went flawed.
Think about this: in 2025, Liberia nonetheless has not standardized on an digital medical report system. We’ve no centralized information storage or administration technique. We award a contract for Nationwide Identification Playing cards to at least one vendor, for driver’s licenses to a different, and for biometric voter registration to a 3rd. All of that is foundational, interconnected information, but it’s managed in remoted, incompatible silos.
This isn’t a failure of advocacy. It’s a failure of governance. The truth that these foundational initiatives will not be transferring ahead with anybody proves the issue is systemic.
We don’t want a unique method; we want a unique mindset from our leaders. We want an finish to the haphazard, every-agency-for-itself mentality. The time for begging and piecemeal efforts is over. We want a decisive, top-down mandate to construct the built-in digital infrastructure that can function the bedrock for our future.
The instruments are right here. The trail is evident. The one query that is still is whether or not our policymakers will discover the need to behave.
