Govt wastes no time holding donor roundtable

Barely six months after taking office, Liberia’s new government will try to secure funds to set the war-battered nation back on track at a two-day international donor conference beginning Wednesday in the capital, Monrovia. The conference, a prelude for a bigger roundtable meeting expected in Washington in October, comes only days after President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf released Liberia’s first peacetime budget, targeted at restoring education, health and other social services damaged by 14 years of war. “The conference will discuss the key question of financing poverty reduction, the 2006/2007 budget and prospects for the clearance of Liberia’s external debt arrears,” the Finance Ministry said. Officials declined to say ahead of the talks just how much Sirleaf would request. But analysts and diplomats have repeatedly urged the international community to speedily rebuild failed states such as Liberia to avoid a political or economic slide that could trigger new tension. “Too many times we have witnessed the same weaknesses in international responses to post-conflict situations - in the shortage of funds, in the lack of international coordination, in the tendency for international actors to leave too hurriedly,” said UN Secretary General Kofi Annan during a visit to Monrovia last week. “This can reverse hard-won results and weaken attempts we are making to build solid societies,” he added. Sirleaf said in an interview with IRIN late last month that because Liberia’s resources were limited, it needed to attract private investment “to get jobs to our people that will enable us to raise the government revenue.” “But to do that we have to build infrastructure. It’s a very complex problem of development we are facing here,” she said. Even the million residents of Monrovia have no mains electricity or piped water. Unemployed youths lug jerry cans across the bridge into town to supply residents with water. And those not wealthy enough to afford a generator depend on paraffin lamps and candles. But Liberians had mixed feelings about the donor talks. “It is a good idea that there’s lots of international focus on our country now,” said Lucia Moore, a government worker. “The coming of international financial experts to help rebuild our economy is welcome.” Others were concerned about how the money would be spent. “The donors must ensure that the funds benefit the Liberian people and NGOs,” said Geraldine Kamara. Streetside cosmetics salesman Daniel Nathan was even blunter. “This is not the first time we have a donor conference and we usually hear that millions of dollars have been raised, but we are not informed on what projects. “This time around we would expect that funds raised be accountable and the projets identified so as to avoid any bad feelings,” he said. The Monrovia conference will bring together donors and financial institutions such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the European Commission (EU), the World Bank, African Development Bank (ADB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Finance Minister Antoinette Sayeh told reporters last weekend that donors are insisting that Liberia clear its debt arrears before it could qualify for any waiver. External debt currently stands at US $3 billion, while domestic debt amounts to US $710 million accumulated by previous regimes. Sayeh said donor funding for Liberia was not being channelled through the government budget and that talks were taking place with donors to monitor how NGOs spend aid funds. "We are now starting to work on that with them (donors) to make sure that even if resources are not flowing through the budget from their financing, at least, we know how much it is and that we have an ability to influence how it is spent in a way that is complementary of our own effort on the budget side," the minister said. In February 2004, the first post-war international reconstruction conference on Liberia was held in New York. Donors pledged US $520 million for the country's recovery through funding of disarmament and reintegration of ex-fighters, resettlement of IDPs and refugees and the rehabilitation of schools and health centres. But the funding pledged at the New York conference was funnelled through international and local non-governmental organizations. ak/ccr/cs