Government plans donor conference to seek development aid

Liberia plans to host an international conference with donors in mid-July to seek ways to fund reconstruction after 14 years of civil war. “The government is keen on attracting development aid for reconstruction as compared to the usual humanitarian or relief aid,” Finance Minister Antoinette Sayeh said on Tuesday. The government has invited various donors to the planned conference and is waiting for their responses. Sayeh did not say how much funding Liberia was seeking. The World Bank has already granted Liberia US $30 million to repair roads and restore water and electricity to the capital, Monrovia. The government of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has begun rehabilitating the city, including filling potholes and reconstructing buildings destroyed during the war. Sirleaf has issued an executive order suspending tariffs on the importation of cement. In April, the government released a short-term recovery and development agenda that includes revitalizing the economy, combating corruption, restructuring the country’s security forces, rebuilding infrastructure and strengthening governance and rule of law. Sayeh said that in order to secure additional funding Liberia needed to demonstrate how it planned to repay its foreign debt of US $3.5 billion. “The government is preparing a key element of its poverty reduction strategy and finding ways to settle its external creditors,” Sayeh said. On Monday, Planning Minister Togba McIntosh released an Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy, which involves improving the economy, governance, infrastructure, social services and security, within the framework of the UN millennium development goals. The goals have been agreed to by all the world’s nations and leading development institutions. Aims include reducing poverty and child mortality, improving education, combating disease and developing a global partnership for development. With the presence of international financial experts from the International Monetary Fund under its staff monitoring programme, Finance Minister Sayeh expressed hope that by the second quarter of next year Liberia would qualify for interim debt relief. ak/cs/ccr