Annan appeals for funds, international support to rebuild Liberia

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today appealed to the international community to support Liberia in its efforts to rebuild after a devastating 14-year civil war, ensuring peace and stability not only in the West African country but throughout the region as well.

“Let us seize this opportunity to end a long-running nightmare that has disgraced humankind. Let us consolidate the peace, and make the peace process irreversible,” the Secretary-General said in opening remarks to the second day of the International Reconstruction Conference on Liberia in New York.

The two-day Conference will try to raise the $488 million the UN and World Bank say Liberia will need over the next two years. Priority attention will be given to health, water and sanitation projects as well as demobilizing combatants – some as young as 12 – and helping them return home. Other areas include education, jobs creation, electoral support and infrastructure repair.

That figure is in addition to about $180 million requested for Liberia in November by the UN as part of its consolidated appeal for its global humanitarian activities.

The Secretary-General stressed that it was first and foremost the responsibility of the Liberian people to turn their backs on violence and sustain the peace process. “Their leaders in particular must urgently overcome their difficulties, and move ahead with national reconciliation,” he said.

In August, the Government and two rebel movements signed a peace accord in Accra, Ghana, setting up a National Transitional Government. More than 10,000 out of an eventual 16,000 United Nations troops and police are now deployed in a peacekeeping operation that is enforcing the pact and providing security for the country.

“The international community will still be an essential partner. In that spirit, I ask you to contribute the resources needed for the reconstruction of Liberia,” the Secretary-General said, calling also on the regional players to continue actively supporting the peace process.

“If the demobilization process is not effective, this could have destabilizing effects on Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Sierra Leone,” he warned. The regional dimension also extends to the repatriation of non-Liberian combatants, and the resettlement of 300,000 Liberians seeking refuge in neighbouring countries, as well as refugees from those countries who are currently in Liberia.”

The conference was also meant to demonstrate international solidarity with Liberia at a decisive moment, the Secretary-General said, pledging that the United Nations was “strongly committed to working closely with all Liberians to establish the rule of law, to build up an independent judiciary, to promote transparency, and to pursue justice for the crimes and abuses that have been committed.”

Video of morning session of conference [3hrs 8mins]