President Sirleaf Returns Home After Successful London Trip

Liberia Government (Monrovia)

16 June 2011

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf returned to the capital on Wednesday evening, June 15, following a most successful four days in London.

The President participated in the GAVI Alliance Pledging Conference for Immunisation, where $4.3 billion was raised to save children’s lives; delivered a major address at Chatham House on Liberia’s postwar reconstruction experience; and spoke at the opening of the UK-Liberia Investment Forum, attended by over 350 business people and potential investors.

The President was a keynote speaker at the GAVI Pledging Conference on Monday, June 13, where donors pledged $4.3 billion for the Alliance’s multi-year activities through 2015, to be used in immunizing 250 million more children, thereby saving an additional 4 million lives, towards meeting the Millennium Development Goal on reducing child mortality.

GAVI had initially set a target of $3.7 billion. However, with pledges that included $1 billion from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, £840 million from the United Kingdom as announced by Prime Minister David Cameron, a tenfold contribution of $200 million from Australia as announced by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, and a doubling of Norway’s annual contribution to $180 million, as announced by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, and many other donors, that target was far exceeded.

In her remarks at the opening of the Pledging conference, President Sirleaf noted the startling statistics: 1.7 million children die of a vaccine-preventable disease – one child every 20 seconds, three children every minute. While the records showed progress globally, including in sub-Saharan Africa, yet in 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, child mortality rates are above 100 per 1,000 births.

The President attributed the progress realized, in large measure, to the GAVI Alliance. Liberia had had to rebuild every sector of a destroyed nation, the President recalled, and among the many challenges it faced was one of the worst records of child and maternal mortality. With GAVI Alliance support of over US$5 million for the period 2008-2010, the country had increased immunization coverage on average 70 percent for three of the five life-threatening diseases, thus reducing infant mortality from 144 to 71 and under-five mortality from 175 to 110 per 1,000 live births. A major contributing factor to this progress had been government’s success in bringing coherence to its health delivery system through the establishment of the Health Sector Pool Fund in 2008.

Participants were in London, the President said, to build upon GAVI Alliance success and mobilize the $6.8 billion required for an accelerated program for the period 2011-2015. This effort, aimed at saving lives, was in sharp contrast to the much higher costs of the ongoing conflicts that are destroying lives.

“This will happen only if the programs are fully funded through the collective action of those in this room and beyond, due to increased levels of donor contributions, reduction in vaccine prices and increased co-financing from our own countries, the benefitting ones. I cannot think of a better cause, I cannot think a more compelling objective than what this conference, and your participation, is all about – saving the lives of children,” President Sirleaf concluded.

Later that evening, the Liberian leader delivered a major address at Chatham House, in which she shared Liberia’s lessons of experience in moving forward from conflict. “My main message is that Liberia is eight years into a two-decade process. We have cleared enormous hurdles in the past eight years, but it’s the challenges that await us that perhaps are most important.”

Of Liberia’s challenges, she said this: “Speaking about post-war reconstruction is difficult in Liberia’s case because it involved everything: the economy, security, basic services, governance, national status and national healing. What we faced was almost total destruction, and therefore the need for total reconstruction, of both state and society.”

“Where do you start, when faced with such a daunting task?” the Liberian leader asked, rhetorically, noting that Liberia had been called “the land of a thousand priorities.” Recognizing the scale of the task, her government had executed a 150-day plan, followed by an Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy, and in 2008, introduced the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS). The President then outlined the measures her administration took to rebuild Liberia under the four pillars of the PRS: peace and security; economic revitalization, governance and the rule of law, and infrastructure and basic services.

Speaking about the economy, the President said: “Biggest of all, and probably the achievement that we are proudest of, is our debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. We have been able to do this, in a three-year program, by relentlessly pursuing public financial management under a rigorous program with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.”

Of governance and the rule of law, the President said that the war destroyed the institutions that protect these principles. On corruption, she said that decades of deprivation and bad governance corroded the norms and value system in Liberia and created a culture of rent-seeking behavior.

“Battling corruption is, firstly, for us, a battle of ideas, a change of mind-set, a reform in values, convincing people that the days of ‘take all you can’ are over and that it makes sense to think long-term, in terms of the impact on our agenda for growth and development. Our approach has thus had been systemic and preventive, and we have made progress,” the Liberian leader stated,

She cited efforts to strengthen the principle of transparency; to strengthen and reform procurement and financial management laws; to strengthen the principles of fairness and professionalism by increasing salaries so government employees have less incentive for graft; and to strengthen the principles of accountability by restructuring and strengthening the General Auditing Commission and establishing an Anti-Corruption Commission.

“The punishment part of fighting corruption remains “a missing link,” the President said, which had to do with a judiciary that has been dysfunctional for so long that it will take tremendous reforms to make it work. “We therefore plan to devote our energy, in the coming months and years, to judicial reform, a review of our jury system, as well as the prosecuting powers of our institutes of integrity.” The President spoke of the need, also, to address a country still traumatized, and the need for a process of national healing and reconciliation.

Among the lessons Liberia had learned, the President said, were these: (1) Reconstruction that does not address the underlying causes of war will not succeed. (2) Doing 80 percent is better than planning 100 percent. (3) Get the right help, and get the help right. (4) In a post-conflict government, you must own the strategy and let donors follow. (5) Be patient.

Elaborating on this last point, the President said: “We were all impatient when we said to the Liberian people that we were going to make it work in six years. We’ve made progress, no doubt, but we’re not there yet. We have misjudged some of the obstacles; we’ve fallen short on our implementation. We needed to understand the partnerships and processes and procedures. We feel we’re on our feet, but we know that it’s going to take us quite a few number of years before we are going to meet the goals that we have set for ourselves.”

Speaking about a vision for Liberia’s economic growth, the President said her government is composing a National Vision to take the country to the year 2030. “Liberia is moving from the first six years of stabilization to the next six years of sustained economic growth and development. That means harnessing our natural resources, transparently managing and using state resources, maximizing Liberia’s comparative advantage in natural resources and agriculture, while cultivating new niches in manufacturing and services – those sectors that will ultimately create a middle class.”

Concluding, the President said: “We are convinced, going forward, that with Liberia’s natural resources and our relatively small population of 3.7 million, there is no reason why we cannot create a prosperous society, granting equal opportunity to all, under conditions of the promotion and respect for all the fundamental and human rights under the rule of law. There’s no reason why we cannot build upon the successes of today to ensure than ten years from now, Liberia should no longer require foreign assistance. And by the year 2030, we should really become a middle-income country. That’s our dream, that’s our objective. We are convinced that we have the commitment, we have the drive, we have the ability to achieve those aims.”

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