A post-Taylor update
Liberia Needs $500 Million, Report Says
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: February 2, 2004
DAKAR, Senegal, Feb. 1 — Liberia will need nearly $500 million in stabilization aid after 14 years of nearly relentless war, the United Nations and the World Bank reported last week in preparation for a donors conference in New York this week.
Advocacy groups have urged that particular attention be paid to disarming and reintegrating an estimated 50,000 former soldiers, a great many of them children, with a warning that a failure to invest heavily in peacemaking in Liberia would bring further bloodshed to West Africa.
The International Reconstruction Conference on Liberia, to be held at United Nations headquarters in New York on Thursday and Friday, is to bring together officials from international lending institutions and donor countries to discuss aid efforts.
