Prospects and Opportunities for

Achieving the MDGs in Post-conflict

Countries: A Case Study of Sierra Leone
and Liberia

Macartan Humphreys and Paul Richards

CGSD Working Paper No. 27

October 2005

Working Papers Series

Center on Globalization and
Sustainable Development

The Earth Institute at Columbia University

www.earth.columbia.edu

1
 Prospects and Opportunities for Achieving the MDGs in Post-conflict
Countries: A Case Study of Sierra Leone and Liberia

3 April 2005

Macartan Humphreys Paul Richards

Assistant Professor Professor
Department of Political Science TAO Chairgroup
Columbia University Wageningen University
420 West 118th St. Hollandseweg1, 6706 KN Wageningen
New York, NY 10027, USA The Netherlands
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract
In this paper we examine the strategies being employed by post-conflict countries in Africa to
achieve the Millennium Development Goals. We argue that to attain these goals, these
countries will need to alter the way they undertake development planning. Rather than design
strategies to achieve best outcomes with limited resources, reaching the MDGs will require
that governments identify what resources are needed in order to meet the agreed ambitious
objectives. In post conflict circumstances, as evident in Liberia and Sierra Leone (the two
countries we examine), three particular challenges to achieving the goals stand out: a history
of economic reversals, extremely weak institutional capacity, and popular distrust of
government. We argue that rather than treat these features as a limiting factor on
development, they should be integrated within development strategies, by including them
among the needs to be met as part of an MDG strategy and by adopting strategies that draw
on considerably more ambitious models of consultation, information dissemination and
transparency than are presently being employed.

2
Contents
1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................4

2 THE CONFLICTS ...................................................................................................................................6

2.1 HISTORIES OF CONFLICT IN LIBERIA AND SIERRA LEONE ............................................................................... 6
2.2 CAUSES OF CONFLICT IN LIBERIA AND SIERRA LEONE .................................................................................... 8
2.3 IMPACT OF THE TWO CONFLICTS ON DEVELOPMENT OUTCOMES ................................................................. 10
2.4 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE MDGS .......................................................................................................................... 15
3 THE TRANSITION TO PEACE .......................................................................................................... 19
3.1 FROM HUMANITARIAN RELIEF TO DEVELOPMENT IN LIBERIA AND SIERRA LEONE ................................. 19
3.2 DEVELOPMENT PLANNING NOW IN SIERRA LEONE ....................................................................................... 21
3.3 PLANNING FOR THE MDGS IN THE RECOVERY PROCESS IN LIBERIA .......................................................... 23
4 RECOMMENDATIONS ....................................................................................................................... 24
4.1 USE THE MDGS AS A SOURCE OF LEVERAGE WITH DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS .......................................... 25
4.2 DEFINE NATIONAL TARGETS FOR AMBIGUOUS GOALS ................................................................................... 27
4.3 PRODUCE A COSTED MDG PLAN ....................................................................................................................... 28
4.4 MAKE INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY AND GOOD GOVERNANCE PART OF THE SOLUTION .......................... 28
4.5 EMPLOY A RADICALLY DEMOCRATIC CONSULTATION STRATEGY............................................................... 30
4.6 DEVELOP MORE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES ....................................................................... 33
4.7 DEFINE SUB-NATIONAL TARGETS TO REDUCE HORIZONTAL INEQUALITY ................................................. 35
4.8 INTEGRATE NATIONAL MDG STRATEGIES WITH ONGOING RIGHTS CAMPAIGNS...................................... 35
4.9 ELEVATE YOUTH POLICY TO A NATIONAL PRIORITY .................................................................................... 37
4.10 INTEGRATE SECURITY, DEVELOPMENT AND RIGHTS AGENDAS.................................................................. 38
5 CONCLUSION: NEPAD’S ROLE IN AFRICAN POST-CONFLICT COUNTRIES ...................... 41

6 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................................... 43

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1 Introduction
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are quantified targets for reducing human poverty
by specific dates, mostly by 2015. Consistent with the principles of NEPAD, the goals
presuppose a partnership: the goals themselves derive from an agreement and commitment by all
countries, articulated in September 2000 during the United Nations Millennium Summit, to a
common set of principles and targets that would bring a large share of the poorest people up to a
minimum acceptable standard of human development by the year 2015.
None of the Millennium Development Goals responds directly to the problem of violent
conflict. But violent conflict is closely related to all of the goals, and the need to take account of
the impacts of conflict within strategies to achieve the goals has been explicitly recognized by the
United Nations Millennium Project. Achieving the Millennium Development goals is rendered
especially difficult in countries affected by conflict. A history of conflict presents these countries
with a double challenge: first, because of the adverse developmental effects of conflict, to meet
the goals these countries typically have to make much greater gains within a much shorter period
than do other countries; second, because the security concerns induced by conflict endure, the
choices of development policies need to take account of security concerns arising from
development initiatives to a greater degree than elsewhere.
Conflict affects the achievement of all of the MDGs.i But the adverse developmental
effects of conflict also continue well after conflict formally ends.ii In the aftermath of civil
conflicts, large investments are typically needed to rehabilitate refugee populations, internally
displaced people and former combat troops. Large investments are also required to rebuild basic
infrastructure such as roads, electricity, schools and hospitals.
But just at the moment when massive investments are needed, post-conflict governments
are often in an especially weak position to spend money efficiently.

For these reasons, a comprehensive strategy for achieving the Millennium Development Goals in
Africa will require a recognition of the special needs of countries in conflict. To this end, the
present research assesses the state of the MDGs in two of the most severely affected countries in
Africa: Sierra Leone and Liberia. The two countries not only exemplify many of the problems
faced by African countries recovering from conflict, but are also usefully contrasted. In Sierra
Leone, the legitimacy of the post-conflict administration has been established by two electoral
contests. The current government is committed to a continuation of the democratic process, and
could set an ambitious agenda for addressing MDG targets without courting controversy.

4
Liberia, on the other hand, is administered by a caretaker interim body, the National Transitional
Government (NTGL) pending elections scheduled for October 2005. The NTGL comprises
representatives of factions that have fought three successive wars, as well as civilian
representatives, and any far-reaching policy initiative risks stirring up inter-factional controversy.

We proceed as follows. In the next section we provide an analysis of the conflicts in Liberia and
Sierra Leone and of the impacts of the conflicts on development outcomes. We emphasize in this
analysis the role of the weakness of the state and the alienation of rural populations from the
state. In the third section we give an overview of post-conflict development planning in the two
countries, raising some concerns about the approach used to development planning and in
particular the lack of a full integration of security concerns into development planning. The
bottom line is that these states still face security threats and do not have well developed long term
economic strategies, but that at present they simply do not have the financial, institutional or
human capacity to turn the situation around. Based on this analysis, we then suggest a series of
proposals for better incorporating the specific needs of post conflict countries in development
planning. One set of proposals describes a different approach to development planning than is
now being used, one that integrates a rights-based approach to development and that also treats
planning more like developing a business plan. In these cases, strengthening state capacity is part
of the solution. Another set of proposals addresses the problem of alienation and frustrations of
populations, which, we argue, were contributing factors to conflict in the first place and which
remain largely unaddressed. These include suggestions for better incorporating rural citizens into
decision-making processes, and using information and planning strategies that help tackle
horizontal inequalities within these countries. We conclude with recommendations for how
NEPAD can contribute to this process, suggesting that NEPAD could usefully assist countries
by providing institutional support for policy planning and an auditing function that helps to
signal to development partners whether post-conflict countries have developed implementable
development strategies that adequately address their security concerns.

5
2 The conflicts

2.1 Histories of conflict in Liberia and Sierra Leone

The civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone (the Mano River conflicts, named after the river
forming the border between the two countries) have intertwined histories. Most authorities trace
the beginnings of the civil war in Liberia to the coup of Samuel Doe and Thomas Quiwonkpa
against the True Whig Party regime of William Tolbert in 1980. The initial alliance between Doe
(a Krahn) and Quiwonkpa (a Gio) soon collapsed, opening an ethnic split in the army.
Quiwonkpa was killed by Doe after a coup attempt in 1985 and there were reprisals by the army
in Nimba County where Quiwonkpa drew most support. President Houphouët-Boigny in Côte
d’Ivoire was an ally of the Tolbert regime, and permitted anti-Doe activists to mobilise in Côte
d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso. The National Patriotic Front of Liberia, ultimately led by a renegade
Doe loyalist, Charles Taylor, undertook guerrilla training in Libya and launched an incursion into
Nimba County at Christmas 1989. The NPFL quickly took over about 90% of Liberia, but was
prevented from seizing Monrovia by the intervention of a Nigerian-dominated regional peace-
keeping force, ECOMOG.

With the war stalemated in 1991, Taylor turned his attention to helping an allied group of Libyan
trained rebels, the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone to launch a cross-border incursion
into eastern and southern Sierra Leone (Kailahun and Pujehun Districts), seeking to destabilise
Sierra Leone, a staunch supporter of the Nigerian-backed ECOMOG. The RUF sought to
overthrow the northern-dominated All People’s Congress, the sole legal political party in power
since 1968. The RUF received initial support from groups along the Liberian border, long
alienated from the Freetown regime. Meanwhile, the APC government under President Momoh
had encouraged and helped arm a Freetown-based anti-Taylor militia, ULIMO, recruited from
among Krahn-speakers originating in Grand Gedeh County and members of the Mandingo
merchant classes (Liberians of Guinean extraction, and among Doe’s important business
partners). This new force (ULIMO) helped the Sierra Leonean army push back the RUF towards
the Liberian border, and then carried on into Liberia, hitting back at Taylor forces. Liberia
descended into further chaos when both the NPFL and ULIMO splintered. At one stage the
countryside was contested by as many as eight armed factions, with ECOMOG holding greater
Monrovia, an area administered by an interim civilian regime.

6
In Freetown a military coup overthrew the Momoh regime in 1992, but greatly under-estimated
RUF determination to continue a guerrilla insurgency from bases secretly established in a
network of forest reserves fanning out from the eastern border. Downplaying the RUF threat
the military regime found itself facing civilian anger at the continuing violence in the countryside.
This anger sustained pressure culminating in elections in February and March 1996. The
outgoing military had earlier set up a peace negotiation with the RUF and this was continued by
the incoming government of President Kabbah. But the search for peace was complicated by the
presence in the country of private security forces staffed by members of the former South
African Defence Forces, interested as much in mineral concessions as peace. Persuading the new
government that the RUF was insincere about peace the South Africans undertook operations
against rebel positions even as negotiations took place in Côte d’Ivoire (Hooper 2002). These
operations weakened the RUF command structure, and the Abidjan peace agreement soon fell
apart. A military coup temporarily displaced the elected government in 1997, but the legitimate
government was restored by ECOMOG intervention in 1998. ECOMOG was able to transfer
from Liberia to Sierra Leone since the war in Liberia was temporarily ended by an election which
made Charles Taylor president in 1997. With Taylor’s assistance, Sierra Leonean military
remnants assisted by the RUF were able to regroup to seize the rich Kono diamond fields late in
1998 and to attack Freetown in January 1999. With ECOMOG forces in disarray an incoming
civilian president in Nigeria gave notice that his country’s troops would be withdrawn from Sierra
Leone. Lacking an army of its own, the Kabbah government was forced to sue for peace. The
Lome agreement (July 1999) favoured the rebel RUF, which entered into an unstable power-
sharing agreement. This collapsed in April-May 2000 when the RUF seized large numbers of UN
peace keeping troops (UNAMSIL) sent to replace ECOMOG.

Charles Taylor, meanwhile, had over-extended himself, supporting rebel groups not only in Sierra
Leone but also in Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea. Anti-Taylor militias (LURD, comprising mainly
Mandingo, but assisted by volunteers from Guinea and Sierra Leone) struck at the Taylor regime
from Lofa County, while MODEL (a successor to the Krahn faction in ULIMO) mobilised in
Côte d’Ivoire and struck at Taylor from south-eastern Liberia. Meanwhile, Taylor’s revenues
(mainly from diamonds and timber) attracted international scrutiny. UN Security Council
sanctions were imposed both on the Taylor regime and its international business partners.
Interventions by the British and Guinean armies helped prop up the government in Sierra Leone
while UNAMSIL was hastily reorganised and re-deployed. With Taylor no longer able to provide
cross-border support, the RUF leadership agreed to disarm, a process complete by the end of

7
2001. Diehards crossed the border into Liberia, to assist Taylor, pursued by officers of the
special court set up to try war crimes in Sierra Leone. Taylor himself faces indictment in this
court. President Kabbah was able to declare Sierra Leone at peace in February 2002. LURD and
MODEL were meanwhile banging on the gates of Monrovia. After an upsurge of street fighting
in the capital in June-July 2003 Taylor agreed to step down. A peace agreement was signed on
18th August 2003, ushering in a power-sharing interim government. A UN peace keeping force
(UNMIL) deployed during 2004 and began the process of demobilising an estimated 103,000 ex-
combatants. Presidential elections are scheduled for later in 2005.

2.2 Causes of conflict in Liberia and Sierra Leone

From a structural point of view both Sierra Leone and Liberia had, before the onset of the
conflicts, a range of socioeconomic characteristics that are common to many countries that
undergo civil conflict and that have been identified by cross-national econometric research as risk
factors for civil war onset (see for example Fearon and Laitin 2003). Chief among these are
chronic poverty, economic dependence on a small range of natural resource commodities, and a
demography characterized by a “youth bulge.” Statistically the chances of conflict onset also vary
with geography (with higher chances for countries that have neighbours at war) and with time
(with especially high chances at the moment of the end of the Cold War, as superpower support
is realigned, aid monies are diverted and fresh supplies of small arms enter markets).

While these factors are associated generally with conflict onset, they only partially account for the
situations in Sierra Leone and Liberia—even after we account for all of these factors, the
estimated likelihood of a civil war breaking out in any given year is low.iii Furthermore, although
these correlations are indicative of risks, they do not, in themselves, provide mechanisms that
account for onset in any given case.
There are multiple mechanisms that link the levels of poverty seen in Liberia and Sierra
Leone to conflict onset. The two most prominent are that in poor economies states are weak
and susceptible to takeover and that the lack of employment opportunities motivates frustrated
youths to seek material advantages through violent means. These mechanisms are not mutually
exclusive and there is evidence for both mechanisms working in both conflicts. A striking
feature of the conflicts in the Mano River union is that the states were so weak that, unlike other
conflicts in Africa, the states were not major parties to the conflicts. In Liberia, the most intense
moments of the conflict involved conflicts between rival rebel groups; in Sierra Leone they were
between the RUF rebel group and civil militias. In both conflicts, the state, if represented

8
militarily at all, was represented largely though multilateral forces or mercenary units. There is
also evidence from interview and survey material that the fighters themselves originated from
very impoverished backgrounds, with little or no access to education or health services or to
formal sector employment (Humphreys and Weinstein 2004).
There are also multiple mechanisms linking natural resource dependence to conflict onset
(Humphreys 2005). One of these focuses on the desires of fighters, with violence driven by the
desire to control rich interior resources (notably timber and diamonds for the cases at hand).
The wars themselves seemed to provide much evidence for this mechanism (diamonds fuelled
fighting in Sierra Leone and the Taylor regime made upwards of $50 million a year from timber
deals). However, the rebel greed explanation focuses on the motivations of the rebel leadership
and does not account for the motivations of rank and file fighters. Survey research from Sierra
Leone indicates that rank and file fighters had little awareness of the natural resource economy
and accorded it relatively low prominence in their thinking about the conflict (Humphreys and
Weinstein 2004). Natural resource dependence can also account for conflict onset through
providing a financing mechanism for conflict. There is indeed evidence that even if fighters were
not motivated by a desire to control resources, their units were sustained in part by natural
resource financing. Finally, natural resources can affect conflict risks through mechanisms quite
independent of their impacts on the motivations and financing of fighters. One channel is
through the erosion of state capacity that often accompanies a reliance on natural resources.
When this erosion of capacity is accompanied, or spurred, by rampant corruption, it can provide
not just an opportunity but also a motivation for violent action against the state: the discourse of
state corruption of the natural resources sector figured very prominently, and seemingly to great
effect, in the documents produced by the RUF leaderships (RUF/SL 1995).

Understanding the causes of the Mano River conflicts also requires an understanding of who the
fighters were, and what motivated them as individuals. On this, opinions are divided. One view
is that the fighters are mainly urban street youth with little if any ideological agenda, destructive
of the (otherwise largely contented) peasant populations in the areas in which they deploy
(Mkandawire 2002). Another view stresses unresolved agrarian tensions dating back to the late
nineteenth century, when the imposition of colonial rule froze in place institutional controls that
bear down heavily on the commoner classes, through controls on land, labour and property that
limit the capacity of women and rural young people to alleviate their poverty through their own
efforts.

9
 In our investigations, we find little support for the urban bandits thesis—at least among
the rank and file of the rebel organization. More than 80% of 1000 ex-combatants sampled in a
study of demobilization in Sierra Leone had backgrounds in farming or rural schools, and the
leadership of the RUF included an influential educated group with strong agrarian interests.
Interviewed about causes of the war, fighters and civilians stressed the importance of grievances
concerning land, labour and women’s property. The spread of fighting to Côte d’Ivoire (since
2003) – where land and citizenship rights of immigrants are issues – suggests that more attention
should be paid throughout the region to the agrarian causes of the instability.
In summary we do not point to a single explanation for the origins of the Mano River
union conflicts. But a cluster of forcing factors find strong empirical support and should feature
prominently in the design of post conflict development strategies. These include: the weakness
of state capacity, the poor regulation of natural resource industries, ingrained corruption,
alienation of populations from governmental processes, and rural disaffection, particularly among
youths, arising from poor education and employment opportunities.

2.3 Impact of the two conflicts on development outcomes

Even before the beginning of the conflicts, the levels of economic development in these two
countries were low. The pre-war economies of Sierra Leone and Liberia were dominated by
mineral enclaves. Alluvial diamond mining was the mainstay in Sierra Leone, but techniques
were mainly pre-industrial and recovery rates low. Outside Freetown and the diamond centres
the country remained impoverished, with particularly low levels of agricultural modernization,
and some of the highest infant mortality rates in the world. From the 1970s the best diamond
deposits began to approach exhaustion and the economy went into decline. In 1987 the APC
government defaulted with the IMF and had to seek unfavourable commercial loans to sustain its
basic activities. The rapid decline of rural primary education and health services were clear signs
of financial crisis.
Backed by generous US aid the pre-war Liberian economy was somewhat more buoyant.
The original constitution was designed for the needs of a Black settler society of planters and
traders limited to the coastal fringe. Threatened by British and French incursions, the Monrovia
government imposed rule over the interior from c. 1900. This involved often violent subjugation
by the Liberian Frontier Force, and the scars have yet fully to heal. The Executive Mansion
recognised individual land rights only of those up-country people deemed (by virtue of education
and wealth) to be “civilized” (kwii). The land and property rights of a great majority of Liberians

10
remained dependent upon membership in ethnically-based communities dominated by chiefs and
custom.
In both countries, therefore, a small elite controlled vast wealth while a mass of ordinary
people remained in extreme poverty. In Sierra Leone diamond wealth flows in private channels.
In Liberia money from mineral and land concessions passes through the Executive Mansion.

Consistent with these economic structures, much of the fighting was centred on islands of
mineral or plantation wealth. Nonetheless, in both countries the geographic spread of the
conflicts were wide, with fighting resulting in the displacement of the majority of rural Liberians
and Sierra Leoneans. At one stage in the late 1990s more than half a million refugees from both
conflicts were living in neighbouring Guinea. An estimated 40% of Sierra Leone’s population
was displaced by the conflict. Gates established by factions at key points on the rudimentary
road networks of both countries choked interior trade. Transportation became scarce due to
unofficial taxes and the risk of ambush or robbery. Local markets collapsed. Clinics and schools
were looted and destroyed, and teachers and health workers were either killed or abducted to
provide services to rebel factions in the bush.

Figure 1: The Evolution of per capita GDP over time

1000

900
1980 Coup by Samuel Doe
800

700
Liberia

600
1989 Taylor launches
incursion in Nimba county
500

400
Sierra Leone 1991 RUF launch
incursion in
300 Kailahun / Pujehun

200

100 2002 War ends

1997 Elections
0
1960

1963

1966

1969

1972

1975

1978

1981

1984

1987

1990

1993

1996

1999

2002

Note: GDP per capita data based on World Bank, WDI 2004 series, NY.GDP.MKTP.KD and SP.POP.TOTL;
GDP is measured in constant 1995 $US.

11
 In both countries, the result of the conflicts was a massive decline in income. The years
before the conflict never produced anything like the declines in welfare seen once the violence
began. Income figures show an average annual growth rate of about -5% throughout the conflict
years in Sierra Leone and a 50% decline in real per capita income over the course of the conflict;
the declines in income were even more drastic in Liberia, with an average 7% per annum decline
in income between 1980 and 1997 and a total 80% decline in per capita over that period. As
illustrated in Figure 1, these declines in income correspond very directly to the timing of conflict.
The decline in income is however only a poor indicator of the decline in capital—a feature
of conflict that can adversely affect welfare far into the future. In fact the level of destruction
and dislocation varied considerably from place to place and was closely related to different
displacement patterns. In rural central Sierra Leone displacement dates from 1995, but many
villagers returned home accompanied by civil defence forces within 18 to 24 months, often to
find their villages desolated. In parts of the north, villagers lived under RUF “occupation” for up
to four years. Isolated corners of Kailahun and Pujehun Districts were controlled by the RUF
for a decade. In some of these cases physical destruction was low, but people suffered from high
levels of forced labour, sexual violence, hunger, and the total lack of basic services. In other
areas physical destruction was chronic, resulting in a razing of homes and infrastructure. Figures
2 and 3 below, produced by the Development Assistance Coordination Office, indicate the broad
reach and the geographic variation in destruction levels.

Figure 2: Damage to Primary Schools in Sierra Leone

Source: http://www.daco-sl.org/encyclopedia2004/2_data/2_3/2_3a/2_3a_5_e/code0156_A2.jpg Data refer to

2004 and incorporate information on schools rehabilitated since the end of the war.

12
 Figure 3: Damage to Court Barries in Sierra Leone

Source: http://www.daco-sl.org/encyclopedia2004/2_data/2_3/2_3a/2_3a_2_c/A3.jpg Data refer to 2003 and

incorporate information on Court Barries that have been rehabilitated since the end of the war.

In Liberia, there were three separate periods of fighting (referred to by Liberians as “World Wars
I, II and III”). Some villagers report being displaced six or seven times. A year after Taylor’s
departure from the presidency, only a minority of the rural population in Lofa and Cape Mount
Counties had ventured back home. Few of these returnees were yet confident or well enough
equipped to invest in more than makeshift repairs. A typical pattern was for husbands to check
on property and farms or plantations, leaving the rest of the family in IDP camps around
Monrovia. The reasons are highly practical. Camps offer food and basic services (including
education). After more than a decade of dislocation the displaced camp offered some children
their first chance of schooling.
The capital loss in Sierra Leone and Liberia is not to be measured in the destruction of
physical capital alone. War also resulted in a loss of skilled personnel from both business and
government. Many highly-educated Liberians went to the United States. Many Sierra Leoneans
fled to Guinea, and some later moved to other parts of Africa (where they now occupy teaching
and other professional positions from The Gambia to Botswana). In times of conflict, the loss in
human capital stock through normal processes (of ageing and obsolescence) and the flight of
skilled personnel is compounded by losses due to targeting of educated elites. Additionally the
normal restocking of human capital through education is, at least in part, suspended due to the
closure and destruction of schools and health facilities (though this decline in investment in
health and education is at least partly offset by services delivered in IDP and refugee camps).

13
However, although the loss in physical and human capital and development opportunities is
clear, the impact of the war on ‘social capital’ is more ambiguous. While the wars destroyed
some social structures, it also produced new possibilities for social organization. The wars
brought to light a crisis of governance in the two countries and the result now is a heightened
level of politicization among the populations of the countries. As many of those consulted
during the course of our research argued, one result of the conflict, in part due to the great
increase in migration and information sharing across communities, brought about by forced
displacement, was that “our eyes have been opened.” This has been evident both in regards to
the centralized management of the countries’ resources and to the management of local
economies.
The management of national resources has received the most attention. In aiming to
control the flow of wealth from diamonds and timber, both Taylor and the RUF claimed to be
reformist in intent, but Taylor perpetuated the patrimonial system when he reached the Executive
Mansion Pajibo 1999). The broad concern over the management of these sectors is still very
general in both countries. It is now also shared by the international community, which presses for
greater accountability and transparency over resource exploitation. If procedures governing
diamond and logging transactions were less murky there would be less incentive for warlords to
fight to control these resources, it is reasoned. Monitoring of logging activity and the tracking of
alluvial diamond movements are intended, therefore, to force governments and concessionaires
towards greater openness, upon the basis of which democratic debate about national income and
expenditure can begin. In Liberia, the role of County Superintendents (the chief agents of local
administration) currently excites critical comment. In some quarters it is openly suggested that
the peace process removed Taylor only to open up space for a succession of mini-Taylors at the
County level. The situation in Sierra Leone’s diamond industry is considerably healthier.
According to one recent report, the levels of transparency and professionalism in the diamond
industry exceeds that found in other sectors in the country (Partnership Africa Canada and
Network Movement for Justice and Development 2005).
The management of local economies has also begun to undergo a transformation. At
grass roots level, villagers in both countries draw attention to an agrarian crisis affecting land,
labour and marriage. Whatever national ambitions Taylor and the RUF leadership cherished,
both the NPFL and RUF recruited a majority of their fighters from rural communities, and much
of the violence of the two wars is explicable in terms of the local agrarian tensions in which the
fighters and their village victims were enmeshed. Young people complain that constraints on

14
access to land and the exploitation of their labour through the application of onerous marriage
customs in local courts were conducive to vagrancy, and that rural vagrants were vulnerable to
militia recruitment. Even chiefs and elders are at times frank in their assessment that this type of
social exclusion was a factor feeding the violence. In many cases the worst violence and atrocity
was the product of intra-village revenge. As one consultation put it “our village was 100 per cent
destroyed in the war but 95% was the work of our own indigenous rebels not the RUF”. A
consequence is that some local institutions of indirect rule are probably beyond repair. Local
pressure for rural institutional reform is beginning to bear fruit. The Liberian Senate enacted a
bill in November 2003 protecting the property of rural women in marriage and preventing some
of the customary procedures through which young men are trapped in sexual liaisons to extract
unpaid farm labour. Land tenure reform attracts vigorous debate. Local awareness of these
issues is as high in rural Sierra Leone, but as yet government and donors are not fully seized of
the need for agrarian reform.

2.4 Implications for the MDGs

There are two major implications of the destructive and transformative aspects of the conflict for
the prospects these countries have to meet the MDGs. The first relates to the rate of development
that is required to reach the goals in these countries; the second to institutional and political
constraints in a post conflict environment.
Rate of development: a considerable challenge for Liberia and Sierra Leone—as for other
post conflict countries—derives from the fact that the Millennium Development Goals targets
were set in 2000 for a 2015 goal that is itself based on a 1990 benchmark. For most countries,
the 1990 benchmark provides countries with a headstart of 10 years of growth for achieving the
goals. In the cases of Sierra Leone and Liberia, however, the timing of war in both countries was
such that the “gains” of 1990-2000 period were in fact losses due to conflict. All indicators are
worse in 2000 than they were in 1990. This has doubly adverse implications: to reach the goals,
Sierra Leone and Liberia have to make larger gains in a shorter period of time.
Figure 4, based on World Bank data, indicates three possible paths for the changes in one
of the indicators for Sierra Leone: the share of population living below the minimum level of
dietary energy consumption. One path indicates the path that would have been required for a
smooth transition from 45% to the (still high) 23% that would have been needed to meet goal 1,
according to this indicator. The second path shows the change in this indicator to date, plus
projected change under the pessimistic scenario that the pattern from 1990 to the present will
continue. The third path shows what is needed in terms of change in this indicator in order for

15
Sierra Leone to meet its goal given its history to date. The sharp differences between these paths
reflect the stark differences between goals and reality thus far. Whereas a smooth path from
1990 would require cutting this indicator by less than one percentage point per year; achieving it
given the real post-war base-line requires cutting it by more than two percentage points per year.

Population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption (%)

60
55
50
45 Path Presently Required
40 "Normal" Path
35 Present Path
30
25
20
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
Figure 4: Actual and Required Paths in Sierra Leone

In Figure 5 we show the results of the same exercise for Liberia. The data suggest that the
disparity between actual paths and required paths is here even more pronounced. Liberia started
off in 1990 from a better position on this indicator than Sierra Leone; from 1990, an average
annual reduction of two thirds of a point is what would have been required to meet the target on
this indicator; now however, like Sierra Leone, a two point annual drop is needed. The data
make it clear that in no way can achieving the MDGs in either be country be thought of as
business as usual or as requiring no more than a return to pre-war levels of growth. Reaching the
MDGs in post African conflict countries likely requires more and more rapid progress over the next ten years than
is required anywhere else in the world.

Population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption (%)

55
50
45
40 Path Presently Required
35 "Normal" Path
30 Present Path
25
20
15
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014

Figure 5: Actual and Required Paths in Liberia

16
Institutional and Political Constraints: the second challenge to post conflict countries is that just
at the moment when the greatest efforts are needed in a wide rage of sectors, the institutional
capacity to effect these changes is at its weakest.
There is, first, a problem of government capacity. Government institutions, already weak,
were especially badly hit by the loss in human capital that occurred during the conflict. This
brain drain was perpetuated after the conflicts ended through the recruitment of skilled personnel
from government positions into international and national non-governmental organizations. The
problem is particularly acute in sectors in which government provided services successfully in the
past—notably in education and health—but commensurably less so in sectors—such as
agricultural extension—in which government behaviour was primarily informative, regulatory, or
even predatory. These considerations lead us to emphasise a first simple conclusion: skill
shortages, especially in government, are likely severely to hamper the recovery process in both countries.

There is also concern that, beyond questions of personnel, the basic institutions of governance –
especially at the local level – have been undermined by war. Liberia and Sierra Leone retain, in
modified form, a system of indirect rule introduced at the beginning of the 20th century. Both
countries administer rural areas through a hierarchy of traditional chiefs. It seems that war has
harmed the prestige of chiefs. Many government-recognised ruling families were founded during
unstable conditions in the late 19th century through the exploits of war leaders. But as chieftaincy
adapted to more peaceful conditions in the mid-20th century, warrior skills were lost. When war
returned in the 1990s many chiefs were hunted by the insurgents, as representatives of a hated
regime, and sought refuge in towns or overseas.
The incoming democratic government in Sierra Leone in 1996 prioritised the return of
paramount chiefs. The British government accepted the argument that only if chiefs returned
would people follow, and helped fund their return. In fact many villagers either never left or
invested in their own security by paying for initiation in the civil defence movement. Many chiefs
were late arrivals. But in a society temporarily chief-less, less deferential younger elements
continued to ask why chiefs were needed. It was argued that in abandoning their communities,
chiefs had forfeited the respect due to warrior-leaders.
In Liberia there is similar disarray at the local level. Each faction tries to control key
positions in local government—County superintendent, mayor, and paramount chief—and at
times two sets of officials (Monrovia appointees and faction incumbents) openly feud over who
is in charge. Only at the lowest level—township chief—is there a degree of popular legitimacy

17
and accountability. Seemingly in recent years the custom of popularly electing town chiefs has
grown up, though apparently without constitutional mandate. All other levels are, in theory,
nominated by the Executive Mansion and approved by Senate. As in Sierra Leone, war in Liberia
has made rural people question whether an intensely top-down system of indirect rule is
incapable of reform. Some aspects of “custom” have already been overturned by the legislative
process since the departure of Taylor. Senators representing women’s interests sponsored a bill
(passed in November 2003) to improve rural women’s marriage and property rights, removing
some of the customary props through which rural land-owning elites controlled married women’s
resources but also exploited the labour of young men (expended in bride service).
Finally, there is a slowness of adaptation of governments to a new political culture.
Meeting the MDGs implies better delivery of basic services to the poor. The political cultures of
both Sierra Leone and Liberia are strongly patrimonial. In Sierra Leone, presidents have in the
past preferred to claim that basic services—such as education—were privileges, not rights, and
best supplied by talking directly to the main benefactor (State House). The Executive Mansion,
from the days of President Tubman, was equally powerful as a provider of social benefits through
patronage in Liberia. Charles Taylor openly reverted to the Tubman model during his period in
office (Pajibo 1999). The rights-oriented framework implicit in the Millennium Development
Goals however implies relations between the government and the poor that is incompatible with
this long-established patrimonial form of politics.
But both the conflict and the humanitarian interventions have given villagers a first taste
of grass-roots democratic accountability – for example in the form of elected committees to
supervise distribution of resources and manage community-driven rehabilitation (Archibald &
Richards 2002a). And there is evidence that war has shifted local perception a few points in the
direction of rights-oriented thinking, and away from earlier patrimonial notions (that food
security and basic education for example are gifts provided by generous patrimonial leaders, cf.
Archibald & Richards 2002b). That this change in perception is permanent is often voiced by
villagers recounting their reaction to the dislocating experiences they have undergone. Nor are all
chiefs opposed to calls for a rights-oriented approach to service provision at the local level.
Some chiefs recognise customary prestige is no longer enough to guarantee respect, and appear
interested in new roles approximating those of an elected mayor.

We conclude that political constraints to achieving the MDGs remain especially important in
both countries, and are as problematic at decentralised levels of governance as at the apex. In
African post conflict recovery countries donor emphasis on propping up uncertain peace

18
processes by rebuilding state institutions risks having the perverse effect of boosting patrimonial
ways of thinking which war itself has thrown into doubt. Decentralization represents an
opportunity for new forms of accountable, efficient local government and service provision, but
due to the long-term derelict nature of local government in Liberia and Sierra Leone (especially
the latter, where district councils have not functioned for over 30 years) there is lack of awareness
among the public of what to expect and demand. This means that development planning is at
risk of capture by ethnicised patrimonialism, the game most local politicians and constituents
know. Specific thought needs to be given to the issue of how to inculcate and support the
emergence of a culture of rights among both citizens and officials as a necessary frame for MDG
initiatives.

3 The Transition to Peace

3.1 From humanitarian relief to development in Liberia and Sierra Leone

Typically, post-conflict countries experience a humanitarian interregnum, in which international
agencies provide not only emergency feeding and shelter but many basic social services (such as
health and education). Sierra Leone passed through this phase from 2000 to 2002, and it is
current in Liberia.

An important aspect of the process in Sierra Leone has been the successful demobilization of
large numbers of fighters. The demobilization, disarmament and reintegration (DDR) process,
while suffering from flaws, was successful in getting guns out of communities and in doing so in
a manner that did not appear inequitable vis-à-vis the rival political groupings in the country.
These are preconditions for success that should be emulated elsewhere. Many other lessons
learned from this transitional period have been documented by the United Nations Peacekeeping
Best Practices Unit and elsewhere.
The problems of DDR in Liberia are many. It is hard to tell what progress has been made
due to confusion over numbers. There is a strong suspicion that some fighters have registered
more than once, whereas others have been deprived of their weapons by commanders who
allegedly redistribute guns to civilian youths, so that these youths can claim a disarmament
package. Recovery of weapons is far from complete, and disgruntled fighters mutter about
reverting to war. A factor is their idleness. This reflects a chronic undersupply of promised skill-
training packages. Ex-combatants besiege potential training sites, to await non-existing courses,
and for now, few are tempted by road rehabilitation work at $2/day. Private sector employment

19
has been slow to materialise. The large timber sector remains under Security Council sanctions,
and plantation owners are cautious to invest in rehabilitation, perhaps especially given the
rebellious mood among some of their labour force. Without a solution to bottlenecks in the
DDR process, IDPs and refugees remain reluctant to begin the laborious process of rebuilding
their villages, sensing war might return at any time.
From both the Sierra Leone and the Liberia DDR process, two central lessons stand out. First
there is a need for a more robust complaints mechanism. Research indicates that demobilization
programs are subject to manipulation by individual ex-combatants, often to the exclusion of
other ex-combatants. A failure to put in place a mechanism to address grievances emanating from
the process can result in new frustrations as well as clusters of fighters that remain excluded
outright and that continue to engage in conflicts elsewhere in the region (Richards et al 2004;
Human Rights Watch 2005). Second, the failure of the training from demobilization processes to
lead to job opportunities was a primary source of frustration among ex-combatants (Humphreys
and Weinstein 2004). More broadly, to date there has been a failure in both countries to link
demobilization processes with development planning.

A second area of import is the impact that humanitarian agencies have on local economies. A
positive aspect of the transitional period has been that the humanitarian agencies provide services
to higher standards than some poor people have historically experienced. Many IDPs in camps
in Monrovia say that they have appreciated for the first time the full value of education, including
education for girls, and that they will not agree to re-settle in remote areas of Lofa County
without schools and teachers. Post-conflict governments will as a result be driven to meet their
MDG commitments by much more clearly articulated demand from the poor. A negative aspect,
noted above, is that NGOs drain away skilled staff from government services, which end up
demoralised, with a much reduced capacity to plan and execute longer-term recovery initiatives.
Also some NGOs act as a law unto themselves. Different standards of benefit provision may
prevail among agencies working in communities previously administered to a single national
standard. Some IDPs in Sierra Leone were given packages including cement and roofing
materials and so rebuilt their villages to a much higher standard than before the war. Others
were given only basic tools, seeds and tarpaulins. More isolated communities were left to fend
for themselves, too far off road for agency staff to venture. A complex web of local tensions
eventuates from the evident inequalities in restorative action in the humanitarian interregnum,
and nobody knows quite to whom they can complain.

20
 In both Sierra Leone and Liberia these problems have been tackled in part through inter-
agency coordination under government auspices. Some agencies have pushed further by
implementing international standards, such as the Sphere humanitarian protocol, or through
seeking to make activity “rights compliant”. Such approaches can usefully draw upon or link
with national level rights-oriented initiatives. For example both countries have invested in truth
and reconciliation processes, which encourage citizens to reflect upon the role played by social
injustices, including injustices in delivery of development and humanitarian benefits, in provoking
or sustaining conflict. The humanitarian interregnum risks creating dependency, or unrealistic
expectations about service delivery. But where it is linked to attempts to stimulate a culture of
rights it can lay an important foundation for citizen involvement in the pursuit of MDG.

3.2 Development planning now in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone has produced development strategies at three levels. In the short term, and in
principle completed, is Sierra Leone’s National Recovery Strategy. Strategies in the short to medium
term are the national PRSP, the Public Investment Programmes (PIPs) and Sierra Leone’s Medium-Term
Expenditure Framework. Strategies for the long term are developed especially in Sierra Leone’s
Vision 2025 document.

The National Recovery Strategy document makes no mention of the Millennium Development
Goals, except to emphasize that the goals need to be addressed in the PRSP. The Vision 2025
document, offers to set “the long-term direction for Sierra Leone and [aims] to provide a sense of
purpose and directions for the development management process in Sierra Leone.” But again it
makes no explicit mention of the MDGs. The Vision 2025 document is itself in a sense a bigger
project than the Millennium Development Goals. Whereas the MDGs focus especially on basic
human needs such as health and education and freedom from hunger and poverty, the Vision
2025 focuses on the overall state of the country, as captured by the more general goal of a
“Sweet-Salone” – a “United People, Progressive Nation, Attractive Country.” The Interim PRSP
report makes no mention of the goals, nor does the status report on the preparatory activities for
the full Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper of September 2003. The December 2004 (“final”)
draft, of the PRSP does however make explicit mention of the role of the MDGs in Sierra
Leone’s development strategy.

A number of features stand out from our enquiries:

21
• Although sensitization initiatives have been launched, there is little knowledge about the
MDGs in Sierra Leone and little recognition of their strategic importance for the country.
This is in part due to the fact that the goals have not been presented as a declaration of
rights for individual Sierra Leoneans – for example as a statement of the commitment to
children that they can complete primary education – but instead are presented as just one
more in a series of international expressions of goodwill. The failure to communicate the
rights aspect of the Millennium Goals can be attributed at least in part to the
documentation supplied by the UNDP head office in New York to facilitate sensitization
campaigns.
• The MDGs are conceived as external to Sierra Leone: rather than being seen as part of an
agreement into which Sierra Leone entered as a sovereign nation, the MDGs are
conceived of as being designed and pushed from the outside. In fact, that the MDGs are
international goals ( agreed to by Sierra Leone) is what makes them a powerful lobbying
tool for the country. Furthermore, although the goals themselves are part of an
international process, the identification of optimal strategies for meeting the goals will
have to be developed largely through consultative processes in-country.
• Although there is a description in the PRSP of how the PRSP relates to the MDGs, the
linkages between these as are presently largely formal. The PRSP describes itself as “the
first big, conscious step” towards meeting the goals. But the most common view
expressed by government officials in Sierra Leone was that the PRSP process pushed the
MDGs off the agenda. In fact the PRSP should be seen as a strategy designed explicitly
to meet the goals. While an analysis of the PRSP does admit a very strong consistency
between the PRSP and the MDGs, the PRSP does not describe whether the targets set in
the PRSP for 2005-2007 are sufficiently ambitious to place the country on track to meet
the MDGs; in other words, these short term targets appear not to have been calibrated in
order to meet the MDGs.
• The PRSP provides benchmarks for 2005, 2006 an 2007; it provides a costing of
strategies and it estimates the financing gap that exists for meeting these strategies. This
helps to turn the PRSP into a useful basis for negotiating with the donor community with
respect to aid and debt. Furthermore, the task of aligning the PRSP with the MDGs will
not be as difficult as elsewhere and the preparatory work for the PRSP will continue to be
useful in helping align the PRSP with the MDGs. In linking the present benchmarks to an
MDG strategy the tools that have been developed by the Millennium Project will be

22
 useful but at present these appear not to be known in Sierra Leone and were not
employed to produce the present costings.

3.3 Planning for the MDGs in the recovery process in Liberia

A baseline for Liberia’s MDG strategy was produced under the Taylor government, and
published in September 2003, a month after Charles Taylor stepped down in favour of the
National Transitional Government (NTGL). The basis for national recovery then changed.
UNDP and World Bank carried out a comprehensive needs assessment, resulting in the adoption
by the NTGL of a Results-Focused Transition Framework (RFTF) in January 2004 as the basis
for the national recovery and development strategy until elections scheduled for October 2005.
There is no specific mention of the MDGs in the Joint Needs Assessment document
(NTGL/UN/WB 2004) which is the core of the RFTF.
The basic focus of the needs assessment document is demobilization of combatants,
resettlement of refugees and repair and rehabilitation of infrastructure. The financial
requirements are $487 million, of which demobilization and resettlement accounts for 32% and
infrastructure repair 27%. Restoration of services and economic recovery are lesser priorities.
Health and education are budgeted at 12%, and revitalization of agriculture and livelihoods
accounts for 10%. Only a few targets are specified in quantitative form (such as the
demobilization of 38,000-53,000 male and female ex-combatants by December 2004, essential
restorative support for 350,000 refugees and 490,000 internally displaced persons, and
rehabilitation, re-supply and revitalization of at least 25% of primary and secondary schools by
December 2005). Others are phrased as generalised aspirations, for example that availability and
access to food will be improved, and that there will be “nationwide action to improve the
Liberian people’s access to effective primary health care”.
Implementation of the RFTF has been hampered by two major considerations – difficulties
with DDR, as described above, and lack of political will in the factionalised interim regime.
The lack of political will derives from the short term perspective of interim regimes. All eyes
are on the election, as faction leaders jockey for influence and advantage. Serious work within
government on an MDG strategy is impeded by two further problems:
• Difficulties over deployment of agents of local government in the provinces. In July
2004 more than half the fifteen Counties still lacked Superintendents – apex figures in
local government. Monrovia appointees struggle to displace the local faction-endorsed
power-brokers, and when established are often soon undermined by accusations of
partisan redistribution of inputs for rehabilitation and reconstruction.

23
 • Lack of basic equipment and facilities, restricting even the most routine operations of
government. This includes HQ facilities, which often suffered extensive damage and
looting in Monrovia street fighting in 2003 (a visit to the Minister of Education in 2004
required a torch-lit trip up the unlit main staircase of the ruined building still part
occupied by IDPs)

Whether the NTGL will be able to meet its RFTF targets by December 2005 currently seems
in doubt. Judging by planned expenditure in the needs assessment document Sector 4
(“governance, democracy and the development of the rule of law”) is considered more important
than Sector 9 (“economic policy and development strategy”). Concern under the latter is largely
with management issues. This suggests that other pressing concerns have overtaken the need for
Liberia to address its strategy for meeting the MDGs and that, as elsewhere, security and
development priorities are not well integrated with each other.
There are nonetheless important debates taking place within wider Liberian society, including
grass-roots debates among villagers, refugees and ex-combatants. These debates are
fundamentally about poverty, and how poverty conditioned the path towards violence. They are
often surprisingly rich, both in fundamental insight into the causes of the conflict and in ideas
about how Liberia needs to address its basic malaise (Atkinson & Mulbah 1998, Richards et al.
2005).
Our suggestion, therefore, is that pending elections, the development of an MDG strategy
should focus largely on Liberian groups campaigning for justice and political reform, especially
where these groups demonstrate good connections with both grass roots rural society and the
organised lobby groups and caucuses in the Liberian Senate. Empowering Liberian civil society
groups to launch the MDG debate among their constituents (including IDPs preparing for
resettlement) would prepare the ground for a more accountable, socially-responsible and
responsive style of government beyond October 2005. Some consultation strategies are
discussed below. We also suggest inclusion of the MDG debate in the comprehensive national
debate on an agenda for reform which leading Liberian civil rights activists propose should take
place before elections at the end of 2005 (Byron Tarr, pers. comm.).

4 Recommendations
Consideration of the relationship between the Millennium Development Goals and the history of
violent conflict in Sierra Leone and Liberia brings us to two general conclusions:

24
 1. The existence of extreme conflict risks is not a reason to abandon development initiatives or to aim lower.
In these countries there is an especially strong case to be made for concerted and
sustained investments in development in order to move out of a conflict-poverty trap.
Conflict is (at least indirectly) a consequence of the failure of development. Conflict
prevention requires development efforts to be re-doubled.

2. For the MDGs to be reached, responses to conflict risks must be mainstreamed in development
strategies, whether or not countries are already experiencing violent conflicts. In post
conflict countries, this means that development strategies need to be particularly sensitive to features
that gave rise to the conflict in the first place. This will likely include the need for rapid and deep
improvements in systems of governance and administration of justice, not least at the
local level.

In the light of these conclusions we make ten more concrete proposals for post conflict
countries to ensure that the MDGs are met in a manner that does not exacerbate conflict risks.
The first four of these proposals emphasize an approach to planning that can be applied broadly
in post-conflict countries, the remaining six emphasize particular areas of focus rendered
germane by the history of conflict in the two cases we have examine.

4.1 Use the MDGs as a source of leverage with development partners

The Millennium Development Goals differ from other development initiatives insofar as they do
not simply represent the ambitions of one development agency, one donor country, or one
developing country. Rather, they are the result of an agreement—the Millennium Declaration—
signed by heads of states at the largest and most inclusive gathering of such figures ever. The
Millennium Declaration (for the full text, see
http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm) can be considered to be an
agreement between wealthy states and developing states to work together to reach the
development goals. The underlying logic of the agreement is that there are certain basic
livelihoods and welfare standards integral to the notion of common humanity – to attain these
standards is a human right, states are the prime duty holders, and the international community
stands ready to assist. This rights-based approach is emphasized repeatedly in the declaration,
e.g. through the statement of a commitment “to making the right to development a reality for
everyone.” The United Nations Millennium Project report (2005) proposes a more concrete

25
assignment of responsibilities, correlative to these rights, emanating from the agreement.
Developing countries should “adopt development strategies bold enough to meet the Millennium
Development Goals”, and wealthy countries should increase assistance to a level “based on actual
needs to meet the Millennium Development Goals.”
This new way of thinking about how donor assistance should be set is also articulated in
the report of the United Nations’ Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges
and Change. Specifically, the panel notes that “debt sustainability […] should be redefined as the
level of debt consistent with achieving the Millennium Development Goals.”
Although preventing civil wars and supporting political stability are not among the
Millennium Development Goals as such, these ambitions figure prominently in the Millennium
Declaration and serve to highlight the salience of concerted action in post-conflict countries. In
particular, the Millennium Declaration emphasizes that “‘we will spare no effort to free our
peoples from the scourge of war,” and pledges “to give full support to the political and
institutional structures of emerging democracies in Africa [and to] encourage and sustain regional
and sub-regional mechanisms for preventing conflict and promoting political stability.”

The logic implies a different set of relations between developing country planning and
international support than that those that have guided development policy in the past. To
function as duty holders – i.e. to realize the right to development for their people - African states
must ensure that they fulfil their part of the bargain. The first step in this is to develop a strategy
that identifies what is needed. Governments can no longer claim that they are doing their best
to improve the situation, but are committed to reach specified goals by 2015.iv In the Liberian
draft MDG report, of 11 targets, 5 are rated as unlikely to be reached, for another two there are
no data, for only four is reaching the goals considered probable.v These might be accurate
predictions under an assumption of “business as usual”, but the point of an MDG strategy is not
to predict whether a goal will be reached but to identify the conditions that need to be put in place
so as to ensure that the goals will be reached.
Once a coherent strategy is developed, the strategy can act as a powerful tool to ensure
that development partners fulfil their side of the bargain by altering their policies, changing their
behaviour, or providing the financing needed to implement the strategy. Realising rights to
development, however, will not come without a struggle.

The top three arguments that can be used by partners in development in order not to support an
MDG strategy are: (1) that the targets themselves are not sufficiently precise (2) that the plans to

26
reach the goals are not sufficiently rigorous and (3) that the government has neither the capacity
nor the will to implement these plans. Our next three recommendations identify ways that
African countries should respond powerfully to these three concerns.

4.2 Define national targets for ambiguous goals

Many of the MDGs are very precisely stated and, in principle at least, admit of easy quantification
and monitoring. In these cases, African countries can structure MDG strategies around these
precisely stated targets. But there are three respects in which some of the goals are not precisely
stated. For each of these, countries can take the initiative of actively defining the goals at a national
level, and then acting upon the goals as defined nationally.
First, as noted above, the MDGs are typically set with respect to a 1990 baseline. The
actual targets then depend on information about the status of different development indicators
in 1990. However in many post-conflict countries, these data do not exist, either because they
were never collected (because of weak state capacity or ongoing conflicts) or they were destroyed
or lost. In such cases—where benchmark data do not exist—countries should not give up on
defining goals at the national level, but instead use estimates to set goals, even as they work to
develop or recover their data series.
Second, some national targets may be imprecise because some of the goals are imprecise.
One example is Target 16 under Goal 8 regarding youth employment: “In cooperation with the
developing countries, develop decent and productive work for youth.” Countries can make this
goal more concrete by, for example, setting a target of reducing youth unemployment by 50% by
2015 and by developing standards for what (nationally) might be deemed “decent and productive
work” (for example, in terms of a national minimum wage for people under 25). The goals for
HIV/AIDS and malaria are simply to “Halt and begin to reverse the spread” of these diseases.
In this case, countries have an opportunity to operationalise concretely what is meant by a
significant reversal of these diseases (such as a reduction of malaria related deaths among under
5s by half). Without such operationalisations, these goals, which are tremendously important for
post conflict countries, risk being marginalized in the planning and costing processes.
Finally, some targets are only described at the international level. Most prominently
Target 11 under goal 7 is to “achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum
dwellers, by 2020.” For such targets, there is scope for countries to “adopt” a share of the
international target as part of a national strategy. Sierra Leone or Liberia could contribute to the
achievement of this goal by, for example, identifying 500,000 slum dwellers and operational sing

27
the notion of a “significant improvement” in their lives and incorporating the specified and
operationalised goal within the national MDG strategy.

4.3 Produce a Costed MDG plan

A convincing strategy to meet the Millennium Development Goals will require an approach to
development planning that identifies all the inputs that are needed to reach each of the goals,
taking account of synergies that can exist between goals, and that estimates costs associated with
these inputs. Rather than producing a development “wish list,” MDG strategies need to identify
how different interventions will contribute towards the achievement of a specific outcome; they
will also have to be able to withstand tough peer and donor scrutiny by demonstrating that the
strategies selected are least cost strategies for achieving the required outcomes. Such multi-
sectoral planning and costing is especially challenging for countries whose capacities have been
weakened by conflicts. There are, however, resources that exist or that can be established to
facilitate the task. First, the Millennium Project has produced tools for undertaking costing
exercises. These tools are presently available at:
http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/policy/needs03.htm. Second, regional groupings, such as
NEPAD, should be encouraged to establish planning “clinics”—a pool of experts capable of
advising on development planning to be put at the disposal of countries with the greatest
planning needs, and in particular post-conflict countries. Finally, countries should engage the
services of internationally reputable accountancy firms who can play a supportive role either in
costing or in auditing Millennium Development plans. Preliminary discussions with partners in
such firms indicate that in the case of the Millennium Development Goals, this is a service that
they would likely be willing to provide on a pro bono basis to African governments.

4.4 Make Institutional Capacity and Good Governance Part of the Solution
One of the greatest constraints facing post-conflict countries aiming to embark on an ambitious
scaling up of development activities is the weakness of institutional capacity. Another is the
domestic and international concerns about the integrity of government institutions. In order to
reach the MDGs however, the sustainable development of institutional capacity should be seen
as a part of national strategy, rather than as a constraint on national capacity. The implication is
that an estimate of the human resources and training needs and a response to governance
concerns should be included and costed as a part of the national development strategy. Measures to verify
reductions in corruption, cronyism and ethnic favouritism need to be integral to planning.

28
 Beyond these somewhat general principles, our investigations in Sierra Leone and Liberia
suggest a number of more specific proposals for reform of public sector remuneration that
should be included in national strategies in post conflict countries. Here it is appropriate to
mention three:
- Competitive Public Sector Wages. Government ministries should be rendered more
competitive in the hiring and retention of high quality experts. We have noted that in post-
conflict countries, governments face competition from international and NGO sectors for their
most skilled employees and suffer losses to international emigration. Responding to this
competition has however been difficult because of caps on government salaries as a result of
domestic concerns over salary inequities within bureaucracies and of budget constraints. There is
a related problem resulting from the inadequate incentives for professionals to work in remote
areas and the recognized need for better governmental staffing in these areas. At present, pay
structures often impose effective penalties on civil servants working in remote regions. What is
needed in such cases is the creation of a facility for competitive performance-based pay scales for a
cadre of highly skilled professionals. The determination of wages needs to be better aligned with
the incentives of experts to work in rural areas through the introduction of remote area
allowances for civil servants. In all cases, increasing the ties between performance and salaries—
for example by linking salaries or bonuses to individual targets or to aggregate performancevi—is
especially important in post conflict countries where the awarding of higher salaries to
administration elites may easily open new avenues for concerns over inequity, corruption and
cronyism.
- Solving the Hold-up Problem in Salary Delivery. One bottleneck for the retention of remotely
posted civil servants, including teachers, is the late or incomplete delivery of salaries and benefits.
This sometimes results from bureaucratic corruption, as individuals at key points in the system
create “hold up” problems (i.e. use their control over the delivery of benefits as a source of
political power or to extract financial gains). We suggest there is a relatively easy-to-implement
antidote to this kind of corruption: establish bank accounts for all government employees with an
internationally reputable commercial bank willing to provide a public posting of salary payments
into its accounts and to offer mobile banking services in remote areas. Banks ought to be
interested to compete for such contracts.
- Mainstream transparency. The public posting of public sector wage payments is only one of
many ways in which governments can mainstream transparency, providing citizens with richer
information about governmental processes and reducing the opportunities for corrupt practices
at different levels of government. A second prominent area in which transparency mainstreaming

29
is possible is through the public posting of detailed government budgets. Such postings have
already been undertaken at the district level—literally on community noticeboards—in Sierra
Leone and allow the possibility for concerned citizens to “follow the money” in cases where
there is suspected misuse of public funds. In both the countries we have looked at, transparency
in the natural resources sector is especially important, this will also be the case in other post-
conflict countries in Africa. Through its moves to participate in the Extractive Industries
Transparency Initiative (EITI, http://www.eitransparency.org/) Sierra Leone has already started
taking strong steps in this direction. But it is not obvious that other countries plan on doing
likewise.vii

4.5 Employ a Radically Democratic Consultation Strategy

We have highlighted the fact that there is now a strong desire in the populations of Sierra Leone
and Liberia to play an active role in political decision-making. We have also noted that weak
linkages between populations and elites were likely contributing factors to the conflicts in the
region. Our research suggests that there is still a relatively poor degree of vertical political (elite-
popular) communication. Repeatedly we found that consultation was interpreted not as dialogue
but as “sensitization”—that is, as a one-way information flow from the top down. In cases
where a richer notion of consultation was used—as undoubtedly was the case for example with
the PRSP process in Sierra Leone—much of the consultations still focused on elites of different
types—notably “cabinet ministers, parliamentarians, NGOs, members of civil society, the private
sector, cooperative associations, local authorities, religious leaders, development partners” as well
as the more diffusely defined “beneficiary groups.” Most difficult to reach are those populations
in non-leadership positions and in remote areas who were often either the most active in the
conflicts, or who suffered the greatest hardships. There are logistical reasons why it is especially
hard to reach such groups. There are also less good reasons voiced for why these groups should
not be consulted: that because they are poor and illiterate they do not know what is good for
them.viii
Sierra Leone has recently made considerable progress in this direction, notably through
the use of “participatory poverty assessments”. We suggest that these approaches should be
encouraged and extended. Below we highlight ways in which such consultations can reach more
deeply in the country and incorporate elements of deliberative democratic consultations. We propose
that post conflict countries, should initiate such exercises in deliberative democratic consultation
as a regular part of their policy development processes in order to reach the more frustrated
populations least integrate into traditional political processes.

30
Drawing on experience of consultations in Sierra Leone and in Sao Tome and Principe, as well as
the innovations developed as part of Sierra Leone’s “focus group discussions” process (in, for
example, the chiefdom consultations of the Governance Reform Secretariat), we suggest some
additions to existing participative processes as employed in Sierra Leone. These additions are
intended to ensure consultations will have the following desirable features: viz. they should be
regular, randomized, deliberative, non-manipulable, and verifiable.

Let us describe each of these five features in turn.

To have a significant impact on national politics, deliberative processes of this form should be
regular, taking place predictably on an annual or biennial basis. Deliberation processes should
not usurp the decision making authority of formal institutions of government; but to be more
than a public relations exercise they need to be integrated into regular decision making processes.
Irregular consultative processes, such as those surrounding PRSP processes in many countries,
suffer from not being integrated with normal politics. While they provide a space for citizens to
voice their concerns they do not contribute to the strengthening of structures of accountability.
Instead regular consultative processes will benefit from the fact that they can be viewed as a part
of normal politics, that they can attain a higher degree of public recognition, that they can be
used to hold politicians accountable and that they can be sensitive to change in citizen concerns
and priorities over time.

The basic principle of a randomized consultation is that every single youth or adult in the
country should have, ex ante, an equal chance of participating in the deliberation. One method is
to use census data to randomly select 200 households from anywhere in the country and to
organize public deliberation meetings in the village or neighbourhood of the selected households
(with, perhaps, stratification by district). A second, more transparent procedure might be to hold
a public event, aired on radio, in which the name of every village or neighbourhood, is entered
into a “hat”, with weights (frequencies) approximately proportional to the population size of the
villages, and then to have, much as in a lottery, a child, or some other disinterested person draw
200 sites from the hat. This has the advantage that the selection process is more transparent,
although ex ante equity is somewhat more difficult to achieve in this case. The advantage of such
procedures is that they are ex ante equitable and that they provide for the likelihood that the most
remote communities in the countries, those not accessible by road, will be represented. This

31
process results in a much deeper level of consultation than can be achieved by a strategy that
attempts to hold meetings in all local centres—for example in every chiefdom—but that as a
result systematically includes all members of the local branch of the “great and the good” and
excludes all the smaller settlement units (historically often the camps of the farm slaves).

A third principle is that the consultation should be deliberative. The consultations should not
be cantered around “sensitization” (i.e. conveying information from above), nor should they take
the form of a survey; rather they should engage populations to reflect on different arguments in
favour or against different strategies and to reach, insofar as possible an agreement on what
approaches or solutions are needed to address problems of concern. In order to ensure that the
outcomes of such deliberations can be integrated into policy design, the deliberations should,
insofar as possible, be structured so that the outcomes of the deliberations can be easily aggregated.
Such structure can be produced by providing communities with a precise set of questions and a
set of rival argumentsix, inviting discussion and then ensuring that agreements reached are
recorded. Since deliberation may not, in practice, produce consensus on all themes, at the
community level, the degree of agreement or disagreement should itself be recorded. There
should also be an attempt to monitor back-stage negotiations and side agreements (processes
familiar from the sociology of Erwin Goffman, but known in Mende and other local languages as
“hanging heads”). We recommend that to ensure that deliberation takes place not simply within
decentralized communities but also between populations and elites, that political and social elites
play a role in the deliberations, either as discussion participants or as discussion leaders.

Consultative processes are prone to various types of manipulation, whereby local or national
political actors can attempt to use them for political gains. Good consultative designs should
ensure non-manipulability. The first concern is that local deliberations are disproportionately
affected by national elites who are engaged in the deliberations, either as discussion leaders or as
participants. A simple structure can be used to reduce the chances that this occurs, and to make
it transparent when it does occur: a small cadre of elite discussion leaders should be drawn from
multiple sectors of society, from different political parties and from multiple organizations.
These leaders should then be randomly assigned to lead discussions in different communities. If
this is done, then it is a simple matter, to measure ex post, the extent to which leaders influence
the outcome of decisions (in particular, the random assignment of leaders to discussion groups
removes the confounding effects that can arise with other processes of assigning leaders to
groups). This approach was employed recently for example in the design of Sao Tome and

32
Principe’s national forum. The second concern is that local discussions are controlled too much
by local leaders. To reduce the chances of this happening, parts of deliberations can be
conducted using structured break-out groups—with, for example, some decisions being made
within women-only groups, some within youth-only groups and so on.

The final way to ensure a high level of trust in the outcome of such deliberations is to ensure that
the outcomes are verifiable. This can be done through simple procedures such as marking the
outcomes of deliberations in real time during the meetings, leaving one copy of the outcomes of
the deliberations with the villages/neighbourhoods, for public posting, and subsequently
publicizing the result of every consultation in each region so that participants can later be
guaranteed that their input has in fact been recorded in official data.

4.6 Develop More Effective Communication Strategies

In signing up to the MDGs, African countries have (in effect) agreed to implement a right’s
based approach to development (Klein Goldewijk & de Gaay Fortman 1999). African
governments no longer do what is possible with limited resources but have undertaken to devise
plans and strategies capable of attaining agreed international standards, and to be held
accountable for attaining these targets by a certain date. The right to development is held by
citizens. Any government treating its obligations lightly threatens its legitimacy. Potentially, it
can be judged by the agreed international standard. To fail to meet the minimum standard
without good reason is potentially a rights abuse.
However, the approach only makes sense if all parties know their rights and duties, and
are in a position to press their case. In this, two types of communication strategies are key, first,
communication strategies are needed to raise awareness of rights, second, strategies are needed to
give access to the information that is necessary to render leaders accountable to citizens.

The first type of communication strategy focuses on the need of citizens to appreciate and
practise their own rights and roles. We have noted strong tendencies of movements in this
direction within populations in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the shift to a rights-based frame for
thinking about development issues from the more familiar patrimonial notions prevailing in
much of Africa over the past half century – that delivering development is a duty not a gift – is a
very far reaching change. Citizens – but especially the poor– need scope to develop their
capacities to play the MDG game through experience of rights-based development.

33
 Increasingly, humanitarian agencies claim to offer post-war reconstruction within a rights-
based framework (such as through application of the Sphere protocols, Sphere Project 2000).
What is as important as the rhetoric, however, is to devise practises through which participants
(beneficiaries, field staff, partner local NGOs and CBOs) elaborate the practical implications of
rights-based rehabilitation or development. This provides scope not only to come to terms with
new and unfamiliar standards but also to bring out rights that are culturally-embedded (what an-
Naim [1998] terms the inductive approach to human rights in Africa). People learn that the right
to development is not an externally imposed game, but one they have played all along, but
without perhaps fully formalising the rules. There is now useful experience in Sierra Leone of
how to access these embedded notions of redistributive justice in order, for example, to improve
village rehabilitation initiatives (Archibald & Richards 2002a). A food security project in central
Sierra Leone, for example, encouraged villagers to make use of rights discourse to change the way
inputs were distributed. Results show gains in practical efficiency and also evidence that the poor
are able both to comprehend and to demand rights in ways that potentially transform proposed
patrimonial solutions to food security issues.
During our field work for this report we saw evidence of the effects of such projects on
local politics. On one occasion, we participated in a village meeting in which an old woman stood
up to challenge a group of village elders about a local development scheme. The scheme had
been presented as pure charity by a private benefactor to increase food security. The woman, a
previous participant in a rights-based initiative, it turned out, was excluded from the scheme
because of lack of private capital, while the village elders were prime beneficiaries. The woman’s
critiques cantered on the inequities inherent in the scheme, making the point that if food security
is a right for the poorest of the poor then the proposed solution was no solution at all.
Embarrassed elders rushed to assure her that she would be “given food” from the abundance
promised. She proudly insisted she was capable of working for herself. All she wanted was a
scheme that allowed her to look after herself. This can be seen as a challenge to patrimonialism,
but conversely as an example of the self-reliance the rights-based approach liberates.

For the second type of communication strategy, the role of the media is key. Workshops for
journalists and broadcasters seem an important requirement. Radio has been important in
African peace processes (cf. Fardon & Furniss 2001) and we envisage that it will play a similar
role in communicating basic information about the MDG game. Programmes might include
weekly factual up-dates on monitoring and meeting targets, and Q&A sessions involving
politicians, technocrats and civil society representatives debating national strategy and the

34
obligations, rights and duties of various partners, including what role citizens will play (for
example in helping deliver key targets through community mobilization and “self help”). A
possibility to be considered by government statistics offices is that they participate in weekly call-
in programs in which their experts respond to viewer questions for information about the state of
the economy and the progress made in different areas towards the achievement of the goals.

4.7 Define sub-national targets to reduce horizontal inequality

Although the goals are defined in national terms, there are many different ways in which the goals
can be met, with different distributive implications for different groups within a country.
Achieving the goals will necessarily imply an improvement in the welfare of poor populations
within a country, but it does not put any constraints on which poor people gain these benefits. We
recommend that in post conflict countries, targets should be set at a local level so that the attainment
of the goals is reached in a balanced manner.x
There are a number of arguments that favour the defining of sub-national MDGs. The first
argument, of great importance in post-conflict countries, focuses on the character of the
outcome: achieving the MDGs within regions systematically reduces those inequalities between
regions that can sometimes lead to conflict.xi The principle of producing disaggregated MDG
indicators at the regional level can also be extended to producing disaggregated indicators for
religious or ethnic groups, in cases where inequalities across these groupings underlie political
tensions.
A second reason for employing disaggregated indicators across regions is to more closely
match local political actors with their political responsibilities and more concretely translate
general targets into outcomes that are meaningful to local populations.

4.8 Integrate national MDG strategies with ongoing rights campaigns

Despite the fragility and confusion associated with post-conflict situations there is a case – we
suggested – to incorporate the MDGs at an early stage into the debates of civil society groups
campaigning for social and economic rights (for example in campaigns for land reform, gender
equality and a better deal for youth). Here, we use the case of Liberia to provide two examples of
how the MDG discussion could become an important tool within such debates.
Basic education for all: Life in camps for the Liberian displaced has transformed the viewpoints
of many villagers. If security is one of two central issues behind the slow, staged return of families
to interior villages the other is social services. IDPs have experienced better education and health
facilities in camps close to Monrovia than they ever experienced in the Counties before the war.

35
Women are especially adamant that resettlement must include education for their children. The
RFTF’s target of rehabilitating 25% of existing provincial schools by December 2005 seems to
underestimate the likely explosion of demand for basic education once return builds from trickle
to flood. It is envisaged that some (at least) of this demand will be met through community-
driven development action, and the World Bank has recently provided a trust fund grant for
communities to apply for funding through the newly established Liberian Agency for Community
Empowerment (LACE). LACE will not work effectively unless there is widespread awareness of
community level rights and responsibilities. A place to begin is in the camps. More than training
in participatory development techniques is required. Education around the MDGs seems equally
important. IDPs need to know that basic education for every child by 2015 is an internationally
agreed commitment from which the government of Liberia is not exempted, but that there are
different modalities for reaching this goal, including the modality of community action. In fact,
government may not be the obvious agency to build schools. Perhaps its own responsibilities are
better restricted to training and paying teachers (the 2003 Liberian MDG base line report
recognised the crucial importance of rehabilitating the three provincial teacher training colleges).
Establishing and running village schools may be better undertaken through parent power, for
which LACE grants will be available. What villagers need to know is that they have a right to
apply (and how to apply) and that LACE is not offering political favours but, as an accountable,
transparent duty holder, is under obligation to facilitate progress towards a key MDG (basic
education for all by 2015).
Demobilization and youth employment. A second case where urgent attention to the MDG debate
is needed is the issue of meaningful employment opportunities for youth, especially as affecting
the process of demobilization. There is widespread concern – shared by ex-combatants and other
rural groups – over flaws in the Liberian demobilization process. In particular, the focus on the
ex-combatant him- or herself is problematic. The benefit packages are quite large, and
opportunities are traded. This results in a situation in which some ex-combatants are bounced
out of their benefits, and others become frustrated because that which has been promised cannot
be delivered (due, for example, to skills training bottlenecks). Locally, the point is often made
that the underlying problem is 85% rural youth unemployment and that instead of focussing on
ex-combatants as such, there should be a focus on skills training and job creation for all
impoverished young people. Whether ex-combatants themselves revert to war is irrelevant. The
country is still awash with guns, and without meaningful training and employment others will
soon take their place. Thus there is already wide “ownership” in rural Liberia of an issue to which
the international MDG discourse directs attention– the issue of meaningful employment for youth

36
–-and if the opportunity is acted upon there is a constituency for reshaping the reintegration part
of the DDR process in ways that will be more consistent with these wider concerns.

4.9 Elevate Youth Policy to a National Priority

Youths are a major factor of concern in post-conflict countries because militia forces are so
much biased towards youth, and a major part of the peace process is the demobilization and
social and economic reintegration of young fighters. Knowing why young people fought, and
what they seek and need for reintegration is an important aspect of every peace process. But it
often then becomes apparent that the fighting youth are the tip of an iceberg. The social and
economic forces driving some young people into the arms of militia recruiters need to be
addressed to stop further recruitment down the line. It makes no sense to disarm and resettle 70-
100,000 ex-combatants (as in the case of the wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone) if there are equal
numbers waiting the replace them. Providing a generous resettlement package to ex-combatants
without addressing the needs of the equally disadvantaged young people who never fought may
do nothing more than encourage more young people to fight in the hope of gaining a
resettlement package. The conclusion of several reintegration processes for ex-combatants is that
the needs of the entire class of potential recruits needs to be addressed, and not just those who
fought.
An MDG goal especially applicable to youth is to help young people find meaningful
employment. The qualification is important. Young people above all need skills that will lead to
a job, but it helps no one if the job market is flooded (with car mechanics or female gara dyers).
Partly because demobilization creates a logistic bottleneck (with too many young people needing
skills training all at once) a seller’s market for skills develops– and the ex-combatants get given
what the providers are geared up to provide, not what they might need. Proper planning for the
MDGs requires serious, long-term employment skills planning. Staged approaches may
sometimes be better than an all at once approach. Some ex-combatants and job-seeking
impoverished youths might be willing to take temporary work (such as the $2.00/day currently
offered to those willing to repair local roads in Liberia) if they also had a voucher that guaranteed
a truly suitable and high quality skills training package when it becomes available in due course.
Otherwise they fear being trapped in dead-end work well below their aspirations (often it turns
out that young fighters were prepared to gamble with their lives for the chance of a more
progressive future). In general, generic skills (such as agricultural skills, business skills, basic
building skills, IT) are more important than flooding the market with specific trades. Institutional
reforms in the countryside (guaranteed short-hold land tenancy schemes, loans for business start-

37
ups, including out-grower plantation schemes, land grants in de-gazetted forested areas, legal
reform to correct abuses which bear down heavily on young people, for example, manipulation
of marriage contracts to extract forced labour) may liberate sustainable employment
opportunities for young people in rural areas, from where many ex-combatants in Liberia and
Sierra Leone come, and stem the flow of job seekers to overcrowded and job-poor urban areas.
It is a matter of concern that in both Sierra Leone and Liberia ministries of youth tend to
be seen as junior partners, with very limited funding. It is also somewhat paradoxical that where
there are specific ministries for youth, gender and children, children are lumped in with gender
and youth with sports, and that education and employment tend to be separate areas of
ministerial responsibility. So many of the MDGs are aimed explicitly or by implication at the 5-
25 age range, accounting in most African countries, not excluding Liberia and Sierra Leone, for
nearly half the total population. It is for this group, female as well as male, that education, skills
training and employment must be found. A more coherent, consolidated approach is required.
At a minimum Ministries of Youth, where they exist, should be represented on development
planning committees. The youth-poverty issue is such an important focus for African countries
emerging from war that there is a case for a presidential task force networking all the relevant
ministries to develop coherent across-the-board policies for the 5-25 age range, including policies
on education, gender equality, reproductive health, skills, and employment.

4.10 Integrate Security, Development and Rights Agendas

There has been recent extensive policy and academic focus on the link between security,
development and the protection of basic rights—the so-called “security-development-rights
nexus.” The linkage is stressed in the reports of the UN High Level Panel on Threats Challenges
and Change and the Millennium Project, “Investing in Development.” It is also a central focus
of the UN Secretary-General report to the General Assembly “In Larger Freedom: Towards
Development, Security and Human Rights for All” (21 March 2005).
But beyond the broad recognition of the interdependence of security, development and
human rights, there is little consensus on how policy-making should take account of the linkages.
And in particular there have been few attempts to integrate these concerns into organizational
structures (the UK Global Conflict Prevention Pool is a notable exception [see
http://www.mod.uk/issues/cooperation/gcpp.htm ]). A better integration of these sectors in
post-conflict countries is critical.
In our study of Sierra Leone and Liberia, the historical importance of the nexus is obvious; in
both cases, we argue, the devastating conflicts were in large part a result of rights-related failures

38
of development (e.g. widespread unemployment and impoverishment of young people, and the
collapse of educational systems, especially affecting the poor in remote areas). The linkages are
recognised in these countries – peace and security is one of the pillars in the Sierra Leone PRSP
for example. But responses to the linkages have not been mainstreamed into development
planning processes. We found for example that there had been relatively little consultation of
security sector experts in the production of the MDG baseline report and targets in Sierra Leone;
similarly, the individual strategies identified in the PRSP are not themselves justified or prioritized
in terms of their impact on security outcomes.
The challenge for African post-conflict countries is to find a way to mainstream security
concerns into development planning and practice. There are a number of ways on which security
and development concerns can readily be better integrated in post conflict countries.
The first is in the management of DDR processes. At present DDR processes are
developed largely independently of development planning processes. In some cases however—
such as in Liberia where 5-10% of the male working age population will likely go through DDR
programs—DDR provides an extraordinary opportunity to help set economic development on a
new path. A far reaching strategy, not typically employed, is to use these programs to provide
skills that are consistent with long run planning objectives, so that the skills provided are matched
with expected employer demands 3 to 4 years down the road.
More generally, there is a need for more regular dialogue between security specialists,
rights activists and those framing development policy around the MDGs. An obvious priority is
to ensure that security and rights perspectives are incorporated in the deliberations of MDG
planning groups. But the security-development-rights nexus should also become a focus for
political debate. Parliament in Sierra Leone and the Senate in Liberia should take a lead by
addressing a key theme highlighted by the UN Secretary-General, viz. how to ensure the
compatibility of national security measures with human rights standards.
There is also a need to tap local concerns. Remote rural populations experienced some of
the worst excesses of wartime violence and have their own agenda of security-development-rights
issues. Grievances stemming from corrupted development schemes were manipulated by militia
factions. Some war-affected populations think Truth and Reconciliation processes ought to
address these injustices as well as focusing on abuses perpetrated by the fighters. Local
informants are often clear about how to prevent recurrences, e.g. make implementers of
development projects directly accountable to local stakeholders.
Liberia and Sierra Leone also have country-specific security-development-rights issues.
In Sierra Leone a matter of frequent local concern is how to establish the identity and bona fides

39
of “floating” populations of young people associated with diamond mining (many of whom
ended up in the rebel forces in the 1990s). Computer-linked national ID cards are seen as one
way to address the problem. They create a sense of entitlement as well as identity. ID cards
issued on disarmament were used by ex-combatants to protest mistakes or abuses in benefits
distribution. A willingness to be identified as a citizen in return for access to (say) basic health or
education would help convey to the larger mass of vagrant civilian youth a similar sense of
belonging. In Liberia, a major problem is how to deal with the stocks of weapons outside the
demobilization exercise. Specific steps are needed to limit small-arms trading (in line with the
Secretary-General’s recommendations in “In larger freedom”). We recommend specific
consultations with ethnic diaspora groups known to ship weapons across borders in the West
African region. Involving regional traders in a “buy back” scheme might prove effective in
“mopping up” supply missed by demobilization exercises.
Finally, specific attention needs to be paid to cross-border issues as part of the security-
development-rights nexus. So many conflicts in Africa thrive on instability and insecurity in
border regions. The conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire have all
involved incursions and weapons supply via forest trails across unregulated borders. The thickly
forested Liberia-Sierra Leone border region is home to isolated populations long marginalised
from national politics in both countries (Richards et al. 2005). Improved border security and
better communications needs to be linked to addressing long-standing local grievances. It is also
important not to stifle local cross-border trade or family interaction while tightening up on
movement of weapons or illicit diamond mining. We recommend that the border-zone security-
development-rights nexus should be treated as a specific issue in meeting MDG targets in both
Liberia and Sierra Leone. In the case of the Liberia-Sierra Leone border the Mano River Union
secretariat should be involved in setting up inter-governmental discussions on how to treat the
border region within the MDG planning framework. Liberia will also need to pursue bi-lateral
discussions about border-zone security-development-rights issues with Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire.

40
5 Conclusion: NEPAD’s role in African Post-Conflict Countries
Achieving the Millennium Development Goals will be especially difficult in post-conflict
countries in Africa. The challenges they face, likely greater than those found anywhere else in the
world, are not just economic but political. We argue in this paper that progress on the twin
challenges of reaching the goals and consolidating peace will require a recognition of the social
factors that fuelled these conflicts, and the crises of government that preceded them. Escaping
from a vicious circle of deteriorating security and development conditions will, we argue, require
deep and sustained improvements in systems of governance and administration of justice, not
least at the local level, and responses to conflict risks must be mainstreamed into development
strategies. These general principles, though to a certain degree extremely obvious, are not being
followed, in large part because of very genuine capacity constraints, but also because of a long-
standing political culture of patrimonial governance.
In response, we describe some more specific strategies that can be employed; these
strategies emphasize a rights based approach to development, and they emphasize a central role
for long run development planning—of a form not presently employed in the countries we have
examined—coupled with an emphasis on transparency in decision-making and in the uses of
government finance, and on broader and more sustained participation in political decision-
making processes.

We argue throughout that the Millennium Development Goals framework provides an

opportunity for countries emerging from conflict to address security and development concerns
in an integrated manner. The core opportunity arising from the Millennium Development Goals
lies in the responsibility of Africa’s partners in development to provide the support needed to
reach the goals, not as a favour, but in recognition of the basic economic rights of African
citizens. The correlative responsibility of African governments is to develop an implementable
(i.e. feasible, costed, effective) strategy to meet the goals. We have offered a set of proposals on
how governments should change their approach to development planning in order to produce
such strategies—in effect advice on how to play the MDG game.

But the strategy we propose assumes a high level of planning capacity within countries. To move
from planning to implementation it will likely also require considerable lobbying capacity. Both
of these aspects pose considerable challenges in post conflict countries, and both are areas where
well targeted support from NEPAD could be highly effective.

41
 To respond to the need for improved planning capacity, we urge NEPAD to establish a
specialized team of experts, adept at using the costing methodology required to produce an
implementable strategy. Such a team of experts, we suggest, should draw on the skills of African
economists and administrators and where necessary seek support and training from the
Millennium Project. The team should have expertise both in development planning, and in the
security sector and human rights (specifically rights-based development methodology, cf.
Goldewijk & De Gaay Fortman 1999). It should serve as a resource for facilitating the technical
drafting of national strategies. But it should also clearly map out the ways in which developing
planning can reduce (but also at times might exacerbate) conflict risks. We have specifically
pointed out the extent to which unregulated borders are risk factors for many African countries,
and the need to develop specific inter-country MDG strategies to mitigate these risks. NEPAD’s
continental status and its dual focus on security and development concerns places it in a
particularly strong position to contribute to the mainstreaming of responses to security threats
into national development strategies, and especially to take a lead on border issues as threats to
achieving MDGs.
A second (and perhaps alternative) role for NEPAD is to focus on coordinating the vetting
rather than the design of national strategies. Once national strategies have been developed at the
country level there will likely be a need for coordinated lobbying to ensure the funding of these
strategies. Effective lobbying will require the ability to demonstrate that African countries have the
governance capacity to implement the strategies and that these strategies adequately address the
concerns of conflict re-ignition that dominate in post conflict environments; and it will require
successful collective action on the part of African governments. To achieve both of these aims
we suggest that a vetting of MDG strategies be integrated into the African Peer Review
mechanisms, at least for post conflict countries. The aim is to provide a framework, consistent
with NEPAD’s principles, for a continent-wide endorsement of national plans and a continent-
wide strategy for lobbying for the support required to meet these ambitious goals.

42
6 References
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Archibald, S. & Richards, P. 2002a. “Seeds and rights: new approaches to post-war agricultural
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Archibald, S. & Richards, P. 2002b. “Conversion to human rights? Popular debate about war
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 Endnotes

i
Conflict results in drastic rises in poverty and hunger (Goal 1) and sharp increases in child mortality (Goal 4). It is
also closely linked to the spread of diseases (Goal 6) and environmental destruction (Goal 7). Sexual violence,
especially against women, is a widespread war-related phenomenon. Consequences include increased prevalence of
HIV/AIDS, displacement of populations, spread of other STIs, increased trafficking of women and girls and long-
term health and psychological damage (Goal 3). Conflict is often associated with the decline in the provision of
social services including education (Goal 2) and maternal health services (Goal 5).
ii Multiple studies now show, for example, that the health impacts of conflict continue on long after fighting stops.

International Rescue Committee (2001). For further evidence on the lingering public health effects of civil wars, see
Ghobarah et al 2004.
iii A version of the Fearon and Laitin model produced on African data and that accounts for agricultural dependence

and diamond production and that includes a time trend, produces a path with rising chances of civil war through the
1980s, peaking around 1990. Even in this model however the estimated chances of onset do not rise above 5% for
any given year.
iv In the Secretary General’s report of 21 March 2005, he argues that ““each developing country with

extreme poverty should by 2006 adopt and begin to implement a national development strategy bold
enough to meet the Millennium Development Goals targets for 2015.”
v http://www.lr.undp.org/mdg.pdf
vi In Singapore, government salaries have been ties to national GDP growth; elsewhere a share of civil servants
receive large bonuses based on evaluations of exceptional performance (Mukherjee and Manning, 2000).
vii In this regard the recent call by an Angolan diplomat that provisions for improving transparency in the oil sector

should be deferred until after “normalcy” has returned, indicates, we believe a failure to recognize the fundamental
ways in which a lack of transparency in government can lead to conflict risks in the first place. UN IRIN News
services. 1 April 2005. “Angola: 'Normalcy Before Transparency.’”
viii This attitude has an institutional dimension in both countries, stemming from a history of tense relations between

coastal enclaves of Black settlers and interior peoples, grafted on to a situation in which social relations in the interior
were historically strongly stratified, as between “rights holders” (in some local languages literally “the children of the
chief”) and various groups of unfree persons ( pawns, clients and farm slaves) deemed to be without voice or rights.
Those deemed civilised (kwii) in Liberia or city-dwelling educated elites in Sierra Leone sometimes presume a
mission to enlighten “the illiterate poor”, where listening to their legitimate complaints might be more appropriate.
Breaking the barriers imposed by a “politics of elite culture” (Cohen 1980) requires the kind of listening process
begun by the Governance Reform Secretariat in its sequence of chiefdom consultations in 1999-2000. This time,
however, there needs to be a clear commitment to prompt follow-up to address the community grievances thus
identified.
ix Some models of deliberation, such as those proposed by Ackerman and Fishkin (2004) involve presentations by

experts or presentation of recorded material of political elites presenting or debating policy options.
x It is easy to confirm that achieving the goals in each one of a set of regions implies achieving the goals overall, even

if different regions are at a different level on each indicator. For example if xi ∈[0,1] is the level of some indicator in
region i, such as the illiteracy rate, and αi is the relative size (in population terms) of region i, with Σiαi=1, then the
national level of the indicator is given by Σixi αi. Reducing xi by a fraction z in each region to (1-z)xi results in a new
national rate of Σixi αi(1-z)= (1-z)Σixi αi, which is equivalent to a reduction in Σixi αi by factor z.
xi Equiproportional reductions in indicators do not eliminate regional disparities; indeed they preserve the interregional

ratio of indicators. They tend nonetheless to an improvement in relative welfare disparities. To see this in terms of the
previous example, note that for two regions, 1 (a richer region) and 2 (a poorer region), with indicators x1 and x2,
where each indicator is a number between 0 and 1 but with and x1 < x2, the ratio x1 /x2, is of course equivalent to
the ratio (1-z)x1//(1-z)x2 ; however, for z∈(0,1) the ratio [1-(1-z) x1)]//[1-(1-z)x2)] is lower (and closer to 1) than the
ratio [(1-x1)]//(1-x2)].

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