Post-conflict policy in Liberia

Wilmot A. Reeves 12

The first paragraph of Liberia’s 2006 National Human Development Report (NHDR) opens as follows:

The impact of the civil war and poor governance on Liberia’s capacity for human development has been devastating. Loss of life through violent conflict or extreme deprivation, forced human displacement, the destruction of infrastructure and government capacity, and the collapse of livelihoods have left a perilous legacy of human insecurity. Even though the crisis of war has ended and the first steps towards reconstruction have been successfully made, the challenges are enormous. Indicators of human development in Liberia – covering employment, income, health, education, gender equality and child welfare – are among the lowest in the world ... 13

Liberia has a history imbued with over a quarter century of political instability and economic mismanagement, resulting in 14 years of civil conflict (1989–2003). Its NHDR observes that the civil war had a devastating imprint on the country, affecting all indicators of human development. Presently, Liberia has a poverty rate of 63.8 per cent, unemployment rate is at 80 per cent in the formal sector, and the productive sector (agriculture, mining, forestry, fisheries, etc.) are almost completely paralysed.

Following years of civil conflict, the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was finally signed by all warring parties on 18 August 2003, including the government of Liberia, which was headed by President Charles

Taylor, 14 the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), 15 and other political parties. After the signing of the CPA, President Charles Taylor was forced into exile in Nigeria, allowing his vice-president, Moses Zeh Blah, to preside over the country as president until the transitional government was inaugurated. In October 2003, the National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL) was inaugurated into office, eventually leading the country into democratic elections in October 2005.

Eighteen months after the signing of the CPA, Liberia continued to grapple with the daunting challenge of rebuilding the country. The CPA, brokered with the support of the international community, and guided by UN Security Council

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Resolution 1509, 16 paved the way for one of the largest UN peacekeeping missions tasked with immediately restoring order and creating the political space to rebuild a viable state apparatus. The 2004 Liberia Reconstruction Conference (under the joint auspices of the Transitional Government of Liberia, the UN, the US and the World Bank, and strongly supported by the European Commission and other donors) led to a short-term stabilization plan, which served as the government-partner framework for dialogue and assistance. Because of its focus on verifiable results and inclusive institutional mechanisms, it elicited an unprecedented response from the donor community. Total pledges at the conference amounted to US$522 million, close to 80 per cent of the country’s combined humanitarian and reconstruction needs.

In 2005, Liberia held general and presidential elections, which were free of violence and declared transparent by the international community. Mrs Ellen Johnson Sirleaf emerged as winner in these elections, setting the record for being Africa’s first democratically elected female President, running on the ticket of the Unity Party (one of 21 political parties that had participated in the elections).

The years of conflict are behind the Liberian people, and relative peace now exists in the country, following disarmament (undertaken by a 15,000- strong UN Peacekeeping Force), demobilization, rehabilitation and the reintegration of over 100,000 ex-combatants. Support for this initiative was provided by the international community. However, there are still enormous development challenges because of high public expectations for the government to deliver on public services, including quality health and education services, jobs and the reconstruction and rehabilitation of roads and bridges. Given the severity of damage to the country’s infrastructure, the restoration of basic services and the revival of the collapsed economy were the government’s highest priorities.

The government set out to establish a concrete development framework, which was comprised of four pillars: enhancing national security, economic revitalization, governance and rule of law, and basic services and infrastructure. With the Liberia Reconstruction and Development Committee leading the development agenda, the government, with the assistance of international development partners, formulated its first 150 Days Action Plan. One of the deliverables in the Action Plan was the formulation of an interim Poverty Reduction Strategy (iPRS). This was followed by a Private Sector Day, which focused on investment opportunities in Liberia.

Using the experience and lessons learnt from the short-term stabilization plan, the 150 Days Action Plan, and the iPRS, Liberia now has a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), which was formulated with the technical and financial assistance of its development partners. In June 2008, the PRSP was presented to partners in Germany, where a considerable amount of technical and financial support was also pledged. The PRSP is still built around the four pillars of the government’s initial development framework, albeit with slight modifications: consolidating peace and security, revitalizing the

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economy, strengthening governance and rule of law, rehabilitating the infrastructure and delivering basic services.

Liberia is presently classified as a heavily indebted poor country (HIPC), with an external debt portfolio of more than US$4.5 billion (part of which has been waived by some donors, including the US and Germany) – a clear justification for preparing a PRSP. The PRSP serves as a framework for strong partnerships, donor assistance and debt relief. With this, Liberia is most likely to qualify for a complete debt waiver.

Liberia still faces huge development challenges in its traditional growth- driven sectors, including agriculture, forestry and mining. In addition, it is faced with the challenge of reforming a very underdeveloped financial sector, gener- ating productive employment, and diversifying the economy. These challenges have the potential to undermine Liberia’s progress on human development.

Questions

13.7 Assume you are ministers of the newly elected government of Liberia,

faced with these demanding development challenges. What would be your immediate response? Briefly outline and discuss key poverty- alleviation measures that you would propose to the government to deal with some of the challenges described in the above discussion.

13.8 Assuming the development priorities listed below are just a few of the

areas that need serious attention, which would you prioritize? Justify your selection from the perspective of the human development and capability approach (you can select more than one option): (a) revitalizing the economy through agricultural development, private

sector development, and the mining and forestry sectors; (b) enhancing national security and consolidating the peace process; (c) creating jobs through labour-intensive projects; (d) creating jobs through capital-intensive projects; (e) rehabilitating the infrastructure (roads and bridges) and delivering

basic services; or (f) all of the above.

Notes

1 The Harvard Business School case study method is probably the most well known. As its website puts it: ‘There is only one way to learn the demanding art of leadership – and that’s by leading . . . By engaging students in business conflicts developed from real events, cases immerse students in the challenges they are expected to face. Challenges that require thoughtful analyses with only limited or even insufficient information. That requires effective responses within ambiguous circumstances or complex economic and political contexts.’ See www.hbs.edu/learning/case.html. 2 Adib Nehmeh is Policy Advisor with UNDP in Lebanon. This fictional story, based on real data, is taken from a presentation made at the 2008 Human Development Oxford Training Course by Nuzhat Ahmed, Cesar Caballero,

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David McLachlan-Karr, Rogel Nuguid, Rajasekharan Parameswaran, Nasser Shammout and Serge Yapo, with Adib Nehmeh as the lead author of the story. Data come from the National Human Development Report of Ghana, available at www.undp-gha.org. The presentation, entitled ‘Ghana: An advocacy strategy to end violence against women, is available in PowerPoint ® at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/nhdr/training/oxford/2008/presentations/. 3 Seyhan Aydinligil is Professor of Social Policy and Human Development, Middle Eastern Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. Data are mainly taken from ‘Turkey: An Overview’ at www.worldbank.org/tr, and the Turkish National Human Development Report. 4 Nuval-Davis, Nira (2007) ‘Intersectionality, citizenship, and contemporary politics of belonging’ in Jennifer Bennett (ed.) Scratching the Surface: Democracy, Traditions and Gender, HBF, Lahore, pp7–23. 5 This edited case study is drawn from chapter 3, ‘Fiscal Space’, in a UNDP report entitled Macro-economic Policies for Poverty Reduction: the Case of Syria, April 2005. It has been reproduced with the kind permission of Khalid Abu-Ismail/UNDP. 6 Nejmeh, Elias (2003) ‘Economic reform, where to?’ paper presented to the Syrian Scientific Economic Assembly, Damascus. 7 The case study draws mainly from a UNDP document entitled ‘Evaluation of UNDP assistance to conflict-affected countries: Haiti’ written by Carroll Faubert. It has been supplied by a group of participants at the 2008 Human Development Oxford Training Course (Olivier Adam, Judy Grayson, Patrick Kendall, Antonio Vigilante and Louisa Vitton). The presentation entitled ‘Haiti:

A New Beginning’ can be accessed at http://hdr.undp.org/en/nhdr/training/oxford/2008/presentations/. For a glimpse of life in Haiti, see Sen’s ‘Foreword’ to Paul Farmer (2005) Pathologies of Power, University of California Press, Berkeley, which has been reproduced in Maitreyee, the e-bulletin of the Human Development and Capability Association, October 2006, available at http://www.hd-ca.org. 8 It is estimated that between 18 and 20 per cent of illegal drugs entering the US transit through Haiti. 9 Centre for Policy and Human Development, Kabul University. 10 Since 2001, Afghanistan has received more than US$15 billion in Official Development Assistance (ODA), not including off-budget security spending, which is not formally reported. Current estimates for total assistance, ODA and security-related expenditures are US$40–50 billion. 11 The Afghanistan Compact establishes the framework for international cooperation with Afghanistan. The document is available at www.nato.int/isaf/docu/epub/pdf/afghanistan_compact.pdf. 12 National Economist, UNDP, Liberia.

13 A copy of the report, entitled ‘Mobilising capacity for reconstruction and development’, is available at www.lr.undp.org/NHDR’06_web.pdf. 14 President Charles Taylor is presently in the International Tribunal in The Hague, facing charges of war crimes, brought against him by the Special Court of Sierra Leone, for his alleged support of the civil war in that country in exchange for diamonds. 15 LURD and MODEL were the two rebel factions fighting to oust the government of President Charles Taylor. LURD was attacking the government forces from the northwestern region of Liberia, while MODEL attacked it from its southeastern and central regions.

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16 UN Security Council Resolution 1509 was adopted at its 4830th meeting on 19 September 2003 to support the end of the civil conflict in Liberia and to restore civil authority.

Appendix 1

Post-conflict policy in Liberia