Stop the Rape

The United Nations is calling for the end of "widespread impunity" for sex attackers in Liberia where up to three quarters of all women and girls have been raped. Investigators said the high rates of sexual assault in Liberia were part of the legacy of the West African nation’s two civil wars, which ran from 1989 to 2003. Between 61 per cent and 77 per cent of all woman and girls in the country were raped during the conflict, according to previous research by the World Health Organisation.

A new report found that children under the age of five were among those sexually attacked last year in Liberia, where the vast majority of documented rape victims are minors. Of rapes documented by the UN in Liberia in 2015, almost 80 per cent of victims were under the age of 18, including at least five girls under the age of five. Despite more than 800 reported rapes, only 34 convictions were made for the crime in 2015, with officials warning that the assaults are vastly underreported due to widespread stigma and discrimination against victims. A report by the UN Mission in Liberia and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said rape has become the second-most reported serious crime in the country.

Victims face challenges at every step of the process if they attempt to hold their assailants criminally accountable. Families are frequently put under pressure to settle cases out of court, while most perpetrators are men known to victims as either community members or relatives, meaning women fear reporting rape over the fear of reprisals or social “shame”.

Where did the aid go?

Although Nigeria, Senegal, Mali and the Congo were all affected by the ebola epidemic , the real devastation occurred in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Medical facilities were overwhelmed at an alarming rate, already-lean government purses were stretched to the limits, the courage of health workers was tested to the brim, and normal life was ruined. In Liberia, the outbreak left half the heads of households out of work, while women - who account for more workers in the non-agricultural, self-employed sectors - were among the hardest-hit. So the aid money started coming in. By July 2015, the United Nations announced that donors had promised $5.2bn, which far outweighed the $3.2bn the three countries said they needed to "return to the progress of their pre-Ebola trauma".

President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone, speaking on behalf of the three Ebola-hit countries, said: "Humanity sometimes displays short attention spans and wants to move to other issues because the threat from Ebola seems over … The threat is never over until we rebuild the health sector Ebola demolished, until we rebuild the livelihoods it compromised."

The much-vaunted "rebuilding of livelihoods ruined by Ebola" is far from happening. The Liberian government, whose task force destroyed the belongings of Ebola patients, was providing no help as survivors struggled daily for decent food, housing and employment. As Josephine Karwah, one of only three pregnant women to survive the virus, told me, the government left survivors "in a limbo".

Liberia's anti-corruption watchdog audited only a fraction ($15m) of the funding, and found that $800,000, most of which passed through the defence ministry, could not be accounted for. Specific instances of corruption included the disbursement of $600,000 for fuel, feeding, daily subsistence allowance, communication, medical and training, tentage repair, repair and maintenance, without supporting documents; and the payment of $10,000 to 68 officers in 10 counties who could not be physically seen or whose names could not be traced in the daily attendance records.

In neighbouring Sierra Leone the report of the Audit Service of Sierra Leone unearthed a series of financial irregularities, most notably payments to thousands of fictitious health workers, and expenses running into several hundreds of thousands dollars without supporting documentation.

The Ebola Fund Watch report in November 2015 reveals that although Guinea had received donation worth $330m as of November 4, 2015, there is not one audit report on the use of the fund. The "reports of mismanagement" suggested in this report are given credence by the former prime minister Cellou Dalien Diallo's description of Guinea as a country where "contracts aren't signed and investments aren't made".

In all three countries, no individual has been tried, much less convicted, for their role in the mismanagement of money meant to save the lives of the dying.

Land Grabs In Liberia: The People Rise Up

The Liberian government’s refusal to recognize and respect rural people’s customary land rights is marginalizing and destabilizing local communities. The state has handed out millions of hectares to investors in recent years. Now emotions are flaring into full-scale conflict.
The recent violence by community members against the Malaysian oil palm company, Golden Veroleum, in the presence of state officials in Butaw, Sinoe County, has once again thrown the spotlight on the violence between communities and concessionaires. One interesting take-away from the incident is that tensions between communities on the one hand and government and concessionaires on the other hand are growing, creating what has the potential to become a ticking time bomb.

Since 2010, serious incidents of community-investor land-related violence necessitating armed state security force’s involvement have erupted in many concession areas. Maryland, Nimba, Cape Mount, Sinoe, Grand Bassa, Margibi, Rivercess, Monsterrado, Bong – ten of the fifteen counties – have all reported violent land related conflicts (destruction of properties worth millions of dollars, allegations of torture by community members against state security forces, false imprisonment and other human rights abuses, and death), between communities, investors and the state. To put it more bluntly: growing tension stemming from large-scale land concessions indicates that violence and community anger may become an increasing consequence of bad faith concession operations in host communities and murky land transactions.

One of the central causes of this community anger and violence is state denial of communities’ and families’ customary land rights. (The vast majority of Liberians rely on land held, managed and used according to customary norms and practices for their livelihood.) The state’s failure to protect and defend communities’ customary land rights stems from an age old practice, mixed with an appetite for quick, cheap land and resource rental fees, that the state – and by this I mean those in charge of administering affairs of the state – has an unaccountable control over the country’s resources, including its citizens.

Firestone’s land deals and the Fernando Po crisis are good historical examples to draw from. Importantly, in recent times, between 2005 and 2013 alone, the government has ratified or signed into agreement several land based concessions, ceding away to concessionaires almost half, about 4 million hectares of the country’s land, often without proper consultation with the people and communities living and making their livelihoods from the land being handed out. The Liberian government’s refusal to recognize and respect rural people’s customary land rights is marginalizing and destabilizing local communities. It has also contributed to poor working and living conditions and weak protection for workers and their families in concession enclaves, brewing distrust between communities and investors. Indeed, it is within these four million hectares that we are now seeing emotions flaring into full scale conflict and violence. .

Furthermore, over a century of elite privilege has built in the state a patronage system to support an elite welfare system that rewards friends and families of the powerful, thus personalizing the state. One area this can be easily seen is around state processed private land claims. Laws like the now suspended Public Land Sale Act and accompanying instruments like Tribal Certificates and Presidential Signature to personalize public land (into private deed) have favored a few elites with close proximity to state power. Most large-scale public-to-private land transfers have tended to favor government actors. The recent infamous Private Use Permits (PUPs), which claimed almost a third of the country’s land space, is an extreme example of what is already unfolding all over the country. It is quite common to see members of the executive (president(s), ministers, directors of state-owned enterprises, county superintendents), representatives and senators, and members of the judiciary, along with their friends and family members, laying claims to huge tracks of lands all over the country.

from here

The Knock-On Effect From Ebola: Unemployment

Liberia’s Ebola outbreak has been over for a while, so what has happened to all those burial teams, contact tracers, Ebola Treatment Unit health workers, community mobilisers, ambulance drivers? What are they doing now?
The answer is not a lot. The majority of the estimated 20,000 or so workers and volunteers who risked their lives during the year-long fight are unable to find work, largely due to lingering stigma and fears about the virus.
Liberia was declared Ebola-free in May, but after almost 5,000 deaths and more than 10,000 cases, the country is still in trauma. Borders have reopened and trade is beginning to pick up, but the social and psychological scars take longer to heal.


“People are still afraid of us,” 44-year-old Morris Walker, who worked as a contact tracer, told IRIN.

“They don’t want to employ us because they feel we have some sort of disease and could infect them. But this is far from the fact.”
Before the outbreak, Walker had been working for many years as a waiter in a local restaurant. But when he tried to pick up again from where he’d left off, he was knocked back.
“The manager bluntly told me that my services were not needed because he heard that I was working with the burial teams,” Walker told IRIN. “The manager said that if he takes me back, most of his customers might not come back to the restaurant.” 
Walker has since applied for a number of jobs, but hasn’t had any luck. 
He is not alone.

There are no official figures, but several organisations, including local community service NGO Gratis, say that between 50 and 70 percent of former Ebola response workers are currently unemployed, particularly in and around hard-hit Margibi county. 

taken from here

Ebola: The American Army Aid Ineffective

Only 28 Ebola patients have been treated at the 11 treatment units built last year in Liberia by the U.S. military. Nine of the centers have never seen a single patient. 

Despite millions of dollars spent and nearly 3,000 U.S. troops deployed in the effort, it all came too late, the paper reported. Deploying the military cost $360 million, according to the report, not including the construction, staffing and operating expenses at the treatment centers it built.

“But even before the first treatment center built by the American military opened there, the number of Ebola cases in Liberia had fallen drastically, casting doubt on the American strategy of building facilities that took months to complete.”

Of the 11 centers the U.S. military built, all but one opened after Dec. 22. By then, Ebola cases had already fallen to the point that Liberian and foreign officials were discussing the closing of treatment units built by other organizations that were no longer needed, the paper reported.

“I knew that most of the ETUs that were being built may not receive a single patient,” Dr. Francis Kateh, who helped lead the response of the Liberian government, which decided with the Americans where to build the 11 centers, said “But at the same time, you couldn’t put a stop to that process,” he added. “The train was coming full force.”

Poverty in the Midst of Plenty

Hunger and malnutrition in a world of plenty is an unacceptable and shameful reality of the 21st century.

Following the end of fighting in Liberia in 2003, several investors arrived in the country, promising to invest millions of dollars in a war ravaged country much to the delight of Liberians struggling to get jobs to make a living but the benefits are meager or in some cases, nonexistent. The 52nd National Legislature wasted no time in ratifying dozens of concession agreements granting these foreign companies the right to mine Liberia’s iron ore deposits and also engage in other activities.

Many of the companies made big promises of creating a large number of jobs, building roads and other infrastructure for the local communities, but ten years on, all the companies granted concession contracts in the mining sector have been unable to jointly provide up to 10,000 jobs for Liberians. The Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), a civil society organization, has revealed that Liberia earns too little from its iron ore exports, which has severely strained state--‐citizen relations and relations between local communities and foreign multi--‐nationals operating in the mining sector.

“We only hear that China Union is paying money for community development, but we don’t know where the money goes,” said Hawa Kerkula, women’s leader of the Yarbaryon Clan in Bong County, Liberia. She continued: “We who live near the mountain have not seen any benefit since China Union came here. Our roads are bad. There are no health facilities in our communities. How does the government expect us to live?”, the Bong resident is further quoted

The report reveals that Liberia gives overly generous tax breaks to iron ore investors, which grossly violates the country’s revised Revenue Code. SDI states that, for example, while the Revenue Code requires multinationals to pay 30 percent income tax on all corporate profits, ArcelorMittal, China Union, and Putu only pay 25 percent.

The effects is more than a disease

Nearly half of all Liberians who were employed when the Ebola outbreak began are no longer working, a survey by the World Bank hasfound. It said many workers have been told to stay at home or have lost their jobs, while markets have been forced to shut. Those living areas of Liberia that have not been hit by Ebola "are suffering the economic side effects of this terrible disease".

Ebola outbreak was expected to cost the region about $3-4bn (£1.9-2.5bn). The World Bank said its survey found that 70% of respondents said they do not have enough money to afford food.

Ebola had ravaged the tourist industry across Africa. A survey showed that travel bookings were down by as much as 70%, even for destinations far away from the affected areas.

Beyond Ebola

The current focus on ebola should not let the impact of malaria (as well as other illnesses) and the campaign to develop a vaccine for malaria be forgotten about. While endeavouring to contain the present ebola epidemic,  Liberia's Foreign Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan explains"As we and our many international partners struggle to douse the wildfire caused by Ebola, we have been left with inadequate resources, time and personnel to attend to other routine illnesses like malaria, typhoid fever and measles, thereby causing many more tangential deaths," he said. 

Malaria is associated with high mortality and morbidity especially among children under five and pregnant women.  Around 90 per cent of estimated deaths from malaria occur in sub-Saharan Africa and 77 per cent of these are in children under the age of five.

Data from the phase III vaccine trial programme shows hope that a malaria vaccine is just a step away.

Plant-based therapies have held the ace in the treatment of malaria from chloroquine obtained from the Quinine bark also called Cinchona tree to the artemisin from the Chinese salad plant, Artemisia annua. Unfortunately, the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, has begun to develop resistance to the WHO-endorsed treatment ACT, made from Artemisia annua.

  Nigerian researchers have discovered and validated local plants that treat malaria like World Health Organisation (WHO)-endorsed drugs such as Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies (ACTs), amodiaquine, mefloquine and sulphadoxine/pyrimethamine. A recent study published in Malaria Journal has identified medicinal plants such as Momordica charantia (bitter melon), Momordica balsamina (balsam apple), Ageratum conyzoides (goat weed), and Diospyros monbuttensis (Yoruba ebony or walking stick ebony) to be very efficacious in the treatment of drug resistant malaria. The results of the study showed sensitivity of 100 Plasmodium falciparum (malaria parasite) isolates to chloroquine, quinine, amodiaquine, mefloquine, sulphadoxine/pyrimethamine, artemisinin, Momordica charantia, Diospyros monbuttensis and Morinda lucida. The researchers concluded: "Natural products isolated from plants used in traditional medicine, which have potent anti-plasmodial action in vitro, represent potential sources of new anti-malarial drugs." 

Questions Re US Response To Ebola Outbreak In Liberia

On September 16, President Obama announced a multimillion-dollar U.S. response to the spreading contagion. Obama's announcement comes on the heels of growing international impatience with what critics have called the U.S. government's "infuriatingly" slow response to the outbreak.
Assistance efforts have already stoked controversy, with a noticeable privilege of care being afforded to foreign healthcare workers over Africans.

After two infected American missionaries were administered Zmapp, a life-saving experimental drug, controversy exploded when reports emerged that Doctors Without Borders had previously decided not to administer it to the Sierra Leonean doctor Sheik Umar Khan, who succumbed to Ebola after helping to lead the country's fight against the disease. The World Health Organization similarly refused to evacuate the prominent Sierra Leonean doctor Olivet Buck, who later died of the disease as well.

The Pentagon provoked its own controversy when it announced plans to deploy a $22 million, 25-bed U.S. military field hospital—reportedly for foreign health workers only.
One particular component of the latest assistance package promises to be controversial as well: namely, the deployment of 3,000 U.S. troops to Liberia, where the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) will establish a joint command operations base to serve as a logistics and training center for medical responders. see earlier post here

Few would oppose a robust U.S. response to the Ebola crisis, but the militarized nature of the White House plan comes in the context of a broader U.S.-led militarization of the region. The soldiers in Liberia, after all, will not be the only American troops on the African continent. In the six years of AFRICOM's existence, the U.S. military has steadily and quietly been building its presence on the continent through drone bases and partnerships with local militaries.

The U.S. operation in Liberia warrants many questions. Will military contractors be used in the construction of facilities and execution of programs? Will the U.S.-built treatment centers be temporary or permanent? Will the treatment centers double as research labs? What is the timeline for exiting the country? And perhaps most significantly for the long term, will the Liberian operation base serve as a staging ground for non-Ebola related military operations?
The use of the U.S. military in this operation should raise red flags for the American public as well. After all, if the military truly is the governmental institution best equipped to handle this outbreak, it speaks worlds about the neglect of civilian programs at home as well as abroad.

whole article here

Communities' Resistance To Palm Oil At Odds With President's Stance

Liberia's Jogbahn Clan is at the forefront of efforts to resist the grab of Indigenous Peoples' land and forests for palm oil plantations. But according to the country's President, they are only 'harrassing and extorting' international investors.

"If we lose our land how will we live? We are in Africa, we live by our crops. Palm plantations can't help us!"
"They refuse to talk to us about our land business. Because we are standing here, are we not people? We are somebody."
So spoke Elder Chio Johnson defiantly looking through the tall iron gates of Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO) / Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad (KLK's) office in Grand Bassa County, Liberia.
His Jogbahn Clan had come to deliver a petition signed in solidarity by over 90,000 people to tell the UK and Malaysian palm oil companies that they must stop grabbing the Clan's land. However the companies refused to speak with the community.
EPO also thwarted efforts to present the petition in London, when they refused a meeting. Attempts to doorstop their London premises proved futile - the office appears to exist only in the form of a brass plate.

Even though the companies refused to speak with the communities the story of their struggle is now known all over the world with signatories for the petition coming from across the globe.
Their story has also been a source of inspiration for communities all over Liberia who like the Clan are facing dispossession from their land by agribusiness corporations that will replace their sustainable communities with monocultural plantations to produce certified 'sustainable' palm oil for the global market.
The fight many communities are facing in protecting their land is a fight for their very survival.
Last month Liberian communities affected by all four major palm oil companies; Equatorial Palm Oil / Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad, Golden Veroleum Liberia (Golden Agri-Resources), SIFCA / Maryland Oil Palm Plantation (Wilmar / Olam) and Sime Darby came together for the first time to discuss agriculture concessions as a national issue.

These companies are European (UK), Asian (Malaysian, Indonesian and Singaporean) and African (Côte d'Ivoire) with considerable European financing. The focus was on creating a space for these diverse communities to share their experiences.
The same narrative of exploitation is playing out all over the country; the companies' names were interchangeable. Bringing the communities together in this way laid the foundations for connecting their separate struggles.
Chio Johnson offered advice to the other communities, urging them to stay united in the face of the companies' divide and rule tactics. "Land is life, it is too valuable to lose", he warned.
Solomon Gbargee, a youth representative gave a stirring speech recounting the Clan's struggle so far and urged all the communities to stand together in their resistance of the companies:
 "If we lose our land how will we live? We are in Africa, we live by our crops. Palm plantations can't help us!"

Communities impacted by Wilmar's operations described resisting land clearances and the destruction of their property. When they objected to paltry compensation for destroyed crops they were told by their politicians: "If you want to get nothing, take to the streets" - where communities who continue to protest face assault and arrest.
Deyeatee Kardor, Jogbahn Clan's chairlady called on women to lead the struggle. "Because I stood up to the company people accused me of being a man but I carry the spirit of a thousand women", she proclaimed.
"For those of us under struggle with a palm company we must remain strong. My land is my land, your land is your land, your forest and bushes are your bank. Don't get tired. We cannot agree to leave our land."
Communities shared advice and support and these exchanges led to the development of a community solidarity network to provide a platform to work together.

In her ninth Address to the Nation in January 2014 the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, characterised community resistance to large scale concessions on their land as "harassment and extortion of investors".
"Agriculture remains the key sector of the economy for local employment creation, poverty reduction, food security and income generation, as over 60 percent of the population depends on this sector for livelihood.
"Food security is listed as a national priority, but we must admit that there has been under-investment by both the public and private sectors. Only massive investment can fix this under-performing sector so that it can play the vital role of delivering inclusive economic growth, environmental sustainability and long-term poverty reduction.
"Our scarce budget resources cannot do this, given the many other priorities, so we will need to attract investment from the private sector. At the same time, the private sector will not respond if there is continued harassment, extortion and unreasonable community demands."
Her statement somehow failed to recognise that investors are primarily interested in the production of export cash crops - which does nothing to increase food security in Liberia. Indeed it achieves the very reverse, as land used for local food production is comandeered to produce commodities for global markets.
The result of community resistance, she later claimed, is to undermine Liberia's economic growth and harm "the renewed confidence that Liberia is still a good destination for investment".
Earlier this year she voiced support for the Jogbahn Clan's struggle against EPO - as reported by The Ecologist. But her promises have come to nothing.
Read more here

Huge Palm Oil Company Set To Steal Liberian Land

The UK-listed company, Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO), which is threatening to seize land owned by Liberians in defiance of commitments by Liberia’s President, will today receive a visit from affected communities. Members of the Jogbahn Clan, together with representatives from Liberian and international NGOs, will deliver a petition with over 90,000 signatures, reminding EPO that it does not have community consent to expand onto their lands, and that doing so could escalate violence.  EPO’s past operations in Liberia have triggered allegations of conflict and human rights abuses. The company has maintained that any expansion is legal.

“EPO’s recent expansion efforts are a brazen example of a company defying international law, government orders and the rights of communities,” said Silas Kpanan'Ayoung Siakor, campaigner at the Sustainable Development Institute. “EPO has no claim to this land, it is owned by the communities who live on it.”
Residents from the Jogbahn Clan in Liberia’s Grand Bassa County say that EPO has begun demarcating blocks of land in preparation for clearing, and have accused its security officers of threatening community members. These actions defy the March commitment by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf that EPO could not expand onto the lands of the Joghban Clan without their permission. The right of Liberian communities such as the Joghban Clan to give or withhold consent to projects that could have an impact on their land and resources is also provided under international human rights law, as well as the Principles and Criteria of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) of which EPO is a member. The Joghban people have refused to give such consent.

EPO has a very poor track record in Grand Bassa County. In September of last year, officers from the EPO security team and the Liberian Police reportedly worked together to assault and beat Joghban community members who were peacefully protesting the company’s operations. Those arrested were soon released after it was determined by the government’s Grand Bassa attorney that there was no justification for continued detention. No government investigation report regarding this incident has been made public.

EPO denied any involvement in the violence, saying that it had been “falsely accused”, and does not “condone or encourage such described behaviour," and “never instructed or directed any of its staff or PSU officers to intimidate Jogbahn community members in September or at any time.” However, EPO admitted to Global Witness that it provided logistical support to the Liberian police who are accused of intimidating villagers on the plantation. The company further stated that it “respect[s] the Liberian community rights and land, and ha[s] followed the law and procedures laid out”, had taken “strict steps" to ensure that it only plants oil palm on its concession land and legally-acquired community land, and  is “a responsible company and committed to sustainable oil palm development.”

EPO’s concessions in Liberia total 8,900 km2 of land, which the company believes gives it the legal right to use the land to develop a palm oil concession.  The company is listed on the London-based AIM stock market, and is now majority owned by Malaysian palm oil giant Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd (KLK). Major brands including Kellogg’s, Kraft, Nestle, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, and General Mills have been reported as direct or indirect consumers of KLK palm oil.

“We demand that EPO stops inciting conflict by preparing to clear our land,” commented Jogbahn Elder Joseph Chio Johnson, “EPO must stop threatening our people and accept that our no means no.”

from here

Liberia - When our land is free, we’re all free

On 6-8 May 2014 agribusiness corporations are courting African governments at the Grow Africa Investment Forum in Abuja, Nigeria to 'further accelerate sustainable agricultural growth in Africa'.
Corporations’ interest in agriculture in Africa has certainly accelerated corporate control of land and seeds but done little to support agriculture that will feed the continent. Rather than support family farming and smallholder agriculture private sector investment in agriculture has resulted in grabbing land from communities; the land which they farm sustainably and rely on for their survival.

Communities are resisting this corporate takeover of their land and they are winning. All over Africa people are sending a clear message to their governments; stop selling Africa to corporations. The Jogbahn Clan in Liberia is one such community and here is their story.

The Jogbahn Clan is celebrating a victory as the President of Liberia has now recognised their right to say no Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO) a British palm oil company grabbing their land. This is no small feat in a country where over 50% of the land has been given to a corporation without the consent of the communities who customarily own the land. 

Despite the President's commitment EPO has still not recognised that the Clan has said no to their operations. They are operating as if things are business as usual and conducting studies of the Clan’s land in preparation for clearing. Land clearance and other preparatory activities would be unlawful, as they do not respect communities’ right to give or withhold their Free Prior and Informed Consent, which is a requirement provided for under both national law and international law.

But the Clan are not discouraged and they continue their resistance for the hope of a better future; “We want the government to support us to be self-sufficient on our land instead of giving it to a company who will just take the money and go home. Instead we can keep the money in Liberia and we can live better lives” said Garmondeh Benwon (R).

Every year, an area five times the land size of Liberia is grabbed from communities around the world. The Jogbahn Clan show that stopping it is possible when communities stand together, mobilise and resist. The government has recognised their right to say no now EPO and KLK, their majority shareholder, must do the same.

 See the whole story here

 

 

Corruption In West African Countries

Poor public services in many West African countries, with already dire human development indicators, are under constant pressure from pervasive corruption. Observers say graft is corroding proper governance and causing growing numbers of people to sink into poverty.

 More West African countries were perceived to be highly corrupt in 2013 than the previous year due to the effects of political instability in countries such as Mali, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau, according to the corruption index compiled by the global watchdog, Transparency International

Bribery, rigged elections, shady contract deals with multinational businesses operating in the natural resources sector, and illicit cash transfers out of countries are some of the more common forms of graft. In sub-Saharan Africa, 90 percent of countries are seen to be corrupt, the watchdog said.
 “There is no doubt that corruption affects pure and sustainable development in West Africa, and there is no doubt that it most often affects the poorest and weakest portions of society.”
As much as US$1.3 trillion has been illegally transferred out of Africa in the past three decades, said a report by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington-based advocacy group monitoring illicit financial flows.

Nigeria’s oil industry has been plagued by graft allegations that gave rise to complaints of neglect and a rebellion by people in the oil-producing southern regions. A draft report released in May 2013 by Liberia’s Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative noted that nearly all resource contracts signed since 2009 had violated regulations.

 Many political campaigns in Africa are fraught with allegations of irregularities and malpractice. “Not only are elections prone to corruption in the form of vote-rigging and fraud-monitoring, but by the way in which our political elites become entrenched in power,” said Tendai Murisa, director of TrustAfrica’s Agriculture Advocacy and Financial Flows programme.

“Corruption creates a way to perpetuate the regime, and one of the ways they perpetuate the regime is to buy votes, so that really affects the quality of democracy,” said Murisa, noting that a government deemed corrupt inspires little trust in the people, whose voices are often silenced or ignored when they speak out against graft.

Because the poor rely more on public services, they spend the largest percentage of their income on bribes to officials and even school administrators, so corruption pushes the most vulnerable further into poverty. In Sierra Leone, 69 percent of people think the police are corrupt, and in Nigeria the figure rises to 78 percent, said UNODC’s Lapaque.

  “If we just got back 50 percent of what we are currently losing to corruption, it could mean things like advancements in education or better road systems. We could make sure our children are back at school, we could make sure we are maintaining social welfare systems, and we could make sure our healthcare delivery systems are working properly.”


More here

Stone-breaking - heart breaking

Unemployment is high in post-war Liberia, breaking stones is the only option for many women to make ends meet. The stones are being used in Liberia's booming construction sector, but profits are hardly trickling down - 35 Liberian dollars (47 US cents or 34 Euro cents) per bucket. A good days fills seven buckets.

Liberia is expected to have a growth rate of 8.9 percent this year, according to the African Economic Outlook, boosted by a rise in commodity prices, particularly rubber, palm oil and minerals, at a time when many European economies are stagnating or even in recession.

Despite the fact Liberia has a female president, heralded for promoting women's rights and welfare, life for women is particularly hard. The literacy rate for rural women is at just 26 percent, compared with 61 percent for urban women, and 60 percent and 86 percent for rural and urban men, respectively, according to Liberia's Ministry for Gender and Development. In addition, 42 percent of women have never been to school, compared with 18 percent of men.

Government revenue has grown by 400 percent. But eight out of 10 Liberians still live on less than US$1.25 (0.94 euros) a day according to the World Bank.

Source

The Liberian Land grab

Liberian farmers who survived a 15-year civil war are now fighting lucrative property deals with Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil companies that threaten the land they live on, if not their sacred burial sites. Thirty hours by car from the capital Monrovia, the green and yellow flag of Golden Veroleum Liberia, an Indonesian palm oil giant, floats over deforested hills in Sinoe County, southern Liberia. In 2010, GVL acquired a 63-year lease on 220,000 hectares of land to produce palm oil. It pays annual rent of US$1.50 per hectare for virgin forest land and US$5 per hectare for cleared terrain in the lease, renewable for 30 more years. Palm oil is used for cooking in parts of Africa, Brazil and Southeast Asia, and is an ingredient in soaps and washing powders.

“The Indonesians came here for the first time in September 2010,'' resident Benedict Manewah explained. “They said: ‘We have a concession agreement, your president has sold it to us.’ Three months later they came back... and they started to destroy the properties, farmlands, crops, livestock and houses.’’ Manewah listed the crops he had planted. “I had rubber trees, cassavas, breadfruits, orange trees, cocoas, coconuts and palm trees,’’ for his family. GVL workers uprooted his crops to produce palm oil exclusively, and “they ship everything to their people, at home,’’ in Indonesia, he said.

Saydee Monboe pointed out that farmers now had no choice but to work under contract for GVL, charging: “This is not development, it's modern slavery.’’

Alfred Brownell, a lawyer who founded the organization Green Advocates, added:“The way they operate is almost as mob gangsters; threats, intimidation, illegal arrests,''

The other oil grab

The scramble for land is part of a global rush to increase food supply. Palm oil is the cheapest and most widely used vegetable oil, found in about half of all packaged supermarket products, from biscuits to soap and lipstick. Demand has doubled since 2000 and prices have tripled to more than $930 a metric tonne for Malaysian palm oil. Hungry for foreign direct investment, many governments have offered cheap land. Liberia has taken the lead, awarding more than 600,000 hectares of land for palm oil.  Sime Darby is the biggest investor, along with Golden Veroleum, controlled by Singapore-listed Golden Agri-Resources through its majority investment in the US-based Verdant Fund, which also has a 220,000-hectare concession. Equatorial Palm Oil, listed on the Aim index in London, has 89,000 hectares, and is in talks for a further 80,000 hectares.

Sime Darby is one of the world’s largest palm oil producers. In 2009, the Malaysian company secured 220,000 hectares of land in Liberia on a 63-year lease, marking its first expansion outside south-east Asia. It was not alone. Deals involving big Asian palm oil companies such as Golden Agri-Resource, Wilmar and Olam as well as US funds and European companies, have been signed across west Africa in recent years.

Since 2008, governments from Sierra Leone to the Democratic Republic of Congo have awarded concessions for some 1.5m hectares of land for commercial palm oil plantations, mostly to foreign companies. A further 1.3m hectares of land is reportedly being sought.

87 per cent of the $20bn-a-year production comes from Indonesia and Malaysia. But tighter environmental standards and a shortage of suitable land for expansion has caused planters to look elsewhere. Tropical west Africa is attractive. Oil palms originate there, although most production is small-scale. With domestic economies growing fast and palm oil used extensively for cooking, there is a ready local market. Big customers in Europe and the US are close, compared with Asian plantations.

“There are significant opportunities for the development of commercial oil palm operations in west Africa,” said Doug Hawkins, head of agribusiness at Hardman and Co. “But there are also very real concerns in some countries over security of title, and in respect of the environmental and social impact that some of the very large-scale concessions may produce.”

Land ownership is complex and controversial in Liberia, with fuzzy lines between government land and communally owned land that has been used for subsistence farming for generations. John Nelson, African regional co-ordinator at the UK-based Forest Peoples Programme explained “If they give up their land for palm oil, the leases are for so long that they are basically giving it up forever.”

When Sime Darby started clearing land to plant, local communities protested that their crops and sacred sites had been destroyed. “The government created the impression that this concession land is unencumbered, and companies chose to believe them,” said Silas Siakor, director of the Sustainable Development Institute, in Monrovia. “Nobody thought to first talk to people on the ground.”
Late last year, the company agreed to stop operations at the disputed site, and enter talks with villagers about remediation. It agreed to hire an extra 600 permanent workers from the community, bringing the workforce to more than 3,000. The lowest-paid staff get $5.51 an hour. “The job is hard,” said Doa Massaley, 45, one of the new hires, as he cleared undergrowth from a field. “But there is no other work here.”

Controversy has also dogged Cameroon’s palm oil sector. Herakles Capital, a New York investment fund, plans to plant oil palms on 60,000 hectares of its 99-year concession, which is surrounded by national parks and protected zones.  The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil is a certification body set up to improve the industry’s environment and social standards,  RSPO insists that its members obtain “free, prior and informed consent” from locals. Herakles’s withdrew from the RSPO, saying the body lacked the technical expertise and resources to evaluate its project and said the venture was going ahead

Taken from here

Gay rights come second to economics

The Nobel peace prize winner and president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has defended a law that criminalises homosexual acts, saying: "We like ourselves just the way we are..We've got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve..."

Liberian legislation classes "voluntary sodomy" as punishable by up to one year in prison, but two new bills have been proposed that would target homosexuality with much tougher sentences. One would amend the penal code to make a person guilty of a second-degree felony if he or she "seduces, encourages or promotes another person of the same gender to engage in sexual activities" or "purposefully engages in acts that arouse or tend to arouse another person of the same gender to have sexual intercourse", carrying a prison sentence of up to five years. The second bill would make gay marriage a crime punishable by up to 10 years in jail.

The second bill was drafted by Jewel Howard Taylor, the ex-wife of the former president Charles Taylor, and she said "[Homosexuality] is a criminal offence. It is un-African...We consider deviant sexual behaviour criminal behaviour."

Homosexuality is already illegal in 37 African countries. In Uganda, a bill proposing custodial sentences for homosexuality is still being considered, although it no longer contains the provision for the death penalty. Ten women were recently arrested in Cameroon accused of being lesbians, while in Nigeria, homosexual activities are punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Sirleaf desperately needs the support of other MPs to tackle other issues such as corruption, exploitation of the country's natural resources and mass youth unemployment. "If she tried to decriminalise the [current anti-gay] law it would be political suicide," said Tiawan S Gongloe, the country's former solicitor general. So Sirleaf is prepared to sacrifice the human rights of one group of workers for the sake of the economy. And to think Sirleaf was awarded the Nobel peace prize for her work in campaigning for women's rights!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/19/nobel-peace-prize-law-homosexuality

Liberia's land-grab

Hundreds of villagers and town residents of Liberia’s Grand Cape Mount Country have attracted nationwide attention in their bid to recover what they say is land seized from them and turned over to a Malaysian agro-industrial concern.

Malaysian company Sime Darby Plantations was granted a permit on 21 April 2010 to cultivate 10,000 hectares of palm oil in Bomi and Grand Cape Mount counties. Now, the company has applied for an additional 15,000 hectares for palm oil cultivation in Garwular and Gola Konneh districts, in the Grand Cape Mount County, and another 20,000 hectares in Gbarpolu County.

“This is unbearable,” Mary Freeman Sinje Town said. “Our government must care for us and don’t allow these people to kill us silently. What have we done to go through all of these sufferings? This land belongs to us. We were born here and we give birth to our children here too. This is the only place we know.”

A "deadly financing gap"

Poor sanitation and bad hygiene cause the deaths of one in five Liberians, according to the World Health Organization.Diarrhoea kills 20 percent of children who die aged five or under in Liberia according an Oxfam report.

Three out of four Liberians have no access to safe drinking water and six out of seven cannot access sanitation facilities, such as toilets.

Water and sanitation receives less funding than health, education, transport, energy and agriculture, according to the global Annual Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water

malnutrition and health

Liberia has 5,000 full-time or part-time health workers and 51 Liberian doctors to cater to a population of 3.8 million, according to the 2006 health survey. 44 percent of child deaths are associated with malnutrition. Chronic malnutrition - also known as stunting - affects 39 percent of under-fives, and 6.2 percent are acutely malnourished or "wasted". A "severe acute malnourished child" is more than nine times more likely to die than a well-nourished one .

With 45 percent of Liberian children under age five chronically or acutely malnourished, experts say nutrition is a burning health problem, but NGOs feel the Ministry of Health is not as worried as it should be