Rebuilding a failed state: Liberia

Overview

This article argues for a combination of long-term engagement in providing security, culminating in training and mentoring of new security forces; a comprehensive approach to reintegrating ex-combatants that also benefits civilian host communities and helps to ensure that agricultural livelihoods are made viable; and the opening of a space for discussion of governance issues and revenue distribution that is supported by a revenue-collection trusteeship that takes some of the key areas of economic pillage out of the purview of the state and deposits state revenues transparently into the state’s coffers, leaving it to a new breed of Liberian politicians to emerge.