FOUR

PEOPLE-CENTERED LIBERALISM AND INTERNATIONAL STATEBUILDING

INTRODUCTION

The embrace of the doctrine of new humanitarianism has to a large degree settled some debates about sovereignty, morality, and human security in the international security discourse. It has also paved the way for policy experimentation in international development and postwar politico-institutional design. New humanitarianism’s insistence on the duty of the international community to address the root causes of violence in war-torn countries has elevated intervention into international statebuilding. The UN and its various agencies have been key actors in this effort. As one United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) official saw it, the “big issues of security, peace, and then of course . . . statebuilding, reconstruction . . . [are] utterly the mandate of this, the UN mission. It is more importantly that the agencies have a longer term engagement in the conflicts in the sub-region.”¹ Thus, international statebuilding has become the praxis of new humanitarianism, and the real challenge is figuring out not only how to end civil wars but also how to build democratic and economically viable states in war-torn countries, maintain peace, and improve the well-being of the people. New humanitarianism’s vision of political and economic development is not necessarily a new idea in international development. However, it does bring a new morality rooted in liberalism and social well-being into the discourse on development policies that sees civil wars as opportunities to build better states.²

The practical question that has come out of the doctrine of new humanitarianism is how to implement international statebuilding and redirect orthodox international development policies from their macroeconomic indicators and geopolitical orientations toward meaningful opportunities that impact people’s well-being, enhance human security, and promote sustainable development.³ Traditional development policies in Africa have been influenced by Cold War ideological and geopolitical struggles that tolerated dictatorship and focused on the export of raw minerals and cash crops.⁴ While traditional development policies have technically been viewed as “aid” to African states, they did not meaningfully contribute to the development of these states or the well-being of the masses. The elitist and dependency-driven approach to international development failed to improve the African states’ political or economic conditions; in reality, it contributed to the phenomenon of state decay. By the end of the Cold War, African states were characterized by dictatorships, huge debts, shrinking economies, high mortality rates, low levels of literacy, and poor infrastructure. This orthodox international development frame was shattered with the end of the Cold War.

PEOPLE-CENTERED LIBERALISM: THE CONCEPTUAL AND POLICY FRAME OF INTERNATIONAL STATEBUILDING

The first significant ideological and policy change in the international development frame for African countries came at the end of the Cold War, when Western powers and financial institutions demanded that African countries introduce neoliberal economic reforms to reduce government spending and open their markets to more competition.⁵ In particular, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) insisted on the strict implementation of structural adjustment programs as a precondition for new loans. This change in policy not only imposed the neoliberal economic doctrine on African states but also signaled a new relation between African rulers and Western powers. Structural adjustment programs across the continent caused major social and economic hardship, which instigated the movement for democratic reforms during the early 1990s.⁶ As the neoliberal policies of the IMF failed to produce the desired results, international development policies shifted toward insistence on democracy, good governance, and sustainable human development. This shift did not abandon liberalism but instead led to a people-centered liberalism approach to international statebuilding.⁷ The World Bank, the IMF, and Western powers attributed the economic failures of Africans states to poor political leadership, a lack of democratic accountability, and restrictive economic policies. As such, democratic reforms and good governance were added to the demands for neoliberal economic reforms as preconditions for international development assistance.⁸

Neoliberalism and Human Development: UN, Work Bank, and IMF

The core international development institutions, notably, the UN, World Bank, and IMF, all tied economic development to political reforms toward free and fair multiparty elections.⁹ Such elections were seen as both a way to promote economic development and as the true actualization of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.¹⁰ Building on the Commission on Human Rights Resolution 1989/51 of March 7, 1989, and its own Resolution 44/146 of December 15, 1989, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 46/137 on December 17, 1991. This resolution states that “periodic and genuine elections are a necessary and indispensable element of sustained efforts to protect the rights and interests of the governed and that, as a matter of practical experience, the right of everyone to take part in the government of his or her country is a crucial factor in the effective enjoyment by all of a wide range of other human rights and fundamental freedoms, embracing political, economic, social and cultural rights.”¹¹ While the language of the resolution was also saliently directed at condemning apartheid, it did underscore the UN’s commitment to pushing for democratic reforms and opened the door for significant UN involvement in conducting multiparty elections in developing countries. In particular, Resolution 46/137 endorsed the UN secretary general’s request to “designate a senior official in the Offices of the Secretary-General to act as a focal point . . . who would assist the Secretary-General to coordinate and consider requests for electoral verification.”¹² The resolution also asked the secretary general to allocate a small number of staff and other resources to support the designated senior official. This led to the establishment of the UN Electoral Assistance Unit (UNEAU) in 1992.¹³ Since 1991, the UN has been very active in promoting multiparty democracy and helping organize elections in Africa and other developing countries. Between 1991 and 2002, for example, eighty-nine countries requested UN electoral assistance; sixty-eight of those (including forty in Africa) received electoral assistance from the UNDP.¹⁴

The UN’s commitment to democracy and good governance was reinforced in the September 2000 UN Millennium Declaration, in which world leaders stated: “We will spare no effort to promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law, as well as respect for all internationally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to development.”¹⁵ The declaration led to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG), project which developed an action plan containing eight goals, also known as the MDG Indicators, “to reverse the grinding poverty, hunger and disease affecting billions of people.”¹⁶ Goal 8 of the MDG Indicators was to develop a global partnership for development. The first target of Goal 8 (Target 8A) was to “develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, nondiscriminatory trading and financial system (includes a commitment to good governance, development, and poverty reduction—both nationally and internationally).”¹⁷ Target 8A became a critical measure of the progress toward democratic consolidation and quality of governance in developing countries. The MDG Indicators as a whole were critical measures of the extent to which developing countries progressed toward sustainable human development and what the Institute for Economics and Peace and recent studies refer to as positive peace.¹⁸

The democracy and good-governance principle filtered deeply into the international development discourse and, along with free-market reforms, became part of the wider notion of liberalization promoted by Western powers and financial institutions.¹⁹ Collectively, democracy, good-governance, and free-market reforms were expected to lead to sustainable human development and positive peace. On September 29, 1996, the IMF Interim Committee issued the Partnership for Sustainable Global Growth declaration, which states that the IMF “attaches particular importance to,” among other neoliberal principles, “promoting good governance in all its aspects, including by ensuring the rule of law, improving the efficiency and accountability of the public sector, and tackling corruption, as essential elements of a framework within which economies can prosper.”²⁰ In 1997, the IMF released “The Role of the IMF in Governance Issues: Guidance Note.” The document specified “improving management of public resources through reforms covering public sector institutions (e.g., the treasury, central bank, public enterprises, civil service, and the official statistics function), including administrative procedures (e.g., expenditure control, budget management, and revenue collection); and supporting the development and maintenance of a transparent and stable economic and regulatory environment conducive to efficient private sector activities (e.g., price systems, exchange and trade regimes, and banking systems and their related regulations)” as two spheres in which the IMF could contribute to “good governance (including the avoidance of corrupt practices).”²¹

The World Bank’s policies on liberalization and good governance were embodied in the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) project (1996–2009), which reported individual and aggregate governance indicators for 213 countries. The specific indictors were voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption. The first indicator in particular measured the extent to which countries were progressing toward consolidated democracies that ensure civil rights and free and fair multiparty elections. One of the key shifts in international development policies was the promise to help countries that were making meaningful reforms toward economic and political liberalism and good governance while reducing or cutting aid to countries that were failing to make such progress. Hence, the WGI and MDG Indicators became critical in shaping how individual African countries were viewed by international development agencies and donor governments. Other notable measures of governance include the Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Report and the Ibrahim Index.²²

With the shift toward economic liberalization, democracy, and good governance in the international development debate came the discourses on sustainable development and human development, which evolved into the notion of sustainable human development,²³ an idea that can be traced back to the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, presented to the UN in 1987. The report, which is commonly referred to as the Brundtland Report, made an argument for a more holistic approach to human well-being in which economic and social development policies are positively integrated with environmental policies. The report introduced the notion of sustainable development, which it defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The definition centered on “the concept of ‘needs,’ in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given” and “the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.”²⁴ While most of the initial focus has been on the interconnection between economic and social development and the environment, one of the key conceptual contributions of the report is its system approach to human well-being. This approach considers environmental, technological, economic, and social factors in the development of countries and their impacts on the quality of living conditions. The broader notion of sustainable development argues that just as environmental factors are interconnected with the economic well-being of humans, so is economic well-being interconnected with the social system. As such, human well-being rests on the positive interconnection among a variety of areas, most notably the natural environment, the economy, health, education, and so on. As the report states, “The satisfaction of human needs and aspirations . . . [is] the major objective of development. The essential needs of vast numbers of people in developing countries for food, clothing, shelter, jobs are not being met, and beyond their basic needs these people have legitimate aspirations for an improved quality of life. A world in which poverty and inequity are endemic will always be prone to ecological and other crises. Sustainable development requires meeting the basic needs of all and extending to all the opportunity to satisfy their aspirations for a better life.”²⁵

In a similar way, the notion of human development presented a people-centered and system approach to well-being that is concerned with both basic needs satisfaction and participation. The idea of human development emerged in 1990 out of the UNDP’s Human Development Report. The report took a more holistic approach to development that deviated from conventional approaches to economic growth and human welfare, viewing it both in terms of “the production and distribution of goods and the expansion and use of human capacities,” and emphasized the availability of “choices—on what people should have, be and do to be able to ensure their own livelihood.”²⁶ In essence, it defined human development as “a process of enlarging people’s choices. The most critical ones are to lead a long and healthy life, to be educated and to enjoy a decent standard of living. Additional choices include political freedom, guaranteed human rights and self-respect.”²⁷

The notions of sustainable development and human development converge on their emphasis on needs and the holistic nature of human well-being. As needs satisfaction expands from the privileged class to the wider citizenry and its impacts on the environment grow, the question of sustainability becomes even more central. These two notions of human well-being have merged into what is now termed sustainable human development.²⁸ As Sudhir Anand and Amartya Sen argue, “There is, in fact, no basic difficulty in broadening the concept of human development . . . to accommodate the claims of future generations and the urgency of environmental protection.”²⁹ The 1996 Human Development Report expanded the notion of human development to include “protection of the life opportunities of future generations . . . and . . . the natural systems on which all life depends.”³⁰ However, “this safeguard of future prospects has to be done without sacrificing current efforts toward rapid human development and speedy elimination of widespread deprivation of basic human capacities.”³¹ Anand and Sen anchored the concept of sustainable human development in the principles of universalism and distributive equity. Sustainability, they argue, is “a matter of distributive equity, that is, of sharing the capacity for well-being between present and future generations in an acceptable way—a way that neither the present generation nor the future generations can readily reject.”³² In essence, the notion of sustainable human development states that “the promotion of human development in the contemporary world must be integrated with the safeguarding of its potential for the future. . . . The moral value of sustaining what we now have depends on the quality of what we have, and the entire approach of sustainable development directs us as much toward the present as toward the future.”³³

The economic and political discourses of the 1990s led to a unique convergence of liberalism with more holistic notions of human well-being, governance, and development that has been referred to as people-centered liberalism.³⁴ People-centered liberalism begins with firm commitments to neoliberal economic and political principles but moderates their practical excesses with distributive and social justice. Rights, which are typically attributed to the individuals, are reframed to include the categories of citizens whose rights have not been met under the individualistic conception of rights. In this sense, rights are approached from both individualistic and collectivistic perspectives. Under people-centered liberalism, free-market and multiparty liberalism dovetail with the more holistic notions of good governance and sustainable human development to produce international development policies that demand political and economic liberalization while at the same time centering the outcomes of such policies on improving the quality of life of the vast majority of people and expanding their participation in consumption and decision-making.³⁵ This people-centered liberalism approach is evident in the new international development assistance regime, most notably the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP).

People-Centered Liberalism: Aid, Governance, and Trade

The people-centered liberalism approach to international development promised to give more assistance to countries that were making meaningful efforts to liberalize their economies, adopt multiparty politics, and promote good governance while allowing them to define their own needs and priorities for development. People-centered liberalism was embodied in several initiatives aimed at helping the poorest countries in the world, especially those ravaged by civil war.³⁶ In 1996, the IMF and World Bank launched the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. HIPC was intended “to reduce to sustainable levels the external debt burdens of the most heavily indebted poor countries.”³⁷ In September 1999, the IMF established the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) program. PRGF was replaced with the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) program. Both PRGF and ECF were intended to help countries move “toward a stable and sustainable macroeconomic position consistent with strong and durable poverty reduction and growth” and serve as a catalyst for additional foreign aid.³⁸ Under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) launched in 2005, the Group of 8 “proposed that three multilateral institutions—the IMF, the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank, and the African Development Fund (AfDF)—cancel 100 percent of their debt claims on countries that have reached, or will eventually reach, the completion point—the stage at which a country becomes eligible for full and irrevocable debt relief—under the joint IMF-World Bank enhanced Initiative for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC Initiative).”³⁹ By December 16, 2010, for example, thirty-two countries had benefited from MDRI, including twenty-six sub-Saharan African countries.⁴⁰ Though the actual positive economic impact of these initiatives on Africa’s development is not entirely clear, they actually set new standards for African governments seeking international development assistance from Western governments and financial institutions.

The eligibility criteria for these programs rested on neoliberal economic and political reforms and good governance. These expectations were articulated in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) that countries were required to adopt. The PRSP concept was approved in December 1999 by the executive boards of the IMF and the World Bank as a new policy framework for funding and bank lending to poor countries. In particular, PRSP was intended to be “the basis for official external debt forgiveness under the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative, begun in 1996, and subsequently as a pre-condition for financing from the IMF under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) and from the Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) concessional lending facility. . . . [and] an instrument which all donors, including the UN, can use to plan and coordinate their own assistance strategies and budgets.”⁴¹ The same principles of liberalization and good governance in the PRSP were embodied in the UN Development Assistance Frameworks (UNDAF), which was the strategic framework for UN operational support, especially in achieving the MDGs, at the country level. As the UNDG stated, PRSP is “a crucial instrument for macro-economic and sectoral planning. As such, the PRSP will have a major impact on the work of the UN and will be critical in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In some cases, the PRSP will be the only national planning document on poverty reduction.”⁴² PRSPs and UNDAFs became the key templates for the people-centered liberalism approach to international development assistance and peacebuilding in African countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire. PRSPs and UNDAF became the cornerstones for promoting liberalization, sustainable human development, and positive peace in these countries.

Nearly all African countries introduced economic and political reforms during the 1990s, in part to meet the new liberalization and good-governance preconditions for international development assistance. While a few countries, such as Benin, Zambia, and Ghana, quickly made meaningful reforms, many made only minimal changes and dragged the process on. In countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the lack of meaningful reforms dovetailed with salient political grievances to produce brutal civil wars. Despite the mixed approaches and results from the reforms, a new sense of African responsibility for good governance and development emerged in Africa. This sense of responsibility, which mirrored people-centered liberalism, was reflected in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) initiative created by the African Union (AU) in 2001. NEPAD sought to be “a radically new intervention, spearheaded by African leaders to pursue new priorities and approaches to the political and socio-economic transformation of Africa.”⁴³ One of NEPAD’s key programs was Economic and Corporate Governance.⁴⁴ NEPAD acknowledged that the delivery of high quality programmes and projects to promote Africa’s development and regional integration can only be realised in an environment that permits good economic and corporate governance.⁴⁵ NEPAD focused on enhancing management, procurement processes, and accountability and creating transparent government policies. The cornerstone of NEPAD’s Economic and Corporate Governance program was the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), which was “a mutually agreed programme, voluntarily adopted by the member states of the African Union, to promote and re-enforce high standards of governance.”⁴⁶ APRM focused on four areas: democracy and political governance, economic governance, corporate governance, and socioeconomic development. The underlying theme of all the areas was the promotion of democratic and accountable systems of governance and a transparent and ethical leadership that benefits the people. The review process itself is conducted by three organs of the APRM—the Country Review Mission Team, the Panel of Eminent Persons, and the Committee of Participating Heads of State and Government. Though the effectiveness of NEPD has been questioned, its existence underscored the need for people-centered liberalism in African economic development.⁴⁷

People-centered liberalism was also reflected in the works of nongovernmental organizations. One notable actor in this effort has been the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. The foundation had two key programs aimed at directly impacting the quality of governance and leadership at the highest level of the state. First is the Ibrahim Prize, which “is awarded to a democratically elected former African Executive Head of State or Government who has served their term in office within the limits set by the country’s constitution, has left office in the last three years, and has demonstrated excellence in office.” The prize “consists of US$5 million over 10 years and US$200,000 annually for life thereafter.”⁴⁸ It has been awarded to at least seven people (include the honorary award to Nelson Mandela) and was really intended to promote democracy by creating an incentive for African leaders to abide by the rules of free and fair multiparty elections and serve ethically. The second program was the Ibrahim Index, which measures the quality of governance based on four indicators: safety and rule of law, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity, and human development.⁴⁹ The index was intended to be a tool for assessing the quality of governance in each African state and stimulating a constructive discourse on governance and development. Both programs sought to promote good governance in Africa by providing incentives to leaders and a tool for differentiating countries striving to improve governance from those not making sufficient progress.

Another aspect of people-centered liberalism in African development is the “aid” debate, which mirrors the economic liberalization and good-governance discourses. In her provocative book, Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo rhetorically asks, “But has more than US$1 trillion in development assistance over the last several decades made African people better off? No. In fact, across the globe the recipients of this aid are worse off; much worse off. Aid has helped make the poor poorer, and growth slower. Yet aid remains a centerpiece of today’s development policy and one of the biggest ideas of our time.”⁵⁰ Moyo’s critique of the aid regime and orthodox international development assistance amplifies other criticisms of the traditional approach to African development, which has left many African countries with huge debts and corrupt governments.⁵¹ Her argument for a shift from aid to alternative development financing mechanisms that rely on financial markets, investment, trade, and microfinancing as a solution for Africa’s development crisis is anchored in the belief that bad governance and overregulation are the primary impediments to development there. Notwithstanding aid’s limitations, other economists continue to see its positive role, albeit with modifications.⁵² As Jeffrey Sachs and John McArthur candidly point out, “Everybody that deals with aid wants to promote financial transparency and market-led growth, not aid dependency.”⁵³ People-centered liberalism does not reject aid as a tool for promoting African development; rather, it seeks to redesign aid in a way that can promote liberalization, good governance, and sustainable human development and avoid excessive debt burdens. As such, aid has been redefined to emphasize trade and poverty reduction through entrepreneurship and strategic investment in sustainable human development.

This trade-oriented approach to aid fits well with the people-centered liberalism approach to international development assistance to Africa. The November 14, 2001, Doha Ministerial Declaration emphasized technical assistance and capacity building as “core elements of the development dimension of the multilateral trading system” and asked the World Trade Organization (WTO) “to support domestic efforts for mainstreaming trade into national plans for economic development and strategies for poverty reduction.”⁵⁴ Based on this mandate, the WTO launched the Aid for Trade initiative in 2005. As the WTO and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) note, “Aid for Trade is not a new global development fund, nor a new aid category. It is an integral part of normal Official Development Assistance (ODA) programmes. Aid for Trade is a holistic framework which encourages policymakers to use trade as a lever for economic growth and poverty alleviation. It encourages developing countries to write trade objectives into their development plans—and donors to respond by making resources available to meet the needs which are expressed.”⁵⁵ Like other international development initiatives for Africa, the WTO program also rested on the notion of people-centered liberalism.

People-centered liberalism was also evident in the work of the Commission for Africa led by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, which was at the forefront of boosting aid to Africa. In its 2005 report, for example, the commission called for a $25 billion annual increase in aid to Africa by 2010. It also called for another $25 billion per year by 2015 subject to a satisfactory review of the progress toward good governance. However, this new aid money was intended to develop the human capital and physical infrastructure necessary for the advancement of African trade. The commission’s underlying approach to African development rested on good governance, total debt relief, grants, investment, and improved market access for African products.⁵⁶ The commission reinforced this vision in its 2010 report, which assessed the progress since 2005 and pointed to new challenges for African development.⁵⁷

The emphasis on trade as the most appropriate way to aid sustainable human development in sub-Saharan Africa was reinforced in US and European Union (EU) trade and international development assistance policies. In 2000, the United States passed the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in an attempt to offer “tangible incentives for [sub-Saharan] African countries to continue their efforts to open their economies and build free markets.”⁵⁸ AGOA overlapped with, and expanded, the 1976 US Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program, which provided preferential duty-free entry for up to 4,800 products from designated beneficiary countries and territories.⁵⁹ Since AGOA’s initial passage, amendments to it have been made several times, including the Africa Investment Incentive Act of 2006 (commonly referred to as AGOA IV). The overall goal of AGOA was to provide “reforming [sub-Saharan] African countries with the most liberal access to the US market available to any country or region with which the United States does not have a Free Trade Agreement” and help US firms gain more access to investment opportunities in Africa.⁶⁰ Under AGOA, eligible sub-Saharan African countries could export up to 6,400 kinds of products to the United States with zero import duty, as stipulated in the US GSP. Eligibility for AGOA was determined by the US president based on the satisfactory establishment of or continual progress toward a market-based economy, rule of law and political pluralism, the elimination of barriers to US trade, poverty reduction and social well-being economic policies, proper anticorruption mechanisms, and the protection of human and labor rights.⁶¹ Since its establishment, more than thirty-eight sub-Saharan African countries have been designated as eligible, but the designation is subject to continuous review. Countries that falter on democracy and human rights are removed from the list of eligible countries. Overall, AGOA was part of the wider people-centered liberalism approach to international development assistance for Africa.⁶² AGOA rested on the belief that enhanced trade preferences for sub-Saharan Africa would “encourage both higher levels of trade and direct investment in support of the positive economic and political developments under way throughout the region.”⁶³

The cornerstone of the EU’s trade-oriented aid to Africa has been its GSP established in 1971 to give developing countries reduced or zero customs tariffs on imports of goods.⁶⁴ The EU GSP was modified for the post–Cold War economic and political order with the creation of the Everything But Arms (EBA) and GSP+ initiatives in 2001 and 2005, respectively. EBA gave duty-free access to imports of all products from LDCs [least developed countries], excluding arms and ammunitions, without any quantitative restrictions (with the exception of bananas, sugar and rice for a limited period).⁶⁵ GSP+ gave duty-free access for most eligible goods from developing countries that demonstrated a concrete and continuous commitment to core universal values on human rights, labor rights, environmental protection, and good governance by implementing the sustainable development and governance policies specified in the GSP+ incentive. In particular, countries were required to ratify and implement twenty-three of the core international conventions relating to human and labor rights by October 2005. In addition, they were expected to ratify and implement other international conventions on sustainable development and good governance.⁶⁶ Since most sub-Saharan African countries are classified as LDCs, EBA has become critical in the EU’s development assistance to Africa. Like AGOA, the EU’s African trade policies rested on people-centered liberalism. EU development assistance to African countries was anchored in the belief that more trade can “reduce poverty and promote good governance and sustainable development by helping them generate additional revenue through international trade, which can then be re-invested for the benefit of their own development.”⁶⁷

Though most of the discourse on trade and aid was driven by the nature of the economic and political ties between African countries and Western powers, it is important to note that the African trade and development path has increasingly been shifting toward Asia and Latin America. China and India, in particular, have become major trading partners and aid donors for Africa. As the Financial Times concluded, “it is now difficult to consider African prospects without mention of its pre-eminent foreign suitor [China], which in the past decade has increased trade with the continent 10-fold—from $10bn to more than $100bn—and has overtaken the US and Europe as the largest trading partner in some important economies.”⁶⁸ Between 2000 and 2007, the annual average export from Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) countries to China was USD 2.74 billion, which was more than their exports to the EU ($1.481 billion) and US ($212.7 million).⁶⁹ Though Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) countries had more exports to the EU and US, their exports to China and other parts of Asia had significantly increased. Between 2000 and 2007, SADC countries exported an annual average of $7.139 billion to China and $5.185 billion to other parts of Asia. ECOWAS countries exported an annual average of $616 million to China and $3.694 billion to other parts of Asia.⁷⁰ The 2010 African Export-Import Bank annual report showed similar trends. The growth rate of African exports (2009–2010) to “Developing Asia” was 19.4 percent, to the Western Hemisphere was 14 percent, and to “Advanced Economies” was 12.5 percent. Similarly, the rate of growth of African imports (2009–2010) was 22.4 percent (Developing Asia), 15.8 percent (Western Hemisphere), and 11.3 percent (Advanced Economies).⁷¹

In 2003, the Canadian International Development Agency started the Programme for Building African Capacity for Trade (PACT).⁷² The five-year program was extended in 2008 as PACT II. Under PACT, which cost CAD 19.8 million, the International Trade Center would work with ECOWAS, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, and the Economic Community of Central African States to expand the regional market, with free movement of goods and services, and give African producers access to a large consumer base and new opportunities to build and specialize along regional supply chains. More broadly, the program sought to give regional exporters “the skills necessary to meet quality standards and to manage supply-chain operations, allowing them to achieve higher levels of competitiveness and prepare for integration into the global economy.”⁷³ To achieve its goals, PACT focused on building pan-African networks and strategic South-South market development and promoting opportunities for information exchange through the use of new technologies and outreach to the private sector, especially networks for women in business. In addition, PACT emphasized trade development and promotion through the formulation of business plans, market analysis, and training programs. The final component of PACT’s strategies was enhancing entrepreneurship, especially for women. The program called for providing support services to entrepreneurs, such as quality management, standards (including environmental standards) compliance, export training, and supply-chain management.

The biggest players in Africa’s growing economic relations with Asia have clearly been China and India. The proportion of sub-Saharan Africa’s export to China increased from around 1 percent in 2000 to around 10 percent in 2010. Similarly, Chinese Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) outflow to Africa increased from around $2 billion in 2003 to around $9 billion in 2008.⁷⁴ The US Congressional Research Service observed:

In 2007, China was the destination for some 13% of Africa’s exports and the source of roughly 10% of Africa’s imports. These figures represent a long trend of increased Chinese trade and commercial ties with Africa, particularly with countries rich in natural resources. China’s trade with Africa greatly increased in recent years, reportedly growing to $74 billion in the first eight months of 2008, a 62% increase over the previous year. Even with the impact of the crisis in the second half of 2008, total Sino-African trade for the year was reportedly $106.8 billion, a significant increase from 2007. This trade has spurred Chinese investment in large infrastructure projects in Africa, which in some cases are thought to have helped alleviate constraints on economic competitiveness.⁷⁵

In May 2011, The Guardian noted that annual trade between India and Africa stood at $46 billion (it had grown from $1 billion in 2001 to $50 billion by 2010). Moreover, Africa-India bilateral investments reached $90 billion in 2010.⁷⁶ In addition to the increased volume of trade, both India and China became significant aid donors to Africa. In 2011, India pledged $5 billion to help African countries meet the MDGs.⁷⁷ According to Chinese government estimates, China gave $37.7 billion in aid to Africa between 1950 and 2009.⁷⁸ In 2006, China established the Africa-China Development Fund, which was expected to reach $5 billion.⁷⁹ In 2008, Chinese ODA to Africa was around $1.2 billion.⁸⁰ Chinese aid to Africa included the $10 billion concessional loans it pledged at the 2009 China-Africa Cooperation Forum in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.⁸¹

The shift of Africa’s economic relations toward Asia did not necessarily undermine the people-centered liberalism approach to African development. As the data show, Africa’s economic ties with Asia largely centered on trade instead of orthodox aid. As such, it fit the trade-oriented approach to aid and dovetailed with the principles of economic liberalization and sustainable human development that were shaping the international assistance frame for African countries. In fact, both China and India showed strong commitments to economic liberalization and sustainable human development. However, Africa’s economic relation with Asia has raised concerns for democracy and good governance, which are important elements of people-centered liberalism. This is largely due to the fact that Asian countries, especially China, did not make democratic reform a precondition for economic relations with African countries. China maintained strong economic ties with states that have resisted democratic reforms and engaged in major human rights abuses. China’s relations with Sudan and Zimbabwe, for example, were sharply criticized for the indifference to the gross human rights violations of the governments of those countries. Thus, a critical question is whether Africa’s own commitment to good governance and democracy, its continued reliance on Western aid, and the internal political development of African countries themselves would mitigate the negative tendencies toward dictatorship and bad governance.

BLUEPRINTS FOR INTERNATIONAL STATEBUILDING: DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

In essence, the prevailing principles and policies of liberalization, good governance, and sustainable human development provided the framework for international support for most donors in Africa. This people-centered liberalism approach was clearly articulated in core documents from international agencies that provided the blueprints for political, economic, and social development in many African countries. As previously noted, the key goal of the international community in war-torn countries was to restore security and build peace by creating favorable conditions for the consolidation of democracy and sustainable human development. This was the focus of international statebuilding in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire. The plans for this people-centered liberalism approach to international statebuilding were spelled out in the UN and AU policy documents on democracy,⁸² the PRSP of the IMF and World Bank, and the UNDAF developed by the UNDG. All of these policy documents reinforced the principles of political and economic liberalization and good governance as the vehicles for achieving human security, sustainable human development, and positive peace.

Democratization

Democratization was a key part of international statebuilding. At its core, it was a process rooted in political liberalization. However, democratization was also expected to lead to governments that would serve the people well. As people-centered liberalism implies, democratization must go in tandem with good governance. The basic criterion of democracy in the international discourse was regular free and fair multiparty elections. This was based on the procedure-oriented minimalist notion of democracy, which rests on freedom of association, freedom of expression, free media, universal adult suffrage, regular multiparty elections, and an independent electoral commission and judiciary.⁸³ This notion of democracy was articulated in UN General Assembly Resolution 46/137 (December 17, 1991) and other UN Security Council resolutions pertaining to elections in specific countries. Similarly, the AU issued a declaration on democratic elections in 2002.⁸⁴ In its declaration, AU Heads of State and Government affirmed that “Democratic elections are the basis of the authority of any representative government” and further agreed that “regular elections constitute a key element of the democratization process and therefore, are essential ingredients for good governance, the rule of law, the maintenance and promotion of peace, security, stability and development.”⁸⁵ The declaration specified that democratic elections had to be conducted freely and fairly by a competent impartial and inclusive electoral body at regular intervals. In addition, a democratic constitution and an independent judiciary were required. AU democratization policies were articulated in a series of documents, including the Lomé Declaration of July 2000 on the Framework for an OAU Response to Unconstitutional Changes of Government and the 2007 African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance.⁸⁶

The first major step in the democratization process is a successful multiparty election that is recognized by the international community as free and fair. Sierra Leone and Liberia achieved this with their respective 2002 and 2005 UN-supervised elections. Côte d’Ivoire’s controversial 2010 presidential election can also be viewed as a significant first step, albeit an incomplete one. However, the election gained credibility because it was certified by the UN.⁸⁷ Sierra Leone successfully conducted postwar democratic elections in 2007, 2012, and 2018, resulting in two changes of power from a ruling party to an opposition party.⁸⁸ Liberia also has conducted postwar democratic elections in 2011 and 2017 that led to a significant change of power. In Côte d’Ivoire, democracy is shaky, as both the 2010 and the 2020 presidential elections were problematic. All three countries received significant assistance from the UN for their immediate postwar elections.⁸⁹ As one respondent noted, “There are these destabilizing forces in these structures, but I think the presence of the international community is serving as a deterrence to these destabilizing forces. That is . . . in the absence of the international community, these destabilizing forces or potential destabilizing forces can become heightened again.”⁹⁰

The primary role of the UN and other members of the international community in the democratization process has been to help countries conduct multiparty elections in a manner that is free, fair, secure, and consistent with the electoral laws of the country and international norms of democracy. UN General Assembly Resolution A/49/675 (November 17, 1994) outlined the guidelines for UN election assistance.⁹¹ The guidelines stipulated that the UN would provide seven main forms of electoral assistance: organization and conduct of elections, supervision, verification, technical assistance, coordination and support for international observers, support for national observers, and observation. In order to qualify for electoral assistance, the government of the recipient country had to submit a formal written request for electoral assistance. Furthermore, the UN would conduct a needs-assessment mission to determine whether “basic conditions for a legitimate and truly democratic process are present.”⁹² In cases where the UN was asked to conduct, supervise, or verify an election, a formal mandate would need to be approved by the Security Council or the General Assembly. The UN rarely undertakes the complex role of conducting elections that it did in Cambodia. Supervising elections is typically handled in the context of larger UN peacekeeping operations, such as in Namibia (1989), Sierra Leone (2002), and Liberia (2005). The role of verification requires the UN to certify whether an election has been conducted freely and fairly by the national electoral authority. This is often undertaken as part of a broader peacekeeping mission, such as in Côte d’Ivoire (2010) and Mozambique (1994).⁹³ The most common role of the UN has been to provide such technical assistance as capacity building for electoral institutions, designing electoral systems, human rights training, and handling logistics (computers, voter registration cards, vote counting, etc.). The UN also coordinates and supports the work of international observers invited by governments to witness the election process. In such cases, the UN provides logistical support to the observers but makes no formal statement on the electoral process. Similarly, the UN provides support for national observers by undertaking capacity-building programs for domestic organizations observing elections. In some cases, the UN may send a small team to observe an electoral process and report to the UN secretary general. However, the UN sees this role as having a negligible effect and rarely acts as an observer. The UN also provides postelection assistance to ensure the consolidation of the democratization process. In such cases, it works with other bodies of the UN system to improve governance and provide technical assistance. African countries often seek UN electoral assistance in order to gain technical and logistical support and bring credibility to the elections.

The 2002 AU declaration on democratic elections mandated the AU to observe and monitor elections in Africa in order to ensure that they meet the standards and strengthen the democratization process.⁹⁴ This led to the establishment of the Democracy and Elections Assistance Unit (DEAU) in 2006. DEAU was given “the responsibility of not only coordinating and organising the participation of the African Union in the observation of elections but also implement[ing] the African Union Commission’s program for the promotion of democracy and democratic elections in the continent.”⁹⁵ In addition to training and sending AU election observers, DEAU provides technical assistance and organizes a continental meeting for national electoral bodies. The AU not only observes and monitors elections but also issues a declaration on the elections to ascertain the degree to which they meet the standards for democratic elections. Under the guidelines, the AU will not monitor any election that lacks legitimacy in the process. As the 2002 declaration states, “The General Secretariat shall have the right to decline invitations to monitor elections which in its considered opinion, do not measure up to the normative standards” for democratic elections.⁹⁶ This AU mechanism, in addition to the UN electoral-assistance program, has become critical in assessing whether an African country is democratic or not. Countries whose elections are deemed by the AU and UN to meet the standards of democratic elections are recognized as democratic states. In some cases, such as the 2010 presidential election in Côte d’Ivoire, AU and UN certification of the election results has been critical in resolving disputes about them.

The underlying assumption in all of the policies on democracy in Africa is that free and fair multiparty elections would produce governments that are accountable to the people. Such elections would not only be the actualization of the right of the people to choose their rulers, it would also protect their civil liberties from abuse by the state and allow civil society to flourish. Under such conditions, governments would be constrained (by the constitution and civil society) to govern in a manner that promotes the interest of the vast majority of citizens. Thus, democracy would both affirm the liberal principles of political and civil rights and result in good governance. While democracy, in its liberal sense, rests on legal proceduralism, good governance is mostly reflected in subjectively measured outcomes. Good governance provides the critical link between the individual political and civil rights embodied in liberalism and the distributive economic and social justice implicit in sustainable human development.

Economic Liberalization and Sustainable Human Development: PRSP and UNDAF

International statebuilding in war-torn countries seeks to end the civil wars and establish democratic governments but also to promote economic and social development. The basic framework for postwar reconstruction and long-term economic and social development is rooted in principles of economic liberalization and sustainable human development, which are embodied in people-centered liberalism. These principles shape the PRSP and UNDAF development plans, which were the cornerstones of the peace-consolidation and postwar reconstruction efforts in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire.

The PRSPs and the UNDAFs are synergetic development plans. Each country’s UNDAF is closely aligned to its PRSP, which was the core development plan. Sierra Leone’s postwar development planning began with the Interim PRSP (IPRSP) in 2001. Shortly after, the government adopted the National Recovery Strategy (2002) and Vision 2025 (2003). The PRSP was adopted in 2005 for the period 2005–2007 (PRSP I) and revised in 2009 for the period of 2008–2012 (PRSP II). Liberia’s postwar development planning began in 2006 with the adoption of the 150-Day Action Plan and the IPRSP. The PRSP was adopted in 2008. Côte d’Ivoire’s IPRSP was approved in 2002, but the actual PRSP was not adopted until 2009. In the interim, UNDAF (2003–2007) and UNDAF (2009–2013) were adopted. In 2007, the country also signed the Post-Conflict Assistance Program with the World Bank and the Emergency Post-Conflict Assistance Program with the IMF. However, implementation of the programs lagged as the conflict lingered. The PRSPs and the UNDAFs recognized the core problems of each country, identified specific focus areas for medium- and long-term development, and laid out specific strategies to help achieve the overall development goals. Tables 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4 provide a summary of the key features of the PRSPs and the UNDAFs.

THE CORE PROBLEMS OF DEVELOPMENT

Apart from the civil wars themselves, which undermined human security and destroyed the limited infrastructure in the countries, poverty has been the main hindrance to development. Following the UN MDGs, poverty was defined in terms of ability to meet the most basic human needs, most notably food.⁹⁷ Using 2008 as a baseline, Côte d’Ivoire defined poverty as “consumption expenditure of less than CFAF 661 per day, or CFAF 241,145 per annum.”⁹⁸ In Sierra Leone, 57 percent of the population was below the food and extreme poverty line (lived on less than a dollar a day). Moreover, 70 percent of the people were below the full poverty line (lived on less than two dollars a day).⁹⁹ In Liberia, 63.8 percent of the people were below the poverty line, while 48 percent were in extreme poverty.¹⁰⁰ In Côte d’Ivoire, poverty increased from 10 percent in 1985 to 48.9 percent in 2008. In 2008, nearly 10.2 million people in Côte d’Ivoire were living in poverty. Poverty dovetailed with unemployment and lack of access to basic services such as health care, education, proper housing, and clean water. In all three countries, the pervasiveness of poverty was clearly reflected in low Human Development Index (HDI) and failure to meet the MDGs.

In addition to poverty, Côte d’Ivoire had two unique challenges. First was the missed opportunity to capitalize on the country’s impressive economic growth during the first two decades of independence. Côte d’Ivoire saw itself as a country that should go far beyond merely meeting the MDGs. As such, its PRSP was a plan to not only meet the MDG targets by 2015 but also to establish the nation as an emerging country with rapid economic and social development. Second was the failure to peacefully resolve the conflict, which had far more of an ethnic and regional character than that in Liberia and Sierra Leone. In some ways, Côte d’Ivoire’s political conflict is a bit unique in Africa, as it is a conflict over both power and citizenship. While the Ouagadougou Accord provided a durable frame for resolving the citizenship issues, political animosity between the north and south has hampered the consolidation of peace and democracy. In contrast to Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone and Liberia successively implemented their peace agreements and conducted successive free and fair elections.

Poverty was largely attributed to bad governance and the civil wars. Sierra Leone’s PRSP I, for example, states that “the people’s assessment of the poverty situation has emphasised various aspects of bad governance as one of the main causes of their deepening poverty.”¹⁰¹ In particular, “for almost thirty years, bad governance in Sierra Leone was characterised by an over-centralised system of administration, an over-burdened and ineffective judicial system, weak and inefficient public and local government institutions, thriving corruption, mismanagement, inappropriate fiscal policies and ill-conceived economic policies.”¹⁰² In Côte d’Ivoire, the problems were mostly attributed to the civil war and especially to the dismantling of state authority and government administration in the northern region, the lack of a proper mechanism for national identification, and inefficiency in the public sector.

Table 4.1. Key Elements of PRSP: Sierra Leone.

Table 4.2. Key Elements of PRSP: Liberia.

Table 4.3. Key Elements of PRSP: Côte d’Ivoire.

Table 4.4. Key Elements of UNDAF: Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire.

The PRSP provided a blueprint for addressing poverty and promoting the overall development of each of the countries. Sierra Leone’s PRSP I states, “To reverse this level of poverty and its underlying causes, the government is following a new strategic direction . . . aligned to and consistent with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This PRSP . . . provides that framework.”¹⁰³ Similarly, the PRSP was Liberia’s “strategy for rapid, inclusive and sustainable growth and poverty reduction, including progress toward achieving the MDGs.”¹⁰⁴ Côte d’Ivoire’s PRSP, which was far more ambitious than those of Sierra Leone and Liberia, was described as “a commitment of the State towards the population and also a tool that enables development partners to better align their support and actions to the strategy pursued by the Government.” It sought to reduce the poverty rate to 16 percent and thereby achieve the MDGs by 2015 and achieve a 5.9 percent average annual rate of economic growth for 2009 to 2015, thereby positioning the nation as an emerging country and a regional economic power. By defining the development agenda in terms of poverty reduction, the PRSP clearly incorporates the principle of sustainable human development.

Côte d’Ivoire’s ambitious PRSP recognized both the opportunities and fragility of the country. It identified three possible scenarios for the country’s future development: stalemate, recovery, and rebirth. These scenarios were premised on the outcome of the delayed 2010 presidential election. The stalemate scenario would be “the blockage of the peace process and the return to normalcy. The organization of general elections would not succeed or else, the result would be challenged . . . the crisis recovery process could be challenged and compromise the reunification of the country. The international community would lose every hope of the possibility of Côte d’Ivoire getting out of the socio-political and military crisis.”¹⁰⁵ The recovery scenario assumes that “the country would recover its unity and the normal functioning of public institutions. . . . The general elections would be held without any major incidents and the government that would emerge from the ballot box would not be challenged. The development partners would actively resume their support programs and public investment would resume in earnest.”¹⁰⁶ Côte d’Ivoire’s development plan was built around the rebirth scenario, which assumed that the country would go beyond the “recovery [scenario] by adding new dimensions to it,” and sought to achieve “transformation and diversification of the economy and the successful establishment of new, transparent and inclusive governance policies.”¹⁰⁷ Moreover, “Côte d’Ivoire would become a pole of competitiveness and a regional hub that would attract a great . . . investment . . . in diversified branches. . . . New infrastructure would be built throughout the country, thus bringing the country in line with the best international standards. The country would be quoted as a new economic miracle . . . [and] resume its stabilizing role in the regional environment and become a listened[-to] actor on the international scene.”¹⁰⁸ Based on the 2010 and 2020 elections, Côte d’Ivoire is best described as a stalemate.

FOCUS AREAS FOR PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Both the PRSPs and the UNDAFs specified key focus areas, often referred to as pillars or outcomes, for development of the three countries (see tables 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4). Sierra Leone’s PRSP I (2005–2007) had three pillars: governance and security, food security and job creation, and human development. PRSP II (2008–2012) maintained these pillars but narrowed them down to four specific areas: electricity, agriculture, transportation, and human development. Similarly, Sierra Leone’s UNDAF (2004–2007) had four focus areas: poverty reduction and reintegration, human rights and reconciliation, governance, and economic recovery. UNDAF (2006–2007) regrouped these into democratic governance, food security and employment opportunities for youth, health, HIV/AIDS, and reconciliation and human rights. Liberia’s PRSP (2008 to 2011) had four pillars: peace and security, economic revitalization, governance, and infrastructure and basic services. Its UNDAF (2008–2012) focused on peace and security, socioeconomic development, governance, education and health, and HIV/AIDS. In Côte d’Ivoire, the PRSP (2009–2015) focused on four outcomes: restoration of state authority, transformation into an emerging country, social welfare improvements, and regional and international integration. The priority areas of UNDAF (2003–2007) were poverty reduction, governance and human rights, health and HIV/AIDS, global and regional integration, and peace and security. UNDAF (2009–2013) reformulated these into peace consolidation, good governance, job creation and food security, basic social services, and protection of the environment.

Notwithstanding their nuances, these development plans all focus on similar political, economic, and social challenges. Given the overlaps between the PRSPs and the UNDAFs and their similarities across the three countries, the focus areas of the PRSPs and the UNDAFs can be regrouped into three main categories: peace and governance, human development, and economic growth and employment. Côte d’Ivoire’s PRSP uniquely saw regional and international cooperation as a focus area. However, regional and international cooperation can be viewed more as a strategy to boost Côte d’Ivoire’s economic and political stability. In a similar way, both Sierra Leone and Liberia saw greater regional and international cooperation as a way to enhance security, trade, and international development assistance.

The development plans of all three countries are predicated on the consolidation of peace and inculcation of good governance. In Côte d’Ivoire, peace consolidation involved the full implementation of the Ouagadougou Peace Accord (2007). This included completion of the national identification and the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of programs, a free and fair 2010 presidential election that would lead to a government acceptable to southerners and northerners, the redeployment of state agencies, and a meaningful national reconciliation. The PRSP clearly states that the most likely condition for Côte d’Ivoire would be a stalemate if “the general elections would not succeed or else, the result would be challenged.”¹⁰⁹ Unfortunately for Côte d’Ivoire, the results of the 2010 election were contested, and Gbagbo was removed from power through military force, albeit with international support.¹¹⁰ Though Thomas J. Bassett sees the elections as a remarkable step in forming a “winning coalition of ethnic and regional interests” that should “ultimately be remembered for their possibilities rather than for their achievements,”¹¹¹ the failure of the election to peacefully resolve the political crisis meant that Côte d’Ivoire would face a stalemate. Unfortunately, Ouattara exacerbated the problem by controversially amending the constitution in order to stay in power beyond the two-term limit.

The development plans of Sierra Leone and Liberia also emphasized peace consolidation. However, since the key term of their respective peace agreements (free and fair multiparty elections) had been implemented, the PRSPs and UNDAFs focused more on security reforms, the rule of law, and good governance. In Liberia, the security reforms sought to build gender-sensitive professional security forces under democratic civilian control, with women making up at least 20 percent of the forces and represented throughout the command structure. Given the political and social causes of the civil war, the centerpiece of long-term peace was human security, which “requires that the Government take a broad view of security that recognizes the importance of human rights, good governance and access to economic opportunity, education and health care.”¹¹² In Sierra Leone, where most of the security-sector reforms had been implemented,¹¹³ the emphasis was largely on the inculcation of human rights and good governance—the continuation of multiparty democracy and “rapid improvement in public sector governance . . . [to ensure] efficient, transparent and accountable delivery of services.”¹¹⁴

In all three countries, good governance embodied the rule of law, democracy, efficient management of the state, ethical leadership, and citizen-centered government policies. As Liberia’s PRSP rightly noted, “Improving governance necessarily entails transforming the relationship between the state and its citizens, focusing especially on those who are underrepresented or disadvantaged.”¹¹⁵ In Côte d’Ivoire, good governance was understood as improving the efficiency and transparency of government and delivering vital social services to the people. The strategies to achieve this were rooted in the principle of liberalization and would include devolving power to local governments and “transferring the responsibility of providing . . . services to the private sector.”¹¹⁶ Other strategies included decentralization, public-finance management and procurement reforms, and anticorruption campaigns. Good governance also assumed the inclusion of women in the decision-making process. In Côte d’Ivoire, the PRSP called for increasing the proportion of women in elected legislative positions at the municipal and national levels to 30 percent by 2015 from their 2008 levels, which ranged from 4.56 to 11 percent. At the national executive level, the proportion of women would be increased from 12.12 percent in 2008 to 40 percent in 2015.¹¹⁷

Given the depth of poverty, poor physical infrastructure, and lack of basic social service, human development was a major part of the overall development agenda. All three countries saw poverty reduction as a primary goal. The development plans sought to significantly increase the amount and quality of basic infrastructure and social services, which was expected to contribute to both economic growth and human development. Sierra Leone’s PRSP stated: “Promoting human development is critical to the desire of the people to come out of poverty. After food security, the majority of the country’s poor want to have access to basic education, health, water and sanitation as the route out of extreme poverty, and to reduce the risk of falling into poverty.”¹¹⁸ In addition, human development was seen as the ultimate manifestation of democracy and of making government work for the people. One critical part of this implicit social democracy was ensuring gender equity in accessing social services. The development plans in all three countries called for significant investment in basic infrastructure (roads, bridges, energy plants, communication networks, etc.) and social services (health, education, water, housing, etc.) in a way that would promote sustainable human development. In fact, roughly half of the entire budgets of the PRSPs were dedicated to this area.¹¹⁹ The most critical areas were education, health, water, housing, sanitation, and transportation.

Côte d’Ivoire’s PRSP had concrete targets for achieving the MDGs by 2015. In particular, it sought to increase net primary school enrollment from 56.1 percent in 2008 to 70 percent by 2015 and boost graduation rates from 39.2 percent to 60 percent during the same period.¹²⁰ By 2015, the plan also sought to have reduced the child mortality rate from 84 deaths per thousand live births in 2005 to 32 deaths; maternal mortality from 543 deaths per hundred thousand live births in 2005 to 149 deaths; and HIV/AIDS rates from 4.7 percent in 2005 to 1.8 percent.¹²¹ The plan sought to build a vast amount of First Contact Health Establishments and thereby increase the proportion of people living within less than five kilometers from a medical facility from 44 percent in 2008 to 100 percent by 2015.¹²² It envisioned universal health-care access through private and community insurance plans and subsidized medical services and drugs. Most of the focus was on maternal health care and common diseases (malaria, tuberculosis, Buruli ulcer, and HIV/AIDS). The plan also sought to increase access to potable water from 61 percent in 2008 to 82.5 percent by 2015.¹²³ In particular, 2,500 public standpipes would be constructed in disadvantaged urban centers and four water-production and -treatment units with a total capacity of 5,000 m3/h would be installed in Abidjan. Also, sufficient mini water-supply facilities would be installed in big rural areas, while smaller areas would get boreholes fitted with hand pumps.

In line with the principle of sustainable human development, all three countries committed to respect international environmental agreements, preserve forests, and incorporate environmental policies into mining agreements. Côte d’Ivoire’s PRSP, for example, sought to increase the protected areas from 10 percent in 2008 to 20 percent of the territory by 2015.¹²⁴ All three countries sought to substantially reduce slum dwellings, improve sanitation services, especially in major urban areas, and increase access to energy. In particular, Côte d’Ivoire sought to increase access to energy from 17 percent in 2008 to 55 percent in 2015 and the proportion of households with modern cooking systems from 20 percent to 60 percent during the same period. However, most of the energy would come from traditional sources, as renewable energy would only increase from [zero] percent to a mere 5 percent in 2015.¹²⁵

Economic growth and job creation were major macroeconomic objectives. The PRSPs saw infrastructure and social service development as engines for economic growth and the enhancement of human development. All three countries have rich mineral deposits that were expected to provide some revenue for infrastructure development and social services and create jobs—especially for youths. Additionally, the PRSPs saw macroeconomic stabilization, deregulation, private investment, and increased agricultural production and mining as key areas for promoting financial growth and jobs. Sierra Leone’s PRSP, for example, called for reducing the budget deficit, liberalizing the exchange rate regime, restructuring import tariffs according to the ECOWAS Common External Tariff and the ECOWAS Trade liberalization scheme, opening the Information Communication and Technology (ICT) market to more competition, and diversifying exports. Liberia had similar neoliberal macroeconomic policies that were expected to attract private-sector investment in mining and agriculture. Liberia’s PRSP expected mining to reach 12 percent of GDP by 2011 and food production and exports of timber, rubber, timber, coffee, cocoa, and seafood to significantly increase. It also sought to diversify the economy in the medium and long term by promoting manufacturing, commerce, and service industries.

Côte d’Ivoire’s economic growth was predicated on massive improvements in transportation infrastructure, diversification, and macroeconomic stabilization, which were expected to significantly increase production. In the energy and mining sector, the PRSP sought to increase the production level of hydrocarbons and petroleum products. The plan called for the increased exploitation of known mineral deposits, transformation of mineral extracts, and production of geological and mining exploitation data maps to enhance the discovery of new mineral deposit. Though the PRSP sought to reduce the share of agriculture in the GDP to 19.9 percent by 2013, the overall goal was to increase agricultural production to ensure food self-sufficiency and generate more revenues for farmers through the domestic and international markets.¹²⁶ The agricultural policy primarily focused on rice production, livestock and fishing, and cash crops (coffee, cacao, cotton, and cashew). It specifically sought to significantly boost the amount of livestock and fisheries yields and increase rice production by two million tons by 2015.¹²⁷ In the service sector, Côte d’Ivoire’s PRSP sought to significantly increase telecommunication, especially quality internet access, and increase tourism and artistic products.

STRATEGIES FOR PROMOTING DEVELOPMENT

The development plans laid out the key strategies for overall development goals. The strategies could be grouped into five major categories: peace consolidation, good governance, economic liberalization, investment in critical infrastructure and human resources, and regional and international cooperation. Though the strategies were often conterminous with some of the focus areas, they were clearly seen as a means for ensuring that the overall development goals were achieved. The synergetic nature of the development plans made some of the key elements to simultaneously be focus areas and strategies.

Peace consolidation as a strategy for achieving the development goals was most evident in Côte d’Ivoire, which was in a state of no war, no peace. The country’s entire development plan was based on the assumption that the 2010 presidential election would be successfully implemented and lead to a legitimate government. Thus, the key strategy in Côte d’Ivoire was to ensure that the terms of the 2007 Ouagadougou Accord were fully implemented. This required significant international engagement to ensure that the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR), national identification, voter registration, ballot counting, and installation of the elected candidate went as envisioned under the agreement. The strengthening of the mandate of the UN, which gave it the authority to verify the 2010 elections, was a critical element of the peace-consolidation strategy. As in Sierra Leone and Liberia, peace consolidation largely rested on a free and fair multiparty election strategy. Each successful democratic election would be a critical step toward peace consolidation. To ensure that democracy continued, the strategy included restructuring the security forces to keep them under civilian control and make them ethnically and regionally balanced. Peace consolidation also included transitional justice in the form of truth and reconciliation and a tribunal. The transitional justice programs were simultaneously aimed at bringing closure for victims, fostering meaningful reconciliation, and holding those most responsible for the war accountable. Both Sierra Leone and Liberia created TRCs, which documented some of the crimes committed during the wars and made recommendations for reparations. Côte d’Ivoire’s was mostly a sham committee. Sierra Leone had a special war crimes court that tried key figures involved in the civil war, including Charles Taylor, who was the most notorious warlord in Liberia. In the long run, peace consolidation dovetailed with the overall effort to enhance human security through good governance and poverty reduction.

The most pervasive strategy was good governance. Implicit in the entire development agenda, good governance began with maintaining democracy and extended into the day-to-day management of public agencies and ethical leadership of the state. In all three countries, combating corruption and implementing public-finance management reforms were of central importance. Liberia’s PRSP called for broadening the 2006 Public Finance Management Reform to combat corruption and improve government efficiency. Both Sierra Leone and Liberia established anticorruption commissions to enforce good governance in the management of public resources. Good governance included promoting decentralization and efficiency in the management of public resources and delivery of services. The emphasis on efficiency was most pronounced in Côte d’Ivoire, which wanted to position itself as an emerging country.

Economic liberalization was a strategy deeply rooted in the dominant free-market principles and policies of the IMF and World Bank. It rested on macroeconomic reforms and the enhancement of the private sector. By accepting IMF and World Bank support, the three countries fully committed to neoliberal economic policies. As Sierra Leone’s PRSP stated, “The Government will seek to further reduce the budget deficit and money supply growth, while maintaining a flexible exchange rate regime and a liberal exchange and trade system. Structural impediments to greater factor mobility and improved resource allocation will be removed, particularly in the mining and fisheries sectors, and implementation of civil service and public enterprise reforms will continue.”¹²⁸ In Côte d’Ivoire’s cocoa sector, for example, the PRSP called for the reduction of the registration tax from 10 percent to 5 percent of the cost, insurance, and freight (CIF) price and refraining “from increasing any other tax and duties in the cocoa sector.”¹²⁹ Moreover, “the global taxation of the cocoa sector . . . should not represent more than 22% of the CIF price by 2011.”¹³⁰ Sierra Leone’s PRSP called for a restructuring of the import tariffs according to the ECOWAS Common External Tariff. It warmly endorsed the fact that “the fiscal incentive framework embedded in the tariff regime is being rationalised. Import duty rates, especially for raw materials and capital goods, are now lower; export duties eliminated; and a duty drawback system introduced for exports. The income tax regime now includes a provision for a more generous depreciation schedule; and the corporate rate of tax has been progressively reduced.”¹³¹ Côte d’Ivoire’s PRSP called for increasing the tax collection rate by 17 percent and reducing unproductive expenditures to less than 10 percent of the budget, excluding debt servicing, by 2011.¹³² Its strategy also included an aggressive marketing campaign to attract investment and tourists.

Economic liberalization also involved promoting the private sector. As Liberia’s PRSP stated, “the private sector will be the main driver of growth. . . . The Government will focus only on services that the private sector cannot or will not offer at an appropriate price, such as maintaining safety and security, ensuring the rule of law, providing infrastructure and other public goods, providing basic services for the poor, and establishing a regulatory environment conducive to long-term development.”¹³³ Private investment was expected to increase in the mining sectors and in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). Liberia’s PRSP called for a restructuring of the banking system to give SMEs more access to credit. Similarly, “Côte d’Ivoire committed itself to making the private sector the engine of growth. The emergence of the private sector was accelerated with the policy of government withdrawal from the productive sectors, initiated in the 1990s.”¹³⁴ Sierra Leone’s PRSP reiterated that “the Government will continue to recognise the centrality of the private sector to its poverty reduction efforts in this post-conflict period. This is underscored in the Government’s Vision 2025 Report of 2003, which already foresaw a leading role for the sector.”¹³⁵ Côte d’Ivoire’s PRSP called for the firm protection of intellectual property as a way to promote private enterprises, especially in the arts, crafts, and music sectors.

The most potent strategy and the focus of all the plans was the investment in infrastructure and human resources to unleash economic development and reduce poverty. Infrastructure as a strategy for development was most explicit in Côte d’Ivoire’s PRSP, which stated that “the main pillar of the strategy for the economic emergence of Côte d’Ivoire will be built around the transport infrastructure sector.”¹³⁶ In essence, “Economic growth should rely on the development of transport infrastructure as the basic link for driving other sectors of activity like agriculture, mining and energies and ICTs.”¹³⁷ The PRSP called for the construction of adequate roads that could make all subprefectures and villages accessible and connected to an efficient network of paved intercity, urban, and international roads and the development of adequate airports and ports to make Côte d’Ivoire a regional and international commercial hub. In 2000, Côte d’Ivoire had 82,000 kilometers of intercity highways, around 4,000 kilometers of tarred urban road network, 327 bridges, and twenty ferries.¹³⁸ However, about 44 percent of the entire paved road networks were over twenty years old and had exceeded their degradation tolerance level. To promote rapid development, the development plan sought to construct or rehabilitate 11,703 kilometers of N1 national intercity roads (motorways of international and heavy national traffic), over 11,479 kilometers of N2 national intercity roads (national roads of regional significance), and 8,810 kilometers of urban roads (in major cities) by 2015.¹³⁹ In addition, the 630-kilometer railway line linking Côte d’Ivoire to Burkina Faso was to be improved and connected with the Port of San Pedro and the western part of the country. The plan also sought to improve the infrastructure and service delivery at the Port of Abidjan, repositioning it as the leading port in West Africa, and to expand the export capacity of the Port of San Pedro. Similarly, the safety and quality of services at the international airports were to be improved so as to meet all international standards and increase the volume of air traffic. Most notably, Abidjan Félix Houphouët-Boigny (FHB) Airport was to be upgraded to meet the requirements for the US Federal Aviation Administration certification.¹⁴⁰ Côte d’Ivoire’s infrastructure development strategy went beyond transportation; it also sought to mechanize agriculture and integrate scientific research into its development. In particular, the Centre National de Recherche Agronomique was to serve as a vehicle for modernizing agriculture through continuous quality research. In Sierra Leone and Liberia, the development of roads, energy sources, and telecommunication services was an integral strategy for promoting development. As Sierra Leone’s PRSP argued, they “have a potential to transform the economy, accelerate growth in the productive sectors and rapidly improve market access . . . [and] provide the necessary incentive for both local and foreign investment . . . and employment generation in service sectors such as tourism.”¹⁴¹ Though the PRSPs of Sierra Leone and Liberia did not give numerical targets, infrastructure development was a key part of their development strategies.

The other component of the investment strategy was human resources, which included plans to invest in the areas of health and education to improve the productive potential of the population. As one civil society leader stated, “the solution would come from education. . . . There is no written book or solution to [such a] crisis. People need to be creative, to find out [a] way or solution, how we want our future to be and then work towards that. . . . That’s where currently our energy is working on programs that will be taught in school, peacebuilding in school, from the primary school up to the university . . . democracy cannot be obtained over one generation. It’s a long term process and people need to integrate that in their mind.”¹⁴² In the short and medium terms, the plans sought to attract expatriates and provide rapid training. Both Sierra Leone and Liberia recognized the huge shortage of professionals in critical areas such as health, engineering, and management. Liberia’s PRSP counted on enticing its expatriates to return and provide some of the critical skills needed for the development of the country. Moreover, it called for vocational training, restructuring the civil service (and providing salary increases), and training senior managers. Côte d’Ivoire’s development called for investment in secondary and vocational education as a way to quickly boost its human resources capacity. It sought to increase collaboration between higher education and the private sector so that universities could rapidly respond to the skilled labor needs of the country. The plan called for the increased privatization, decentralization, and regionalization of universities to give them the necessary market flexibilities. While investment in human resources was critical for Sierra Leone and Liberia precisely because of their lack of qualified professionals, Côte d’Ivoire’s effort to boost human resources was intrinsically tied to its desire to significantly enhance efficiency in the public and private sectors and thereby take a big step toward becoming an emerging country. In particular, Côte d’Ivoire sought to substantially increase efficiency in the delivery of health care, primary education, and public administration services.

Another notable strategy was regional and international integration and development coordination. All three countries pursued regional integration to enhance trade and security. However, Côte d’Ivoire saw regional and international integration as a way to reposition itself as the economic power of the area and become an emerging country. Côte d’Ivoire sought to go beyond the region and significantly integrate itself in the global economy. All three countries sought to take advantage of such trade agreements as the Cotonou Agreement, the EU EBA, and the US AGOA. The strategy also included increasing international development coordination, especially among international agencies, government, and civil society. This strategy was even more pivotal in UNDAF, which served as a coordinating template for all UN and other international development agencies working in these countries.

In addition to the five major strategies, there were other, more targeted ones; these were implicit in most of the major strategies but also stood out as critical for achieving the development goals and included such issues as gender equity, food production, youth employment, and mining. Liberia’s UNDAF, in particular, emphasized a rights-based and conflict-sensitive approach to development. All three countries saw mining as a primary source of revenue to support long-term development. In fact, the PRSPs consistently referred to the natural resources of each of the countries and pointed to the fact that they were not necessarily poor countries but rich countries that had been poorly managed.

COST AND FUNDING

The total costs of the development plan outlined in the PRSPs of each of the three countries vastly exceed their short- and medium-term revenues. The international financial institutions, especially IMF and the World Bank, and donor countries were expected to cover the funding gaps in addition to providing debt relief under the HIPC initiative. Sierra Leone’s PRSP I cost nearly USD 1.8 billion, roughly divided among the three pillars of the development plan.¹⁴³ Of the total amount, $784.8 million had already been budgeted in the medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF), which left a gap of $941 million.¹⁴⁴ Sierra Leone received a total of USD 975 million in donor disbursements toward PRSP I from 2005 to 2007.¹⁴⁵ PRSP II was estimated to cost just over $1.9 billion, with a funding gap of $850.3 million.¹⁴⁶ Similarly, Liberia’s PRSP (2008–2011) cost around USD 1.61 billion, with a funding gap of USD 1.1 billion. Nearly 62 percent of the cost went toward infrastructure and basic services (pillar four), while the remaining cost was roughly divided between the other three pillars.¹⁴⁷

Côte d’Ivoire’s ambitious PRSP (2009–2015) was estimated to cost a total of $37.368 billion (17,645.05 billion CFA francs) at an average annual cost of around $5.3 billion.¹⁴⁸ Over half of the budget (52.3%) went to outcome three, with 43 percent toward outcome two, and 4 percent toward outcome one. More specifically, the bulk of the budget was for education and training (22.14%), transportation (15.67%), health care (14.68%), rural development and agriculture (10.13%), and energy (10.9%).¹⁴⁹ The government of Côte d’Ivoire was expected to contribute up to $572 million by 2010 and gradually increase its contribution to around $1.36 billion in 2013 as the country reached the completion point of the HIPC initiative.¹⁵⁰ Other projected domestic sources of funding included concessional home and education loans from private banks directly to citizens and various forms of levies, such as a polluter tax. The vast majority of the funding was expected to come from the international agencies and donors, most notably UN agencies and the EU, IMF, World Bank, and TICAD.

The budgets for the PRSPs included most of the costs of the programs outlined in the UNDAFs and other related developed plans. As such, the budgets for the PRSP represented the global cost of the development agenda for each of the countries. Moreover, the costs of these plans assumed that the countries would receive debt cancelation under the HIPC initiative. Sierra Leone reached the completion point of HIPC in 2006, which led to the cancelation of its debts. The debt relief included approximately USD 994 million from the enhanced HIPC initiative. As the IMF noted, “In NPV [net present value] terms, the stock of debt would be reduced from USD 1,197.6 million at end-2005 to USD 483.0 million at end-2006 after HIPC relief and to USD 110.0 million after MDRI. This assistance was estimated to correspond to approximately USD 1,603 million in nominal terms.”¹⁵¹ In June 2010, the World Bank and IMF decided that Liberia had “reached the ‘completion point’ under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and will be granted a total debt relief of US$4.6 billion.”¹⁵² Liberia received its first HIPC debt relief in December 2007, when the World Bank and the African Development Bank reduced the country’s debt by USD 400 million and USD 240 million, respectively. In September 2010, the Paris Club canceled $1.2 billion of Liberia’s debts.¹⁵³ Other canceled debts included $391 million from the United States, $8 million from Norway, $194.1 million from Japan, and $90 million from Germany.¹⁵⁴ In April 2009, Côte d’Ivoire also met the requirements for debt relief under HIPC and received over $4 billion in debt relief.¹⁵⁵

The funding and implementation of Sierra Leone’s PRSP was largely based on the Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) and the Joint Assistance Strategy (JAS) programs prepared by Sierra Leone’s development partners (World Bank, African Development Bank or AfDB, Department for International Development or DFID, International Finance Corporation or IFC, and European Commission or EC).¹⁵⁶ CAS replaced the Transitional Support Strategy (TSP), which was launched in 2002 to facilitate implementation of the IPRSP. As the World Bank noted, TSP “emphasized the decentralization of service delivery and the restoration of local government in order to reorient the allocation of resources from the capital to the rural communities.”¹⁵⁷ In particular, TSP aimed to consolidate peace and security, resettle and reintegrate displaced persons, improve governance through institutional reform and capacity building, accelerate economic growth, expand access of the poor to basic social services and economic opportunities, and combat HIV/AIDS. By 2005, the IDA had committed $230 million to Sierra Leone under TSP.¹⁵⁸

CAS was initially adopted in 2005 to cover fiscal years 2006–2009. CAS was aligned with the PRSP I to address Sierra Leone’s “overriding challenge of extreme poverty, which is accentuated by high unemployment (especially of the youth), food insecurity (compounded by poor infrastructure) and dismal social sector indicators.”¹⁵⁹ CAS focused on governance; decentralization and public financial management; sustainable growth, food security, and jobs creation; and human development as a way to meet the development goals envisioned in PRSP I. Sierra Leone received USD 117 million from the IDA during the 2005–2009 CAS period and graduated from the exceptional postconflict allocation window in fiscal years 2007.

Like CAS, JAS was adopted in 2010 to support the implementation of Sierra Leone’s PRSP II. JAS continued to strengthen the series of investments in Sierra Leone’s postwar economic, social, and political development. As the World Bank stated, JAS was organized around two pillars: growth and human development. The growth pillar provided financing for investments in agriculture, fisheries, energy, transport, and the financial sector. The human development pillar focused on investments to support decentralized delivery in health, education, and water supply services; to improve primary education, reproductive, and child health services; and to lower child and maternal mortality rates. In addition, JAS had two cross-cutting themes: governance and democracy. As the World Bank stated, “JAS has a focus to help strengthen governance and address governance issues. . . . Opportunities for private-sector-led growth are being sought in all sectors, including those dealing with human development.”¹⁶⁰ The JAS partners (AfDB, IDA, and IFC) were expected to generate nearly USD 300 million to implement the development goals envisioned in PRSP II.

Liberia’s CAS was jointly prepared and adopted by the World Bank and AfDB in 2008 to support the implementation of the PRSP during fiscal years 2009–2012.¹⁶¹ CAS replaced the Joint Interim Strategy (mid-2007 to mid-2008), which supported implementation of the IPRS. The World Bank stated, “The CAS will pursue three strategic themes: (i) rebuilding core state functions and institutions; (ii) rehabilitating infrastructure to jump-start economic growth; and (iii) facilitating pro-poor growth. These themes are fully aligned with pillars II, III, and IV of the Poverty Reduction Strategy. The CAS will also focus on the crosscutting objective of capacity development. Gender and the environment are important elements of the strategy that will be increasingly mainstreamed into World Bank and AfDB programs.”¹⁶² Liberia was expected to receive $503 million through CAS to support the development goals envisioned in the PRSP.¹⁶³

Côte d’Ivoire’s 2010–2013 Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) was developed in 2010 by the World Bank in coordination with Côte d’Ivoire and its development partners (IMF, EU, AfDB, UN).¹⁶⁴ The first full CPS (I-CPS) was started in 1997, but the implementation was interrupted by the armed conflict in 2002. The program was suspended in 2004 due to unpaid arrears. After Côte d’Ivoire cleared its arrears, the World Bank adopted the Interim Strategy Note (ISN) for 2008–2009. ISN focused on three strategic objectives: achieving political stability and resolving the conflict, providing humanitarian assistance to war victims, and implementing economic reform and recovery measures. By March 1, 2010, IDA had committed $637 million, of which around half had been disbursed. The CPS (2010–2013) rested on the ISN to support implementation of the PRSP. It sought to “help improve quality of life, boost economic activity and support stabilization in the short term; while continuing to help Côte d’Ivoire lay the groundwork for long term reforms to help achieve sustainable peace and growth and make progress toward the MDGs.”¹⁶⁵ CPS focused on four strategic objectives: strengthening governance and institutions, increasing agriculture, revitalizing the private sector, and rebuilding infrastructure and basic services. At the center of these were job creation and gender mainstreaming.

CONCLUSION

At its core, international intervention is an effort to root the UN and other key actors in the international community into the statebuilding process, especially in countries devastated by civil war. Over the past several decades, in an attempt to build stable and well-functioning states after conflict, the international community has encouraged African countries to experiment with a number of neoliberal policies. This has been done in an effort to enhance peace, democracy, market reforms, and human development. However, such neoliberal policies have not necessarily worked to further successful post–civil war statebuilding in Africa and elsewhere.

In the late 1990s, the discussions about revamping human security fused neoliberalism with the human development approach. This fusion led to what has been referred to as people-centered liberalism. People-centered liberalism, which is rooted in democracy, good governance, and human development, clearly has the potential to be a major improvement in the international development and peacebuilding regime. The question we pose here is whether people-centered liberalism can lead to stable, democratic, and economically successful post–civil war states in Africa. Such an approach has the potential to shift new humanitarianism from peacebuilding to positive peace. However, this approach is extremely costly and heavily depends on substantial outside support and large-scale funding from the international community.¹⁶⁶ It is important to ask how long we can expect the international community to maintain their commitments to helping those in need in places such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire. Beyond this, questions about ongoing and future challenges, such as corruption, current international political and economic turmoil, Ebola, the COVID-19 pandemic, and nativism, remain. While the results of a people-centered liberal approach have been encouraging, only time will provide us with the necessary empirical evidence of whether it can lead to states that are peaceful, democratic, well-governed, and economically successful.