The seven siblings scamper around the second-storey room in the Liberian capital, veering dangerously close to where the wall should be. One foot wrong and it’s a 20m drop onto a traffic-clogged road.
Aside from keeping a beady eye on her children, their mother Josephine also has to feed the entire family on less than a dollar a day.
And all this in a chaotic city of one million people that still has no running water or mains electricity nearly two years after the end of the civil war.
”It’s not a good place for children to live. It’s dangerous with no walls and the busy road down below,” said Josephine. ”But where would you have me move? I don’t have the money.”
Josephine fled her hometown of Gbargna, 200km northeast of Monrovia in 1999. She did not end up in one of the many camps for displaced people. Instead she fended for herself, selling peanuts for a profit of 50 Liberian dollars (about $0.80) a day if she was lucky.
When the war ended in August 2003, and the international community swarmed into town, Josephine hoped life would improve. Now she shakes her head and laughs sadly at her folly.
”Nothing has changed. Everything has got worse. The price of a cup of rice is now 20 Liberian dollars instead of 10. The international community is supporting us and rice is still that expensive,” she explained, her agitation growing. ”There’s still no water, no electricity. How much longer will we have to wait for these things?”
The United Nations has its most expensive peacekeeping force in the world stationed in this West African nation. The Security Council has just approved a $761-million budget for the coming financial year to pay for its 15 000 soldiers and policemen.
Liberians are unreservedly grateful that the fighting has stopped and it is safe to walk the streets again after 14 years of war. But frustrations are growing that everyday life for those that didn’t fight or flee has barely changed in the two years of peace.
While more than 100 000 former fighters have received $300 each for turning in their Kalashnikovs, and over 300 000 people in the camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) are getting food packages, plastic sheeting and bus money to help them rebuild their lives back home, Josephine is on her own.
”It makes me angry because we went through the hardship and suffering but we got no compensation. The UN came for combatants but not for ordinary Liberians,” she said. ”We are ready to be helped whenever they are ready to help us.”
We were the victims
Josephine’s complaints are echoed across the country.
In the east near the border with Côte d’Ivoire, the residents of Zwedru see former fighters zipping around town on shiny new scooters and setting up small stalls with their disarmament money, while they struggle to feed their own families.
”The victims of the war were us civilians, but the focus has been on the ex-combatants,” said one man, who would only give his name as Ernest.
Some non-governmental organisations have criticised the ”cash-for-guns” and ”cash-for-return” approach, rather than focusing on rebuilding communities for all Liberians.
”In many cases the most vulnerable are not internally displaced persons or refugees, who have received at least some assistance, but Liberians who suffered in place and managed on their own without the benefit of international aid,” Refugees International said in a statement on Friday.
”It is vital that the entire UN humanitarian and development system step up efforts to transition from relief to development, and ensure that communities are provided with the support they need to rebuild without making distinctions between the returning internally displaced, returning refugees, and those who stayed behind. Liberians at the village level all require support in rebuilding their own communities.”
In areas like northern Lofa County, which UN officials estimate was once home to the majority of displaced Liberians and a third of the 350 000 refugees, the contrasts are evident.
Returning IDPs and refugees have new plastic sheeting to keep themselves dry as the rainy season sets in and food supplies as part of their resettlement packages. But many of those who stayed put get wet and scrabble to find food.
The children of IDPs enjoyed healthcare and education in their camps, but many other Liberians youngsters are still waiting for their battered local schools to reopen.
Residents in many parts of southeastern Liberia, like Grand Geddeh and Grand Kru counties, are suffering from the fact that these areas do not have huge numbers of returning refugees and IDPs. As a result, they have fallen off the aid radar somewhat.
”[They] are very much marginalised. They have lower numbers of IDPs returning and they are geographically isolated,” said Leila Bourahla, the senior programme manager in Liberia for Save the Children UK.
Not enough funding
The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMil) says cash is the main problem when it comes to helping communities and ordinary people across the country.
”They are not forgotten. A number of resources… are going on counties, even if it’s not as much as we would like it to be,” said Abou Moussa, the acting head of UNMil. ”We may not talk out loud about communities that have remained [at home], but it’s subsumed in our campaign to get more resources. The more resources we get, the more we will be able to respond.”
The United Nations is still $10-million short of funds to reintegrate former fighters more than seven months after the disarmament programme officially ended, so ordinary Liberians may have to wait a while longer.
”I think that the challenge has only just started for Liberia,” said Nicola Smith, country director for International Rescue Committee. ”The reconstruction process … needs to be scaled up. The groundwork critically needs to be laid in the next year so that the private sector can then come in.”
At the moment, the transitional government tasked with shepherding Liberia to presidential and parliamentary elections on October 11 is very much reliant on outside help.
UN peacekeepers and policeman are responsible for security and many Liberians fear that if they were to pack their bags, chaos would return to the streets.
International aid agencies are effectively ensuring that the hospitals, clinics and schools which have reopened their doors, continue to function.
Healthcare in Zwedru, the capital of Grand Geddeh county, for example, essentially consists of a hospital run by Medécins Sans Frontières (MSF), Belgium. There is no Liberian doctor in this neck of the woods, just four local nurses.
MSF says that if it were to pull out of the town, the 2 500 outpatients treated free-of-charge at the hospital each month would have nowhere to go.
”Money-wise the government is not in a position to run the hospital. They would not have enough money to pay salaries or buy drugs,” explained Karolina Claesson, the head nurse of the MSF medical team in Zwedru.
Even when the government does have money to spend on salaries, it often does not end up with the right people. One aid agency found that only 50% of the staff working at clinics it supported were actually on the state payroll, the others were working without salaries.
Aid workers say people buy themselves onto the government payroll and some of the names on the state’s list belong to people who are dead or no longer in the country.
In Zwedru, some of the teachers at the main school took unauthorised leave during the month-long voter registration period in April and May, because the electoral work offered guaranteed cash, in contrast to their irregularly paid teaching salary.
The situation is less acute in Monrovia, but students at the University of Liberia bemoan the perilous state of their facilities and the fact it takes them twice as long as it should to get their qualifications because of staff shortages.
”There’s no money available, not even for chairs. Just look at what we have to sit on,” said Nita Newon, a 23-year-old accountancy student as she caught her sleeve on a rusty nail. ”And our leaders send their children to Harvard,” she added bitterly.
Government comes under heavy fire
Criticism of the interim government, headed by Chairman Gyude Bryant, comes hand-in-hand with complaints about living conditions. Practically every Liberian can tell you how much the government spent on its fleet of new jeeps.
”I know how to classify this government. It’s the worst Liberia has ever had,” said Darline Zuahtyu, who lives in a ramshackle hut, not far from Bryant’s fortress-like seafront villa.
International donors are so worried about corruption derailing the country that they have drafted a plan, which would limit the government’s powers to grant contracts, outsource the management of key state enterprises to foreign contractors and place international supervisors in the main ministries. It would also bring in judges from abroad to resurrect the justice system.
Think-tanks like the International Crisis Group believe that the international community must go further and commit to helping Liberia for at least 15 years.
Residents agree. Many of them look to the United States to help the country, which was founded by freed black American slaves in the early 19th century. Unlike other West Africans, Liberians speak with a markedly American accent.
”We need them to stay for as long as it takes — 10, 15, 20 years — until Liberia can once again reach a level of maturity,” said Moses Gayflor, an economics student. ”We are hopeful that things will improve in the future if we usher in a credible government.”
The elections on October 11 have been heralded as the final chapter in Liberia’s transition to peace, and UN officials admit privately that a successful election might well lead to an assumption that UNMil can start to draw down its expensive operation.
But aid workers say that equating the lack of headline-grabbing news with a reduced need for assistance would be fatal, especially in this turbulent West African region.
”The Darfurs and the tsunamis of the world cannot push Liberia off the international agenda. It has a critical role in West Africa, with ramifications on Guinea, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire,” said Smith of the International Rescue Committee. ”Liberia cannot become yesterday’s story.” –Irin