In Summary
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MPC Political Leader Simeon Freeman has claimed that Liberia’s urban migration rate is more than 3.1% and that Monrovia gets between 65,000 and 75,000 new inhabitants annually.
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A review of LISGIS and World Bank data found that Liberia’s urban population grew at 4.1% annually between 2008 and 2022, while recent World Bank estimates place urban population growth at about 3.1%.
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Based on these figures, we conclude that Monrovia is estimated to grow by 60,000 to 80,000 residents every year, rating Mr. Freeman’s claim as mostly correct.
On July 6, the Movement for Progressive Change Political leader Simeon Freeman claimed that the rate of urban migration exceeds 3.1%, meaning about 65,000 to 75,000 new residents move to Monrovia every year.
Report By: Queenelle Bailey | LMEP Fact Check Grant Fellow
Mr. Freeman made this claim on Punch FM while discussing a range of national issues, from governance to economic stabilization. He argued that establishing industries across Liberia would help decongest Monrovia, which he said has become overly populated, by creating jobs and economic opportunities in the counties and reducing migration to the capital.
Urban migration, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and UN-Habitat, generally refers to the movement of people from one place to another, particularly from rural to urban areas, resulting in a change in their usual place of residence.
The Claim
Mr. Freeman’s exact words were: “The rate of urban migration is more than 3.1%, which is adding 65 to 75 thousand new inhabitants to Monrovia every year.”
Rating Justification
To verify this claim, we reviewed reports and data published by the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS), the World Bank, the United Nations in Liberia, and the Government of Liberia’s urban development planning documents.
According to the 2022 Liberia Population and Housing Census thematic report on Population projections, the number of people living in urban areas grew from 1.63 million in 2008 to 2.86 million in 2022, at an annual growth rate of 4.1%.
Also, the report indicates that Monrovia grew from 1.01 million people in 2008 to 1.76 million in 2022, an increase of roughly 750,000 residents over 14 years, at a growth rate of about 4% annually.
This means an average of about 53,576 additional residents were added to Monrovia yearly between 2008 and 2022.
The report identifies Monrovia and Montserrado County as Liberia’s principal destinations for migrants because of greater access to employment, education, healthcare, infrastructure, and other public services.
Additionally, Trading Economics, a global economic data platform that aggregates and publishes economic, financial, and demographic statistics from around the world, reports that Liberia’s annual urban population growth rate was at 3.1% in 2024, citing the World Bank’s development indicators for Liberia.
We then searched the World Bank data and found that the bank estimates Liberia’s annual urban migration rate at 3.1% in 2025. According to the report, the estimate is based on the United Nations Population Division’s World Urbanization Prospects.
Regarding Freeman’s assertion that 65,000 to 75,000 new inhabitants are added to Monrovia every year, we estimated the annual increase in Monrovia’s population using the World Bank’s urban population growth rate of 3.1% and the LISGIS urban growth rate of 3.0% in 2022.
Our calculations indicate that Monrovia or urban Montserrado County’s population had increased by over 49,000 additional residents each year from 2023 and will hit 60,000 by 2032, depending on the LISGIS and World Bank’s 3.0% and 3.1% growth rates, respectively.
For example, in 2022, urban Montserrado County had a population of 1.76 million inhabitants, which increased by 49,455 new residents to 1.81 million in 2023 using the LISGIS growth rate.
Conclusion
Based on a review of the 2022 Liberia Population and Housing Census report and World Bank’s estimates, we conclude that MPC Political Leader Simeon Freeman’s claim that Liberia’s urban migration rate is more than 3.1% is mostly correct. However, his claim that up to 75,000 new inhabitants are added to Monrovia annually is incorrect.
Our review of the 2022 Liberia Population and Housing Census report and the World Bank’s estimates revealed a 3.0% and 3.1% urban migration rates for urban Montserrado between 2022 and 2026 respectively.
Editor’s Note: This story is produced as part of the Liberia Media Empowerment Project (LMEP) implemented by Internews with funding from the European Union. The funder or partner had no say in the production of this fact-check report.
