United Nations Peacebuilding Commission Background Guide · beyond it when preparing for the...

NEW YORK

2020NHSMUN

UNPBCUnited Nations Peacebuilding Commission

Background Guide

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +1 (212) 652-9992

Web: www.nhsmun.org

Dear Delegates,

I could not be more excited to welcome you all to the one and only NHSMUN 2020 and the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (UNPBC)! I am Victor Miranda, and it is my pleasure to serve as your Session I Director. Last year I was the Assistant Director for UNPBC, and before I was a delegate at NHSMUN, so this will be my third NHSMUN conference.

Currently, I am entering my third year as a Law student at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RIO) in my home country of Brazil. I was only introduced to the world of Model UN as a junior in high school, but I can safely say that it completely turned my life—and more pre-cisely what I had planned for professionally—upside down. I instantly became passionate about the world of international relations. I would not be where I am if it weren’t for the fantastic experiences I had and the people I met thanks to the conferences I attended, including NHSMUN. Outside my work with NHSMUN, I’m also a part of the amazing team that organizes my college’s Model UN conference. Outside of school, I am a devoted soccer fan with a hidden love for water polo. I also enjoy writing and going to the movies when I have the time.

UNPBC is one of the most interesting committees to study and simulate, as we are tasked with the important role of securing and protecting peace precisely in the areas it is most vulnerable and threatened. Due to our mandate, we are allowed to dive into a vast selection of different topics and make the debate as in-depth and embracing as possible. The topics my Co-Director Pranav Reddy and I chose for this year’s agenda, the situations in Liberia and in the Sahel, are pressing topics in the international community. We hope our background guide will allow you all to make the most out of our mandate and out of the areas that interest you the most.

Lastly, I would like to emphasize that, although a lot of effort and passion were put into the back-ground guide and it is a good foundation for your research, we strongly encourage you to look beyond it when preparing for the conference. Pranav and I are more than happy to help you with any questions that you might have about the committee, the topics, NHSMUN, or even ourselves. Most importantly, don’t forget that you all have here an opportunity to learn, explore new people and cultures, and have fun! NHSMUN is what we make of it, and I cannot wait to meet every single one of you soon.

Best regards,

Victor [email protected] Nations Peacebuilding CommissionSession I

Secretary-GeneralVijittra Puckdee

Director-GeneralAlthea Turley

Chiefs of StaffAlex Burr

Walker Heintz

Delegate ExperienceLuis GonzálezMerve Karakas

Domestic PartnershipsMaura Goss

Odion Ovbiagele

Global PartnershipsRenata Koch

Salmaan Rashiq

Internal AffairsLia Lee

Natalie O’Dell

Under-Secretaries-General

Michael BeeliJill Bendlak

Rose BlackwellAnnica DenktasRahul FrancisOmar Mufti

Jonathan PackerAkanksha Sancheti

John WoodAlisa Wong

mailto:[email protected]

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +1 (212) 652-9992

Web: www.nhsmun.org

Dear Delegates,

My name is Pranav Reddy and I am the UNPBC Director for Session II. My Co-Director, Victor Miranda, and I are extremely excited to present the UNPBC Background Guide for NHSMUN 2020! I look forward to meeting all of you and hearing you share your thoughts and positions on all facets of these topics. I want to tell you a few things about me before we switch back to MUN Mode.

I am a junior at Rutgers University majoring in cell biology and neuroscience with a minor in nutri-tion. When I was applying for schools, I did not know whether I wanted to do cell biology or neuro-science and it just turned out to be very convenient that Rutgers offered a major that encompassed both areas. I am a member of the Rutgers Chapter of the Delta Upsilon fraternity as well as the Institute for Domestic and International Affairs at Rutgers. I am also a Director of UNEP for the Rutgers University Model UN conference, which I am very excited for. I also do research during the school year and in the summer. My current project is isolating a protein called osteocalcin from bo-vine bone, but I will likely be working on something else come March so feel free to ask me about it!

Outside of academics, my number one activity is playing FIFA video games and following soccer. I am a massive Liverpool fan and I have played soccer all my life, and I play on two intramural teams at school. Unfortunately, an injury sidelined me for the entire school year, but I am beyond excited to come back and play again next year! I love that I got to write about “The Situation in Liberia” because the current president was formerly the best soccer player on the planet, and I find that so interesting. I am also a big fan of Star Wars, and my Instagram feed is basically 20% Star Wars memes and at least 40% soccer memes.

Last year, I was an Assistant Director for the International Court of Justice for NHSMUN 2019. It was my first year in NHSMUN and an amazing experience and I hope to carry everything that I have learned and apply it this year for an even better committee! Victor and I hope the Background Guide provides you with a strong foundation for discussing this year’s topics: “The Situation in the Sahel Region” and “The Situation in Liberia.” The Background Guide is thorough, but we encour-age you to use it as a jumping-off point and conduct some research outside of what you read in the Guide. Victor and I will be more than willing to help if any of you want to reach out to us for any assistance at all. We look forward to seeing everyone in March!

Best of luck,

Pranav [email protected] Nations Peacebuilding CommissionSession II

Secretary-GeneralVijittra Puckdee

Director-GeneralAlthea Turley

Chiefs of StaffAlex Burr

Walker Heintz

Delegate ExperienceLuis GonzálezMerve Karakas

Domestic PartnershipsMaura Goss

Odion Ovbiagele

Global PartnershipsRenata Koch

Salmaan Rashiq

Internal AffairsLia Lee

Natalie O’Dell

Under-Secretaries-General

Michael BeeliJill Bendlak

Rose BlackwellAnnica DenktasRahul FrancisOmar Mufti

Jonathan PackerAkanksha Sancheti

John WoodAlisa Wong


4| UNPBCTaBle of CoNTeNTs

Table of Contents

Background Guide 1

A Note on the NHSMUN Difference 5

A Note on Research and Preparation 7

Committee History 8

Simulation 10

The Situation in the Sahel 11

Introduction 12

History and Description of the Issue 13

Current Status 23

Bloc Analysis 27

Committee Mission 30

The Situation in Liberia 31

Introduction 32

History and Description of the Issue 33

Current Status 44

Bloc Positions 50

Committee Mission 53

Research and Preparation Questions 55

Important Documents 57

Works Cited 60

|5UNPBCa NoTe oN The NhsMUN DiffereNCe

A Note on the NHSMUN Difference

Esteemed Faculty and Delegates,

Welcome to NHSMUN 2020! My name is Althea Turley and I am this year’s Director-General. Thank you for choosing to attend NHSMUN, the world’s largest Model United Nations conference for secondary school students. We are thrilled to welcome you to New York City in March!

As a space for collaboration, consensus, and compromise, NHSMUN strives to help transform today’s brightest thinkers into tomorrow’s leaders. Our organization provides a uniquely tailored experience for all in attendance through innovative and acces-sible programming. We believe that an emphasis on education through simulation is paramount to the Model UN experience and this idea permeates throughout NHSMUN.

Debate founded on strong knowledge: With knowledgeable staff members and delegates from over 70 countries, NHSMUN can facilitate an enriching experience reliant on substantively rigorous debate. To ensure this high quality of debate, our staff members produce extremely detailed and comprehensive topic overviews (like the one below) to prepare delegates for the com-plexities and nuances inherent in global issues. This process takes over six months, during which the Directors who lead our committees develop their topics with the valuable input of expert contributors. Because these topics are always changing and evolving, NHSMUN also produces update papers that are intended to bridge the gap of time between when the background guides are published and when committee starts in March. As such, this guide is designed to be a launching point from which delegates should delve further into their topics.

Extremely prepared and engaged staff: The detailed knowledge that our directors provide in this background guide through diligent research is aimed at spurring critical thought within delegates at NHSMUN. Prior to the conference, our Directors and Assistant Directors are trained rigorously through copious hours of both virtual and in-person exercises and workshops in an effort to provide the best conference experience possible. Beyond this, our Directors and Assistant Directors read every posi-tion paper submitted to NHSMUN and provide thoughtful insight on those submitted by the feedback deadline. Our staff aims not only to tailor the committee experience to delegates’ reflections and research but also to facilitate an environment where all delegates’ thoughts can be heard.

Emphasis on participation: The UN relies on the voices of all of its Member States to create resolutions most likely to make a dramatic impact on the world. That is our philosophy at NHSMUN too. We believe that in order to properly delve into an issue and produce fruitful debate, it is crucial to focus the entire energy and attention of the room on the topic at hand. Our Rules of Procedure and our staff are focused on making every voice in the committee heard, regardless of each delegate’s country as-signment or skill level. However, unlike many other conferences, we also emphasize delegate participation after the conference. MUN delegates are well researched and aware of the UN’s priorities and they can serve as the vanguard for action on the Sustain-able Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, we are proud to also connect students with other action-oriented organizations at the conference to encourage further work on the topics.

Focused committee time: NHSMUN prohibits the use of any electronic devices during committee sessions. We feel strongly that face-to-face interpersonal connections during debate are critical to producing superior committee experiences and allow for the free flow of ideas. Ensuring a no-technology policy is also a way to guarantee that every delegate has an equal opportunity to succeed in committee. We staff a very dedicated team in our office who type up and format draft resolutions and working papers so that committee time can be focused on communication and collaboration. Please note that the dais is permitted a laptop to communicate with members of Senior Staff and for other administrative needs.

6| UNPBCa NoTe oN The NhsMUN DiffereNCe

Educational emphasis, even for awards: At the heart of NHSMUN lies education and compromise. As such, when NHSMUN does distribute awards, we de-emphasize their importance in comparison to the educational value of Model UN as an activity. NHSMUN seeks to reward schools whose students excel in the arts of compromise and diplomacy. More importantly, we seek to develop an environment in which delegates can employ their critical thought processes and share ideas with their counterparts from around the world. We always prioritize a dedication to teamwork and encourage our delegates to engage with others in a diplomatic and inclusive manner. In particular, our daises look for and promote constructive leadership that strives towards consensus, as delegates do in the United Nations.

Realism and accuracy: Although a perfect simulation of the UN is never possible, we believe that one of the core educational responsibilities of MUN conferences is to educate students about how the UN System works. Each NHSMUN committee is a simulation of a real deliberative body so that delegates can research what their country has actually said in the committee. Our topics are chosen from the issues currently on the agenda of that committee (except historical committees, which take topics from the appropriate time period). This creates incredible opportunities for our delegates to do first-hand research by reading the actual statements their country has made and the resolutions they have supported We also incorporate real UN and NGO experts into each committee through our committee speakers program and arrange for meetings between students and the actual UN Permanent Mission of the country they are representing. No other conference goes so far to deeply immerse students into the UN System.

As always, I welcome any questions or concerns about the substantive program at NHSMUN 2020 and would be happy to dis-cuss NHSMUN pedagogy with faculty or delegates.

Delegates, it is my sincerest hope that your time at NHSMUN will be thought-provoking and stimulating. NHSMUN is an incredible time to learn, grow, and embrace new opportunities. I look forward to seeing you work both as students and global citizens at the conference.

Best,

Althea Turley Director-General

|7UNPBCa NoTe oN researCh aND PreParaTioN

A Note on Research and Preparation

Delegate research and preparation is a critical element of attending NHSMUN and enjoying the conference’s intellectual and cosmopolitan perspective. We have provided this Background Guide to introduce the topics that will be discussed in your com-mittee. This document is designed to give you a description of the committee’s mandate and the topics on its agenda. We do not intend to represent exhaustive research on every facet of the topics. We encourage and expect each of you to critically explore the selected topics and be able to identify and analyze their intricacies upon arrival to NHSMUN in March. Delegates must be prepared to intelligently utilize your knowledge and apply it to your country’s unique policy.

The task of preparing for the conference can be challenging, but to assist delegates, we have updated our Beginner Delegate Guide and Advanced Delegate Guide. In particular, these guides contain more detailed instructions on how to prepare a position paper and excellent sources that delegates can use for research. Use these resources to your advantage—they can help transform a sometimes-overwhelming task into what it should be: an engaging, interesting, and rewarding experience.

An essential part of representing a state in an international body is the ability to articulate a given state’s views in writing. Ac-cordingly, NHSMUN requires each delegation (the one or two delegates representing a country in a committee) to write a posi-tion paper for both topics on the committee’s agenda. In delegations with two students, we strongly encourage each student to participate in the research for both topics, to ensure that both students are prepared to debate no matter what topic is selected first. More information about how to write and format position papers can be found in the NHSMUN Research Guide. To sum-marize, position papers should be structured into three sections, described below.

I: Topic Background – This section should describe the history of the topic as it would be described by the delegate’s coun-try. Delegates do not need to give an exhaustive account of the topic background, but rather focus on the details that are most important to the delegation’s policy and proposed solutions.

II: Country Policy – This section should discuss the delegation’s policy regarding the topic. Each paper should state the policy in plain terms and include the relevant statements, statistics, and research that support the effectiveness of the policy. Compari-sons with other global issues are also appropriate here.

III. Proposed Solutions – This section should detail the delegation’s proposed solutions to address the topic. Descriptions of each solution should be thorough. Each idea should clearly connect to the specific problem it aims to solve and identify potential obstacles to implementation and how they can be avoided. The solution should be a natural extension of the country’s policy.

Each topic’s position paper should be no more than 10 pages long double-spaced with standard margins and font size. We recommend 2-4 pages per topic as a suitable length. The paper must be written from the perspective of the country you are representing at NHSMUN 2020 and should articulate the policies you will espouse at the conference.

Each delegation is responsible for sending a copy of its papers to their committee Directors via myDais on or before 14 Febru-ary 2020. If a delegate wishes to receive detailed feedback from the committee’s dais, a position must be submitted on or before 24 January 2020. The papers received by this earlier deadline will be reviewed by the dais of each committee and returned prior to your arrival at the conference.

Complete instructions for how to submit position papers will be sent to faculty advisers via the email submitted at registration. If delegations are unable to submit their position papers on time, they should contact us at [email protected] as soon as possible.

Delegations that do not submit position papers to directors will be ineligible for awards.

http://nhsmun.nyc/sites/default/files/Beginner%20Delegate%20Guide.pdf

http://nhsmun.nyc/sites/default/files/Beginner%20Delegate%20Guide.pdf

http://nhsmun.nyc/sites/default/files/Advanced%20Delegate%20Guide.pdf

http://www.myDais.org


8| UNPBCCoMMiTTee hisTory

Committee History

The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (UNPBC) was established as a part of the reform process that took place during the 60th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.1 Peacebuilding, a precautionary framework aimed at reducing threats that would undermine the peaceful status of a post-conflict country, has always been a fundamental goal of the United Nations. However, there was much deliberation throughout the process of creating a separate institution to address this issue.2

The inception of the UNPBC began in December 2004 when the former Secretary-General Kofi Annan established the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change.3 This panel sought to assess current global threats to international peace and provide an analysis of future challenges, identify the contribution of international parties, and recommend changes necessary to ensure effective collective action. It was within this panel’s report that the Secretary-General first proposed a new intergovern-mental body, the “Peacebuilding Commission”.4 The framework of the Peacebuilding Commission provided the foundation for the creation of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission the following year.

The UNPBC’s mandate explains the Commission’s peacebuilding capabilities in the international community. On 20 December 2005, the Security Council and the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution S/RES/1645 and A/RES/60/180 which established the UNPBC with the following mandate:

• To bring together all relevant actors to marshal resources and to advise on the proposed integrated strategies for post conflict peacebuilding and recovery;

• To help ensure predictable financing for early recovery activities and sustained financial investment over the medium to long-term;

• To develop best practices on issues in collaboration with political, security, humanitarian and development actors.56

In general, countries targeted by the UNPBC suffer from persistent development challenges such as poverty, political corruption, and resource scarcity.7 These characteristics make countries highly vulnerable to conflict resurgence. The UNPBC recognizes the interconnectedness of these factors and therefore seeks to combat these developments by identifying critical priorities. The Commission works to analyze the status of post-conflict countries and extend their time in the international spotlight to prevent relapses into violence.8 Additionally, the Commission is unique from other UN committees in that it directly focuses on the needs and capacities of post-conflict countries and seeks to organize recovery projects that will ensure peaceful reconstruction.

The Peacebuilding Fund (PBF), in addition to intergovernmental and inter-organizational funding, funds the activities recom-mended by the UNPBC in post-conflict states. The Peacebuilding Fund, which sponsors post-conflict reconstruction projects, was launched on 11 October 2006. Its central purpose is to “establish a crucial bridge between conflict and recovery at a time when other funding mechanisms may not yet be available.”9 Funds from the PBF are also available to countries deemed to be in 1 S/RES/1645, “Resolution 1645,” 20 December 2005, accessed 30 October 2018, http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1645%20(2005).2 “Peacebuilding and the United Nations,” United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office, http://www.un.org/en/peacebuilding/pbso/pbun.shtml.3 “The Peacebuilding Commission,” Global Policy Forum, http://www.globalpolicy.org/un-reform/un-reform-topics/the-peacebuilding-commission.html.4 Ibid.5 A/RES/60/180, “The Peacebuilding Commission,” 30 December 2005, accessed 30 October 2018, http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/60/180.6 S/RES/1645, “Resolution 1645,” 20 December 2005, accessed 30 October 2018, http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1645%20(2005).7 “Mandate of the Peacebuilding Fund,” United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, http://www.un.org/en/peacebuilding/mandate.shtml.8 Ibid. 9 A/RES/60/180, “The Peacebuilding Commission,” 30 December 2005, accessed 30 October 2018, http://www.un.org/ga/search/

|9UNPBCCoMMiTTee hisTory

similar circumstances by the Secretary-General.

The standing Organizational Committee is comprised of 31 member states, including the following:

• 7 members elected by the General Assembly;

• 7 members of the Security Council;

• 7 members of the Economic and Social Council;

• 5 members chosen as the top providers of assessed contributions to UN budgets and of voluntary contributions to the UN funds, programmes and agencies, including a standing peacebuilding fund;

• 5 top providers of military personnel and civilian police to UN missions.10

When operating in a post-conflict country, the Organizational Committee convenes in a country-specific configuration (CSC), which includes all the members of the organizational committee plus all the relevant actors operating in the country of interest. Additionally, the UNPBC also convenes the Working Group on Lessons Learned (WGLL).11 By analyzing previous peacebuild-ing tactics, these meetings are intended to “develop forward-looking lessons and recommendations for post-conflict strategies and implementations.”12

The first session of the UNPBC was held in June 2006. The arrangements set out for the UNPBC in resolution A/RES/60/180, were reviewed and amended in December 2010, five years after its adoption. These amendments led to the new format under which the UNPBC operates. Countries currently on the UNPBC agenda include Guinea-Bissau, Burundi, Sierra Leone, and the Central African Republic.13

Given that UNPBC is a relatively new body, its mandate is more fluid than the long-established bodies. For example, in its 2015 report, UNPBC announced that it would begin conducting country case studies of countries both on and off the commission’s agenda, including Burundi, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Timor-Leste.14

view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/60/180.10 “Structure and Membership,” United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, accessed 30 October 2018, http://www.un.org/en/peacebuilding/structuremember.shtml.11 “Working Group on Lessons Learned,” United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, Accessed 30 October 2018, http://www.un.org/en/peacebuilding/sm_lessonslearned.shtml. 12 Ibid. 13 “Structure and Membership,” United Nations Peacebuilding Commission.14 A/69/674–S/2014/911, “Letter dated 15 December 2014 from the President of the General Assembly and the President of the Secu-rity Council addressed to the Secretary-General,” 17 December 2014, accessed 30 October 2018, http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/69/674.

10|UNPBCsiMUlaTioN

Simulation

This simulation at NHSMUN 2020 will allow all delegates to participate equally in a vibrant debate. Delegates must thoroughly familiarize themselves with their country’s policies so that they can accurately represent them when the committee discusses each topic. The goal of this committee will be to build a consensus to support and pass a resolution that thoroughly addresses the topics under discussion, while also respecting the differing goals and opinions of all member states. With this goal in mind, del-egates should develop and support resolutions that align with their country’s policies. Each country must work towards finding compromises without abandoning their own country’s goals in favor of the resolution. The resolutions should, therefore, aim to improve the situation while allowing each country to stay on policy and accomplish what their government believes is important.

To start committee, after delegates have been introduced to the dais, they will first debate the setting of the agenda and then progress to substantive debate, which will deepen and progress throughout the following sessions. There will be two main forms of discussion in this committee: formal debate and caucusing. Formal debate consists of delegates adding themselves to the speakers list to be formally recognized before the rest of the committee for a specified length of time. When delegates appear before the committee, it is their opportunity to give an overview of their country’s position. It is imperative that all delegates re-main respectful of others during this time and observe all procedural rules in order for delegates to be heard and for the speaker’s list to flow smoothly. The chair will move down the speakers list, allowing each country who has volunteered their name to speak for a set amount of time and present their concerns to the committee.

Caucusing can be done in one of two ways: moderated and unmoderated. The speakers list will be suspended for both types of caucuses. Moderated caucuses flow similarly to formal debate, but delegates’ speaking times are often shorter, and each caucus has a specific topic that delegates must discuss in their comments. A moderated caucus will allow more speakers to address the assembly without having to wait for their turn to come on the speakers list. Unmoderated caucuses suspend formal rules of debate for a designated period of time during which delegates are free to move around the room and informally discuss policy and potential solutions with one another. The majority of writing for working papers and draft resolutions will occur during these unmoderated caucuses.

The topics in this committee are challenging and will require a great deal of research. Because NHSMUN emphasizes compro-mise and innovative problem solving, pre-written resolutions are not allowed at this conference. While your delegation may have some informal ideas about possible solutions before committee begins, you may not bring them to the conference in resolution form; this would defeat the purpose of the committee, which is to work together and compromise. Working papers and resolu-tions are collaboratively created by starting with solutions, first just as a set of ideas. These solutions are formatted into a working paper, then voted upon as draft resolutions, and finally presented as resolutions in plenary if passed in committee. Throughout this process and the debates, the dais staff will be available at all times to help delegates with any concerns or questions they may have. The dais is always happy to help delegates not only with substantive questions related to the topics under discussion, but also with adjusting to the procedural aspects of Model UN.

During the conference, the chair will be moderating the committee and setting up a general direction for the flow of debate. However, it is truly up to the delegates to decide how the committee proceeds, and it is up to the delegates to make the confer-ence and committee the best that it can be. Delegates are welcome to contact the dais at any time for help, both before and during the conference, as they are there to answer any questions. They will help to make sure the committee runs smoothly and is a success.

UNPBC

NHSMUN 2020

Photo Credit: Oxfam East Africa

Topic A:The Situation in the Sahel

12|ToPiC a: The siTUaTioN iN The saheliNTroDUCTioN

Introduction

1 “UN Support Plan for the Sahel,” United Nations, accessed 7 June 2019, https://www.un.org/africarenewal/sites/www.un.org.africare-newal/files/English%20Summ.2 Muhammad Dan Suleiman, “Sahel region, Africa,” The Conversation, last modified 27 February 2017, https://theconversation.com/sahel-region-africa-72569.3 Jens Borchers, “Why are ex-colonies in Africa so important to France?,” Deutsche Welle, last modified 5 May 2017, https://www.dw.com/en/why-are-ex-colonies-in-africa-so-important-to-france/a-38680154.4 Muhammad Dan Suleiman, “Sahel region, Africa,” The Conversation.5 Ibid.6 Ibid.7 Peter Gubbels, “A new drumbeat for the Sahel,” Humanitarian Practice Network, October 2012, accessed 22 August 2019, https://odihpn.org/magazine/a-new-drumbeat-for-the-sahel/.8 Ibid.9 Aurore Mathieu, “Sahel: Priorities for Resilience and Development,” Oxfam International, Save the Children, Action Contre La Faim, December 2018, accessed 22 August 2019, https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/620609/bp-sahel-priorities-resilience-development-011218-en.pdf?sequence=7.10 Zach Scott, “Libya and the Sahel: Has a Dictator’s Demise Doomed the Region?,” Foreign Policy, last modified 16 July 2013,https://for-eignpolicyblogs.com/2013/07/16/libya-and-the-sahel-has-a-dictators-demise-doomed-the-region/.11 “Sahel: The world’s most neglected and conflict-ridden region,” Norwegian Refugee Council, accessed 27 July 2019, https://www.nrc.no/shorthand/fr/sahel---the-worlds-most-neglected-and-conflict-ridden-region/index.html12 Ibid.13 Ibid.

The Sahel region, as defined by the UN, is composed of ten African countries: Burkina Faso, Cam-eroon, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.1 The region marks the division between North and sub-Saharan Africa, and is home to a rich diversity of cultures.2 It is composed of mostly former French colonies, which only became independent during the 1960s, meaning many of the states are relatively young.3 The region, however, has recently received atten-tion from the international community due to a number of escalating crises.4 Parts of the region are isolated beyond the reach of states, with violent and radical groups operating across porous borders.5 The Sahel also suffers from ethno-religious tensions between communities, which have been attrib-uted to mass murders, political instability in the form of corruption and coup d’états, poverty, food insecurity, and natural disasters, which are intensified by climate change.6

The Sahelian crisis is rooted in persistent structural and so-cial factors that can be traced back the colonial era, but the recent escalations come from the 2012 crisis from which the region still has not fully recovered.7 Crises in Côte d’Ivoire and Libya resulted in the return of over 200,000 migrants to already vulnerable areas in the Sahel who faced displacement, disrupting supply chains, increasing pressure on communities’ scarce resources, rapidly rising food prices, while also increas-ing demand for public services such as water, health, and edu-cation.8 Successive food crises in the region, already affected by similar events in 2005, 2008, 2010, and 2012, undermined communities’ resilience and their ability to recover from suc-cessive shocks as rainfall shortage and conflicts9

Since the start of the First Libyan Civil War in 2011, Sahelian countries have seen the consequences of the Libyan conflict and unrest spill over within their borders, as the proliferation

of weapons, escalation of armed attacks by radical Islamic groups, and the sudden exponential growth in the number of displaced people in the region have devastated hopes for sta-bility in the short term.10 According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLEDP), it is likely that conflicts between different groups in the region, which are already on the rise, will continue to intensify in the next year.11 With areas like Northern Mali and the Lake Chad controlled by armed groups or completely destabilized by their actions, even more efforts for peace in the Sahel are threatened.12

The countries of the Sahel are also among the world’s most impoverished and have a low average standard of living. Niger is at the very bottom of the UN Human Development Index, and Chad, Burkina Faso, and Mali also have low ranks.13 The precarious human conditions have caused people to flee the region in hope of better standards of living. In 2018, more

|13ToPiC a: The siTUaTioN iN The sahelhisTory aND DesCriPTioN of The issUe

than 100,000 migrants and refugees arrived in Europe from the region crossing the Mediterranean, according to the UN-HCR, with over 2,000 losing their lives in the attempt.14

Understanding the desperate situation in which Sahelian countries find themselves, in 2018, the United Nations cre-ated the UN Support Plan for the Sahel, which aims to im-prove coordination and collaboration in the area, focusing on cross-border cooperation, sustaining peace, inclusive growth, combating climate action and developing renewable energy, as well as female and youth empowerment.15 UNPBC must continue this effort to bring a coordinated approach to al-leviate tensions and develop the region by working alongside local government and regional organs already intervening in the Sahel.

History and Description of the Issue

Terrorist Threats

Faced with extraordinary political instability, the Sahel is ex-periencing exceptional levels of organized violence, such as illegal trafficking, extremist insurgencies, and political rebel-lions.16 Countries in the region witnessed four times the num-ber of deaths in 2018 compared to the height of the food crisis in 2012, the area’s most recent humanitarian crisis.17 In the first few months of 2019, the area saw the total amount of displaced people increase by one million, reaching a total of 4.2 million.18 Mali saw its number of internally displaced people triple from the previous year and the Lake Chad Ba-14 Ibid.15 “UN Support Plan for the Sahel,” United Nations.16 Robert Muggah and José Luengo Cabrera, “The Sahel is engulfed by violence, climate change, food insecurity and extremists are largely to blame,” World Economic Forum, last modified 23 January 2019, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/all-the-warning-signs-are-showing-in-the-sahel-we-must-act-now/.17 Ibid.18 Ibid.19 “Persistent needs in the Sahel, conflict driving massive displacement,” ReliefWeb, last modified 6 March 2019, https://reliefweb.int/re-port/mali/persistent-needs-sahel-conflict-driving-massive-displacement.20 Ibid.21 Olivier Whalter, “The blurred boundaries of political violence in the Sahel-Sahara,” Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,” last modified 29 September 2017, https://oecd-development-matters.org/2017/09/29/the-blurred-boundaries-of-political-violence-in-the-sahel-sahara/.22 Ibid.23 Ibid.24 Abdelhak Bassou, “State, Borders and Territory in the Sahel: The Case of the G5 Sahel,” Policy Center for the New South, last modified 6 October 2017, https://www.policycenter.ma/publications/state-borders-and-territory-sahel-case-g5-sahel.25 Whalter, “The blurred boundaries of political violence in the Sahel-Sahara,” Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. 26 Ibid.

sin region reached a record of 2.7 million displaced people alone.19 The dominance of criminal organizations further im-pairs farming and economic activity by preventing access to growing areas of the country, deepening community vulner-ability, and preventing access to humanitarian aid.20

Apart from persistent poverty and underdeveloped gover-nance, one of the main causes for the rapid growth of crimi-nal organizations is the lack of regulation and control of transnational borders in the region.21 These deficiencies allow terrorists and traffickers to easily move around the region mo-bilizing and recruiting troops, buying and selling drugs and weapons, and moving to countries with the least resistance.22 The light control over borders also mean that conflicts easily spill over to the rest of the region so that instability in one country usually has significant spillover effects into neighbor-ing countries - organizations easily grow into neighboring countries as fighters and weapons can cross borders without resistance.23

Civilians are the most affected by the proliferation of terrorist groups, as extremist tactics tend to place civilians as the main targets of attack, with the objective of spreading fear and con-trolling the population in their area.24 The neutrality of civil-ians and aid providers is not protected in conflict, and control-ling insurgent groups routinely deny access to basic services such as education or healthcare.25 The resulting isolation com-munities face in conflict zones means that many victims of terrorist activities not only die from violent aggression, but also from malnutrition, disease, and forced displacement.26 Furthermore, terrorist attacks in Europe, such as the suicide-

14|ToPiC a: The siTUaTioN iN The sahelhisTory aND DesCriPTioN of The issUe

bombing in Manchester and the attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, have been linked with groups from the region, prov-ing that the effects of growing insecurity in the Sahel goes beyond the area.27 Risks of increased attacks and deaths grow as organizations stabilize themselves and gain territory, which would also result in new waves of displaced people and refu-gees fleeing from the escalating conflict.28

The largest and most commonly known terrorist organization operating in the Sahel is the extremist group Boko Haram, based in Nigeria.29 This terrorist group controls territory in the southern states of Nigeria, as well as regions along the Nigerian border with Cameroon and around the Lake Chad

27 “Jihadists are trying to take over the Sahel,” The Economist, last modified 12 July 2018, https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/07/12/jihadists-are-trying-to-take-over-the-sahel.28 Ibid.29 “Boko Haram,” Counter Extremism Project, accessed 8 July 2019, https://www.counterextremism.com/threat/boko-haram.30 Ibid.31 Ibid.32 Ibid.33 Benjamin Nickels, “Interdiction Efforts Adapt as Drug Trafficking in Africa Modernizes,” Africa Center for Strategic Studies, last modified 7 November 2017, https://africacenter.org/spotlight/interdiction-efforts-adapt-drug-trafficking-africa-modernizes/.

Basin region.30 Boko Haram has the objective of establish-ing a caliphate in Nigeria, and has since aligned itself with both Al-Qaeda and Daesh (also known as ISIS).31 To achieve its goals, the organization carries out large-scale attacks and paramilitary campaigns, having killed approximately 30,000 and displaced two million over the last decade.32 The terrorist group has also been associated with drug trafficking, taking advantage of the profitability of the drug market by control-ling drug routes and being involved in cocaine and heroin smuggling.33

As a response to the increase in terrorist attacks and organized violence in the region, Sahelian countries have created the G5

Local Saheli people and French militants interacting during Operation Barkhane


Sahel Joint Force, a partnership between five of the region’s countries (Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Chad) to improve security along shared borders.34 The alliance is bound together by the concept of improved cooperation and deploy-ment of joint forces to stop the flow of traffickers and terror-ists through its borders.35 The operation has received support from the African Union, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and most notably, the European Union, which complements its assistance through the EU Trust Fund for Africa, having agreed to donate USD 110 million to help the initiative.36

The main obstacle for the success of the project lies within funding of operation costs, as regional actors of the conflict in the Sahel lack the resources to back the scale needed for the success of its partnership and the amount pledged by the G5 Force and its donors is not yet sufficient to cover its estimat-ed cost.37 Other challenges include the size of its operational area, harsh climate conditions, and limited available resourc-es.38 In addition, there is a need to coordinate its activities with other operations in the region, such as Operation Barkhane, a French led operation which also aims to secure the region and fight terrorism, acting through counterterrorist campaigns and military assistance of local forces.39

Political Instability

Abuse of state authority by governments in the Sahel, as well as perceptions of impunity, or the lack of credible rein-forcement or punishment, has long frustrated civil society in

34 Jennifer Cooke, “Understanding the G5 Sahel Joint Force: Fighting Terror, Building Regional Security?,” Center for Strategic and Interna-tional Studies, last modified 15 November 2019, https://www.csis.org/analysis/understanding-g5-sahel-joint-force-fighting-terror-building-regional-security.35 Ibid.36 “Investing today in the Sahel for the Africa of tomorrow,” Sahel Alliance, accessed 30 June 2019, https://www.alliance-sahel.org/en/; “EU Support to G5 Sahel Joint Force,” African Union, accessed 30 June 2019, https://www.africa-eu-partnership.org/en/projects/eu-sup-port-g5-sahel-joint-force.37 Cooke, “Understanding the G5 Sahel Joint Force: Fighting Terror, Building Regional Security?” Center for Strategic and International Studies.38 Fatiha Belfakir, “G5 Sahel Force Struggles with Funding, Coordination,” Voice of America, last modified 27 December 2018, https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/g5-sahel-force-struggles-funding-coordination.39 Cooke, “Understanding the G5 Sahel Joint Force: Fighting Terror, Building Regional Security?” Center for Strategic and International Studies.40 If Victims Become Perpetrators,” International Alert, last modified 28 June 2018, https://www.international-alert.org/sites/default/files/Sahel_ViolentExtremismVulnerabilityResilience_EN_2018.pdf.41 Ibid.42 Ibid.43 Ibid.44 Azad Essa, “Why do youth in the Sahel join armed groups? It’s complicated,” Independent Online, last modified 4 July 2018, https://www.iol.co.za/news/opinion/why-do-youth-in-the-sahel-join-armed-groups-its-complicated-15824524.45 “If Victims Become Perpetrators,” International Alert.46 Ibid.47 Jean-Hervé Jezequel, “Central Mali: Putting a Stop to Ethnic Cleansing,” International Crisis Group, last modified 25 March 2019, https://

the region.40 The legitimacy of democratic institutions is in constant decline, as cases of corruption and bad governance incite groups to disrespect and disregard their country’s lead-ership.41 Extremists take advantage of this situation to con-vince communities to rebel and embrace radical solutions in the hopes of improving their livelihood.42 Revolting against abusive state authorities is the reason most commonly cited by former combatants to justify joining violent extremist groups in Africa.43 Marco Simonetti, International Alert’s manager in West Africa, summarized the situation, stating that “real or perceived abuse by government authorities - often with im-punity - has led to frustrations that violent extremists take advantage of.”44

Cases of citizen mistreatment, abusive violence, arbitrary ar-rests, extortion, and extrajudicial killings also undermine a government’s reputation within civil society.45 Reckless viola-tions of human rights committed by representatives of the state create a lasting feeling of insecurity and mistrust between the population. For example, surveys assert that 75% of vil-lages in the Sahel consider state forces as threats to peace and security, 62% wish to form self-defense militias to protect themselves against government abuse, and 50% said that ex-tremists protect communities from abuses by security forces.46

Moreover, some of the region’s political and military authori-ties have recently tolerated and even supported the devel-opment of local militias in hopes they would help provide security in areas with little state presence.47 An example of


this comes from 2016 when Malian authorities allowed the Dogon community to form an armed militia with the justi-fication of defending themselves.48 The lack of action to prevent the formation of more armed groups has resulted in an increase of ethnic tensions in the region, as local militias act on historic ethnic rivalries, which turn clashes even more violent.49 The growing violence is described by specialists as ethnic cleansing, aimed at terrorizing and forcing particular communities out of their areas.50 Ethnic tensions also cause instability in the political scenario of the Sahel, with violence related to ethnic rivalries prompting protests in Mali against the perceived government inaction, leading to the resignation of Prime-Minister Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga.51 It is crucial for Sahelian governments to promote the disarmament of groups implicated in the militia activities, while identifying, ar-resting, and punishing the main perpetrators, as impunity in recent years has been instrumental in the rising tension and instability.52

The region’s corruption networks also negatively impact the Sahelian economy, with national economic development be-ing sidelined in favor of connections between corrupt security officers and politicians with new elites and organized crime.53 Furthermore, corruption undermines the Sahel’s social orga-nization, with tribal leaders and other traditional authorities losing influence in favor of well-connected elites engaged in corruption.54 Members of the youth population, most of whom are attracted by the profits boosted by criminal organi-www.crisisgroup.org/africa/sahel/mali/centre-du-mali-enrayer-le-nettoyage-ethnique.48 Ibid.49 Flore Berger, “Jihadist violence and communal divisions fuel worsening conflict in Mali and wider Sahel,” International Institute for Strategic Studies, last modified 20 June 2019, https://www.iiss.org/blogs/analysis/2019/06/conflicts-in-mali. 50 “The Sahel in Flames,” The New Humanitarian, last modified 31 May 2019, https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/in-depth/sahel-flames-Burkina-Faso-Mali-Niger-militancy-conflict.51 “Mali prime minister resigns after Ogossagou massacre,” Deutsche Welle, last modified 19 April 2019, https://www.dw.com/en/mali-prime-minister-resigns-after-ogossagou-massacre/a-48395948. 52 Jean-Hervé Jezequel, “Central Mali: Putting a Stop to Ethnic Cleansing.” International Crisis Group.53 Benno Zogg, “Organized Crime: Fueling Corruption and Mali’s Desert War,” Global Observatory, last modified 27 February 2018, https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/02/organized-crime-corruption-mali/.54 Ibid.55 Ibid.56 Jonathan Sears, “On the brink: why 2019 may be another bad year for beleaguered Mali,” The Conversation, last modified 4 December 2018, https://theconversation.com/on-the-brink-why-2019-may-be-another-bad-year-for-beleaguered-mali-107444.57 Zogg, “Organized Crime: Fueling Corruption and Mali’s Desert War.” Global Observatory. 58 Eric Komlavi Hahonou, “Security in the Sahel: Corruption, Insecurity and Border Control in Niger,” International Development Research Group (February 2016), accessed 10 July 2019, http://pure.diis.dk/ws/files/422938/PB_Sahel_WEB.pdf.59 Ibid.60 Ibid.61 “Understanding Electoral Violence To Better Prevent It,” UNOWAS, last modified 6 December 2017, https://unowas.unmissions.org/understanding-electoral-violence-better-prevent-it.62 Ibid.

zations, increasingly opt to become part of the illicit economy instead of finding legal occupations.55 Apart from corruption, nepotism plagues many Sahelian countries, especially Mali, which suffers the most from political instability.56

Despite the need to sever ties between government authori-ties and criminal groups, attempts to reform security forces or investigate cases are undermined by persisting corruption networks.57 Additionally, corruption is, to a large extent, em-bedded in Sahelian society.58 Bribery has become the most common strategy to rapidly pass borders or checkpoints, thus creating an environment that allows criminal and terrorist net-works to work and create corrupt ties with authorities unno-ticed.59 Smuggling usually occurs on official roads and goes through official checkpoints, with everyday corruption mak-ing bribing relatively safe and unseen.60 In order to combat corruption, it is vital to tackle it both in its organized, insti-tutionalized form, as well as more minor everyday practices.

Another issue in the Sahel is the use of violence during elec-tions. Although less frequent than a decade ago, it is still com-mon to see practices aimed at influencing the behavior of vot-ers and candidates or distorting the results of the elections, ranging from ballot stuffing, intimidation, clashes between opposing parties, and even murder.61 Electoral violence can take place in any stage of the electoral process, before or dur-ing voting day, or even after the elections are complete.62 A recent example of electoral instability in the region was the presidential and legislative election of Nigeria on February


2019. The National Human Rights Commission reported that approximately 176 people had been killed in election-related violence.63

Apart from violence, there is a lack of proper financial reg-ulation of political campaigns, the exchange of money or government posts for political support, as well as the use of public resources to fund campaigns.64 Using public funds to finance personal political campaigns creates structural advan-tages for well-connected incumbents, and those resources are often diverted from public projects.65 Moreover, a lack of in-frastructure also hinders the legitimacy of Sahelian elections, as there are often shortages of ballots.66 Encouragingly, work continues to be done to prevent election fraud as a way to guarantee the integrity of voting procedures and transparency of the electoral administration, but clearly this is not the only problem.67 The ongoing cases of electoral violence continue to undermine the value and legitimacy of elections.68

Food Security

During one of the region’s food shortages, Barbara Jackson, Humanitarian Director of the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE) International—which provides emergency relief and development services—said that “the world needs to accept that many parts of the Sahel are now in a state of chronic crisis.”69 The Sahel has consistently suffered from incessant food insecurity as droughts, failed harvests, high prices, and ongoing conflict have all threatened the well-63 S/2019/549, “Activities of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel,” 5 July 2019, accessed 22 August 2019, https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/S_2019_549.pdf.64 Eric Komlavi Hahonou, “Security in the Sahel: Corruption, Insecurity and Border Control in Niger,” International Development Research Group.65 Olayinka Ajala, “Nigeria is not ready to hold free and fair elections next year. Here’s why,” The Conversation, last modified 21 June 2018, https://theconversation.com/nigeria-is-not-ready-to-hold-free-and-fair-elections-next-year-heres-why-97300.66 “Nigeria: Presidential Election Marred by Fraud, Violence,” Human Rights Watch, last modified 28 April 2007, https://www.hrw.org/news/2007/04/25/nigeria-presidential-election-marred-fraud-violence.67 “Understanding Electoral Violence To Better Prevent It,” UNOWAS.68 Ibid.69 “Commonly Asked Questions About the Sahel Food Crisis,” CARE International, last modified 21 January 2014, https://www.care.org/emergencies/sahel-food-crisis-faq.70 Muggah and Luengo Cabrera, “The Sahel is engulfed by violence. Climate change, food insecurity and extremists are largely to blame.”71 Vincent Bonnecase, “Building knowledge on a crisis. Famine in Sahelian Africa in the early 1970s,” Politique Africaine, March 2010, ac-cessed 6 July 2019, https://www.cairn.info/revue-politique-africaine-2010-3-page-23.htm#.72 Ibid.73 “What is malnutrition?,” World Health Organization, last modified 8 July 2016, https://www.who.int/features/qa/malnutrition/en/.74 “Sahel Regional Strategy 2013,” United Nations, accessed 6 July 2019, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/SahelStrat-egy2013_Dec2012.pdf.75 Christin Roby, “Nexus of climate and conflict exacerbates Sahel food security crisis,” Devex, last modified 13 August 2018, https://www.devex.com/news/nexus-of-climate-and-conflict-exacerbates-sahel-food-security-crisis-93160.76 United Nations, “Sahel Regional Strategy 2013;” “Building climate resilience and peace, go hand in hand for Africa’s Sahel – UN forum,” Africa Renewal Online, accessed 6 July 2019, https://www.un.org/africarenewal/news/building-climate-resilience-and-peace-go-hand-hand-

being of the region.70

Since the 1970s, when widespread aid and assistance first ar-rived into the countries that comprise the Sahel, the issue of food insecurity and its consequential famines in the region has caught the attention of the international community.71 Inter-national organizations began to analyze the region while coun-tries first began to continuously provide aid, mostly through food donations and funding. Estimates of the death toll due to famine are as high as 100,000 people in the region.72 Re-cently, the Sahel was hit by a food crisis in 2010 which wors-ened in 2012 when 18.7 million people were considered food insecure and, mostly as a result of the previous year’s drought, over one million children were at risk of dying from severe acute malnutrition.73 Many communities are still recovering from the event, and face a continuation of these challenges.74

Sahelian countries have also seen a high mortality rate from diseases such as measles, meningitis, and cholera, due to lack of access to health services and decreased resistance to such diseases due to reduced immunity caused by malnutrition.75 Although the 2012 crisis is considered the most severe the re-gion has faced in recent years, the numbers of its current situ-ation are even more serious. As of the end of 2018, 33 million people were considered to be food insecure in the Sahel (close to 10% of its total population), while 4.7 million children un-der the age of 5 suffered from acute malnutrition, which di-rectly and indirectly kills 230,000 children every year.76


Limited and sporadic rains also hinder farmers’ efforts to re-liably grow enough food for their families, forcing them to resort to buying from local food markets, raising prices, and further straining subsistence farmers that do not produce enough to sell.77 These farmers frequently have no choice but to exhaust their food supplies, and sell their livestock and equipment to finance a move to the cities in search of work.78 Singular changes in harvest yields such as this can cause fami-lies to lose both their sources of food and income, setting off a cycle of poverty and famine that can be incredibly difficult to escape.79 Additionally, the UN estimates that approximately 80% of the region’s farmland is suffering from degradation such as soil erosion, desertification, and deforestation, which

africa%E2%80%99s-sahel-%E2%80%93-un-forum.77 Roby, “Nexus of climate and conflict exacerbates Sahel food security crisis.”78 Ibid.; Care International, “Commonly Asked Questions About the Sahel Food Crisis.”79 Ibid.80 Muggah and Luengo Cabrera, “The Sahel is engulfed by violence. Climate change, food insecurity and extremists are largely to blame.”81 Ibid.82 Ousman Tall, “Herders vs Farmers: Resolving deadly conflict in the Sahel and West Africa,” Medium, last modified 18 April 2018, https://medium.com/@OECD/herders-vs-farmers-resolving-deadly-conflict-in-the-sahel-and-west-africa-e096702b5055.

makes them less able to bear crops and pasture.80

Another issue that compromises food production in the re-gion is land disputes. Just as degrading farmland in the region impacts crop growth, local pastoralists, those who raise live-stock, also see a decrease in the available land to maintain their activities. Approximately fifty million people in the Sahel rely on livestock to sustain themselves, which requires mobility as pastoralists look for fresh pasture and water.81 As a result, many herdsmen adopt a nomadic pastoral system with no per-manent settlement area and head south during the region’s dry season, entering local farmers’ property.82 Historically, farmers welcomed livestock into their fields, as cattle fertilized crop

The effects of famine in the Sahel


production.83 This situation changed as increasing movement increased pressure on croplands and terrorist organizations made once-fertile areas inaccessible; now the relationship between herders and farmers usually results in conflict.84 Be-tween 2011 and 2016, about 2,000 people were killed annually in Nigeria alone due to clashes between these two important actors in Sahel’s food production,.85 Tensions have even wors-ened as climate change has led pastoralists to push into re-gions used by sedentary farmers, and an increasing demand for food has motivated farmers to expand cultivation into land used primarily by pastoralists.86

Because states have struggled to exercise control over rural ar-eas in the Sahel, pastoralists have felt the need to defend their own interests, sometimes with force. Because of their rou-tine movement across national borders, they are increasingly implicated in illegal activities such as human and drug traf-ficking.87 Pastoralist involvement with illicit organizations has since threatened the security of all herders in the region, who have now been collectively labelled as a source of insecurity.88 Moreover, pastoralists make up a majority of displaced people in the region due to the escalating conflicts and environmental degradation.89 Overall, the condition of pastoralists contrib-utes to the region’s insecurity as a whole, as their knowledge of some parts of the territory could be used by governments to control and monitor illegal activities and terrorist organiza-tions. Pastoralists serve as an important group for delegates to remember when considering stabilizing the Sahel.90

Conflict and displacement also affect food security and over-all living conditions of other sectors of the Sahelian popula-

83 Ibid.84 Ibid.85 Ibid.86 “New. Fringe Pastoralism: Conflict and Insecurity and Development in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel,” United Nations Economic Com-mission for Africa, accessed 6 July 2019, https://www.uneca.org/sites/default/files/PublicationFiles/new_fringe_pastoralism_eng1.pdf. 87 Ibid.88 Ibid.89 Ibid.90 Cees de Haan et al., “Pastoralism Development in the Sahel”, World Bank, accessed 06 July 2019, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/24228/K8813.pdf?sequence=2.91 “Persistent needs in the Sahel, conflict driving massive displacement,” ReliefWeb.92 Ibid.93 Karl Schultz and Linus Adler, Addressing Climate Change Impacts in the Sahel Using Vulnerability Reduction Credits (Springer, 2017), accessed 07 July 2019, https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-59096-7_17#citeas.94 Muggah and Luengo Cabrera, “The Sahel is engulfed by violence. Climate change, food insecurity and extremists are largely to blame.”95 “Droughts,” BBC, accessed 28 June 2019, https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zt9ncwx/revision/4.96 Ibid.97 Ibid.

tion. As of March 2019, 4.2 million people were displaced as a result of escalating armed conflict.91 Displaced people often are not able to find homes with a decent standard of living and many survive in harsh conditions in overcrowded camps without proper access to food, water, and medical attention, all of which contribute to the rising cases of malnutrition and epidemics.92 Therefore, improving the conditions of displaced people, through monitoring sensitive areas and improving in-frastructure in refugee camps, is crucial to achieving food se-curity in the Sahel.

Combating the Effects of Climate Change

The Sahel is one of the regions most impacted by climate change.93 Temperatures in the region are rising at a rate 1.5 times faster than the global average, even with local tempera-tures already averaging 35°C, and specialists believe temper-atures could rise up to 5°C warmer by 2050.94 Additionally, changes in ocean temperature have reduced the amount of seasonal rainfall, the region’s largest source of freshwater. Overgrazing, excessive pressure exerted onto a piece of land by cattle, and deforestation have worsened the effects of de-sertification in the region.95

These changes are some of the major causes of the food in-security crisis in Sahelian countries and have enormous eco-nomic consequences.96 Environmental degradation diminish-es profits from commercial farms as part of the plantation is lost, causing unemployment while also greatly disabling crops and livestock grown for subsistence.97 The resulting decrease in food availability typically causes an increase in food prices, which then makes food unavailable for people who are out


of work.98 Moreover, rural communities are extremely vulner-able to the unpredictability of rainfall and season irregularity, which makes it increasingly difficult to plan out plantings and grazing.99

Apart from food security, infrequent rainfall also contributes to the shrinking of wetlands, which then leads to the extinc-tion of species dependent on seasonal rivers, specific vegeta-tion, or regular rainfall.100 Naturally, the availability of water resources is dependent on rain patterns as well as temperature and wind oscillation.101 Moreover, droughts, floods, and ero-sion may also compromise access to clean water by impairing crucial infrastructure, either destroying it or making it inacces-sible, and causing contamination of drinkable water or hin-dering its distribution. Increasing temperatures raise evapora-tion rates, which reduce river flow.102 Rainfall has also been a problem when it arrives in abundance, since torrential rains have the capacity to destroy crops and cause flooding.103

Climate change also plays a crucial role in causing instability and insecurity by serving as a driver of conflict in the Sahel.104 As environmental degradation from droughts and desertifica-tion reduce the availability of natural resources, traditional and legitimate livelihoods become unsustainable, prompting des-perate populations to turn to any alternative means, including violence.105 Some of the resulting conflicts arise from disputes inside communities for resources, but terrorist organizations, such as Boko Haram, have used the crisis as a way to recruit new soldiers as well as expand its drug market.106

The UN Security Council, in its 2017 resolution on the crisis 98 Ibid.99 Schultz and Adler, Addressing Climate Change Impacts in the Sahel Using Vulnerability Reduction Credits.100 Ibid.101 Brenda Ampomah, “The Impact of Climate Change on Water Supply in the Sahel Region: The case of Burkina Faso,” International Wa-ter Association, last modified 1 February 2019, https://iwa-network.org/the-impact-of-climate-change-on-water-supply-in-the-sahel-region/.102 Ibid.103 Meena Bhandari, “Water Scarcity in the Sahel,” Pulitzer Center, accessed 7 July 2019, http://pulitzercenter.org/your-story/water-scarcity-sahel.104 Megan Darby, “Climate change affecting stability across West Africa and Sahel: UN security council”, Climate Change News, last modified 31 January 2018, https://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/01/31/climate-change-affecting-stability-across-west-africa-sahel-un-security-council/.105 Ibid.106 Ibid.107 Megan Darby, “Boko Haram terrorists thriving on climate crisis: report,” Climate Change News, last modified 20 April 2017, https://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/04/20/boko-haram-terrorists-thriving-climate-crisis-report/.108 Ibid.109 “Climate protection through soil rehabilitation,” Green Sahel, accessed 28 June 2019, https://www.greensahel.org/.110 “Harnessing Renewable Energy for Development in the Sahel,” United Nations Economic and Social Council, accessed 29 June 2019, https://www.un.org/ecosoc/sites/www.un.org.ecosoc/files/files/en/2018doc/Energie_Renouvelable_Engl_VF.PDF.

around Lake Chad, recognized the relation between the ef-fects of climate change and instability in the region, arguing for risk assessment and managing strategies relating these two topics.107 The document makes clear that climate change influ-ences the context in which criminal organizations operate, not only contributing to desperation in communities for crucial resources but also delegitimizing governments in the most af-fected areas.108

Although mitigating climate change is a global scale, a number of programs in the region work to adapt and fix its effects. One example is the ecosystem restoration project, which pro-motes sustainable practices in agriculture and pastoralism, as well as restoring productivity of degraded lands.109 Addition-ally, proposals to develop accessible renewable energy in the Sahel by 2030 call for new types of infrastructure that provide flexibility, scalability, and modularity, all designed to withstand unpredictable rainfall, droughts, and floods.110

This image shows the extent of the drought in the Sahel, which has caused 20 million people to be food insecure


Sahelian Social Structure and Population Is-sues

Despite this turmoil, the Sahel is experiencing one of the highest population growth rates in the world; the region has an annual growth rate of 2.8%, with its population predicted to double by 2040.111 Poverty and norms around women in society are the biggest contributors of this rapid increase in population, as gender roles in the area emphasize women’s responsibilities to the home and family.112 Large families are valued in many cultures across the region, and reproductive services and family planning services are hard to find. Because of these factors, the average number of children each woman has is more than six children.113

Child marriage is another cause of the Sahel’s high birth rate. For example, United Nations’ studies show that 30% of wom-en between the ages of 20-24 in Chad were married before they reached the age of fifteen, and 14% of them give birth before the age of fifteen.114 The overall average marriage age of girls is only seventeen.115 Campaigns organized by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with help from civil soci-ety successfully influenced governments to pass laws forbid-ding child marriage, however, that has not stopped the prac-tice from occurring. Combating child marriages proves to be a vital part of controlling Sahelian population growth.116

The Sahel’s ever-growing population also poses as a threat to production and food security. Growth contributes to the decreased availability of pastoral lands, as growing communi-

111 Africa Renewal, “Building climate resilience and peace, go hand in hand for Africa’s Sahel – UN forum”.; Jean-Marc Pradelle, “Rapid population growth of the Sahel Region: A Major Challenge for the Next Generation,” Ideas for Development, last modified 26 February 2019, https://ideas4development.org/en/population-growth-sahel-challenge-generation/. 112 “Easing fears and promoting gender equality in Chad’s girls-only classrooms,” Africa Renewal, last modified February 2019, accessed 8 July 2019, https://www.un.org/africarenewal/news/easing-fears-and-promoting-gender-equality-chad%E2%80%99s-girls-only-classrooms.113 Nellie Peyton, “Sahel must tackle child marriage for peace, says population expert,” Reuters, last modified 17 June 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-westafrica-child-marriage/sahel-must-tackle-child-marriage-for-peace-says-population-expert-idUSKCN1TI29V.114 Africa Renewal, “Easing fears and promoting gender equality in Chad’s girls-only classrooms.” 115 Peyton, “Sahel must tackle child marriage for peace, says population expert.”116 Africa Renewal, “Easing fears and promoting gender equality in Chad’s girls-only classrooms.” 117 Muggah and Luengo Cabrera, “The Sahel is engulfed by violence. Climate change, food insecurity and extremists are largely to blame.”118 Abdi A. et al., “The supply and demand of net primary production in the Sahel,” Environmental Research Letters 9 (2014), accessed 8 July 2019, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/9/9/094003/pdf.119 “Women vital for ‘new paradigm’ in Africa’s Sahel region, Security Council hears,” Africa Renewal Online, accessed 10 September 2019, https://www.un.org/africarenewal/news/women-vital-%E2%80%98new-paradigm%E2%80%99-africa%E2%80%99s-sahel-region-secu-rity-council-hears.120 Renee Coulouris, “Sahel Women Have The Potential To Solve Food Insecurity In The Region,” Diplomatic Courier, last modified 20 Au-gust 2018, https://www.diplomaticourier.com/posts/sahel-women-have-the-potential-to-solve-food-insecurity-in-the-region.121 Ibid.122 Ibid.123 Ibid.

ties and urbanization push farmers north into even more arid lands.117 The population in Sahelian countries grew from 367 million in the 2000s to 417 million in the 2010s, but crop pro-duction did not grow at nearly the same rate.118

Additionally, women play a disproportionate role in the coun-try’s agricultural production.119 States in the Sahel have the highest percentage of females working in agriculture, com-posing, 74% of Niger’s agricultural labor force, 57% of Mali’s and 84% of Mauritania’s.120 Despite the numerical dominance of women in Sahelian rural areas, large disparities between male and female farmers still occur, as studies conducted by The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) show that increasing gender parity to land rights and agricultural assistance could reduce hunger by up to 17%.121 However, despite women carrying out much of the labor be-hind harvesting crops, the vast majority are not landowners themselves.122 FAO estimates that if female farmers have equal access to financial and technological resources, the number of individuals suffering from hunger would be reduced by 150 million and agricultural yields would increase by 20-30%.123 Therefore, improving women’s position in Sahelian societies can have an economic benefit as well.

Education in the Sahel

In order to understand the Sahelian education system, it is necessary to first understand the two opposites that make said system. The region’s educational institutions can be divided


into two sectors: formal and informal, with each side display-ing different proposals and provisions.124 The formal sector is composed of private religious and secular schools, modern Islamic schools called madrasas, and most importantly public schools.125 They are based on the French model of education and have a wider curriculum in terms of subjects, and are seen as an opportunity for economic mobility and escape from poverty.126 Despite better organization, formal schools are still associated with sharp inequalities, being predominantly fre-quented by the countries’ elites and serving as a clear repre-sentation of the concentration of power and knowledge in the Sahel.127 Access to widespread, quality education is crucial to peacebuilding efforts, as it provides protection to a coun-try’s youth and creates a daily routine that allows them to es-cape their unstable environment.128 Schools may also be used to promote health and safety practices, such as hygiene habits and landmine awareness.129

On the informal side of Sahelian education lies the Qur’anic 124 Katia Golovko, “Education and language: global and local strategies of Sahelian jihadism,” Security Praxis, last modified 3 May 2018, https://securitypraxis.eu/education-language-sahel-jihadism/.125 Ibid.126 Ibid.127 Ibid.128 “Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy Programme,” UNICEF, accessed 18 August 2019, https://www.unicef.org/sites/default/files/2018-10/F_UNICEF1006_LFP_R3-online_single.pdf. 129 Ibid.130 Golovko, “Education and language: global and local strategies of Sahelian jihadism.” Security Praxis.131 Rida Lyammouri, “Quranic Schools in the Sahel and the Radicalisation Risk,” Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, last modified 5 July 2016, https://institute.global/insight/co-existence/quranic-schools-sahel-and-radicalisation-risk.132 Golovko, “Education and language: global and local strategies of Sahelian jihadism.” Security Praxis.133 Ibid.134 “Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy Programme,” UNICEF.135 “Education for Peacebuilding,” Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies, accessed 18 August 2019, https://inee.org/collections/education-peacebuilding.136 “Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy Programme,” UNICEF.137 Jill Harmsworth, “Small-Scale Projects and Sahel Nomads,” Cultural Survival, last modified 12 February 2010, https://www.culturalsur-vival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/small-scale-projects-and-sahel-nomads.

schools, which are privately financed and therefore neither controlled nor overseen by government authorities.130 Since there is no external state control over the curriculum they are more vulnerable to extremist influence and demands on their lessons.131 Qur’anic schools offer possibilities of social mobil-ity in the Islamic community, teaching the poorest segments of the population who are unable to afford other alternatives, and represent the only opportunity for basic education to most members of the informal economic sector, and agricul-tural and pastoralist workers.132 The number of people who choose to attend these facilities is growing due to discontent with the public education system and not meeting the stan-dards in which some families live.133

Since both sides of Sahelian education have significant draw-backs, authorities must work to address their issues because conflict-affected regions can look at education to address in-equalities and create an even playing field for future genera-tions by promoting inclusion.134 Increasing access to educa-tion and enrollment, and offering a curriculum that prepares for continuing studies and employment opportunities, ensures that the educational system addresses the needs of the entire population.135 Education also serves a crucial role in prevent-ing a return to violence when educational institutions try to overcome, instead of reinforcing, social inequalities.136 Fam-ily economic situations and lifestyle play a deciding role in children’s ability to attend school. Nomadic populations, for example, often do not want, or are unable, to enroll their chil-dren in public schools, as they would not finish the school year due to their mobility.137 Youth are only able to attend school regularly if some members of the family remain with

Children in a Sahelian village

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them in the area, causing a change in the family’s lifestyle.138 Poverty is another common reason why many children drop-out of school, since parents have no choice but to put their kids to work to help make ends meet.139

Moreover, the region’s insecurity also represents an obstacle to accessing education, with almost 2,000 schools forced to close due to violence affecting more than 400,000 people in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali.140 As of February 2019, 10,050 teachers were either unable to work or displaced, as profes-sionals in education often receive threats from armed groups to stop teaching.141 Extremists usually target schools and edu-cators as a way to attack the representation of the country’s ideology and to keep communities in precarious conditions.142 Children who are not at school are at risk of being radicalized and forced to fight in armed groups, with girls who do not attend school more likely to suffer sexual abuse and child mar-riage.143 Governments have tried many strategies to improve this situation in the present conditions, most notably via les-sons through radios to reach communities that cannot open schools.144 Another option is working together with Qur’anic schools to expand the reach of the country’s curriculum.

Education plays a pivotal role in combating poverty and hun-ger, with each extra year of school increasing future earnings of an individual by up to 10%.145 Education is also part of combating child mortality, as children of mothers with sec-ondary education or higher are twice as likely to live past five

138 Ibid.139 Inna Lazareva, “Nearly Half a Million Children Aren’t in School in Africa’s Sahel Region,” Global Citizen, last modified 28 February 2019, https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/sahel-education-crisis-unicef/.140 Diane Yameogo et al., “School closures in the Sahel double in the last two years due to growing insecurity – UNICEF,” UNICEF, last modified 27 February 2019, https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/school-closures-sahel-double-last-two-years-due-growing-insecurity-unicef.141 Ibid.142 Katia Golovko, “Education and language: global and local strategies of Sahelian jihadism.”143 Inna Lazareva, “‘We risk losing a whole generation’, aid groups warn amid Sahel education crisis,” Reuters, last modified 27 February 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-westafrica-education-conflict/we-risk-losing-a-whole-generation-aid-groups-warn-amid-sahel-education-crisis-idUSKCN1QH00I.144 Diane Yameogo et al., “School closures in the Sahel double in the last two years due to growing insecurity – UNICEF.”145 Hans Eide, “How to reduce poverty’s impact on education,” World Education Blog, last modified 16 October 2011, https://gemreportu-nesco.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/how-to-reduce-poverty%E2%80%99s-impact-on-education/.146 Ibid.147 Sergei Boeke and Gillian Valk, “The Unforeseen 2012 Crisis in Mali: The Diverging Outcomes of Risk and Threat Analyses,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (March 2019), accessed 13 July 2019, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2019.1592356.148 Joe Penney, “Mali’s Model Democracy Myth,” Global Policy Forum, last modified 8 February 2013, https://www.globalpolicy.org/home/269-mali/52270-malis-model-democracy-myth.html.149 Cheick Dioura and Adama Diarra, “Mali Rebels Assault Gao, Northern Garrison,” Reuters, last modified 31 March 2013, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mali-rebels-assault_n_1393415.150 Boeke and Valk, “The Unforeseen 2012 Crisis in Mali: The Diverging Outcomes of Risk and Threat Analyses.”151 Ibid

years, and 1.8 million children estimated to be saved per year if their mothers attain this minimum education level.146 There-fore, providing security and adaptability to the Sahelian educa-tion system proves to be of vital importance to guaranteeing the well-being of the population and must be addressed thor-oughly by the Committee.

Current Status

Case Study: Mali

Until 2012, Mali was considered to be a stable democracy, commonly labeled as an example for the rest of the region.147 The country presented relative freedom of the press and a re-spected constitution, while also experiencing democratic tran-sitions of power since 1992.148 However, in February 2012, the country experienced a coup d’état organized by mid-ranking military officers who argued that the government was not properly supporting the Malian army’s fight against Tuareg rebels, a semi-nomadic Muslim people.149 The resulting insta-bility caused vast territories of northern Mali to be overrun by insurgents, with the majority of the country falling under the control of rebels and extremist groups.150 International in-tervention pushed back insurgents and held elections in 2013, but Mali has faced a volatile crisis ever since.151 The coun-try has become a dangerous influence in the region, with the coup d’état appearing as a precedent for disputes to be resolved

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through conflict in a region where democratic values are still being settled.152

In an attempt to bring peace and stability to the country, in 2015 Mali’s government signed a peace treaty, known as the Bamako Agreement, with eight armed groups, divided into pro-government militias (“Platform”) and rebel groups (“Coordination”).153 Unfortunately, four years later, the agree-ment remains very difficult to implement as both sides dis-agree on the actions to be taken.154 The Malian government prioritizes security measures aimed at rebuilding political in-stitutions and gaining territorial control in the northern parts of the country, while insurgent groups call for decentraliza-tion, redistribution of national resources, socioeconomic and cultural development, and particular benchmarks for justice.155 Moreover, talks with extremist groups have been both unat-tainable and undesired by Malian officials.156

Another effort to stabilize Mali is the United Nations Mul-tidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MI-NUSMA), first deployed in July 2013, which contains 13,289 military and 1,920 police personnel.157 MINUSMA’s mandate includes supporting the implementation of political and in-stitutional reforms predicted by the Bamako Agreement and supporting defense and security measures, such as restoring state authority and protecting civilians from human rights abuses.158 The mission, however, suffers from attacks by ex-tremist organizations that killed 177 peacekeepers during op-erations.159 Ensuring the protection of UN forces is therefore crucial to allowing them to exercise their mandate effectively. 152 David Lewis, “Analysis: Mali coup shakes cocktail of instability in Sahel,” Reuters, last modified 24 March 2012, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mali-sahel-instability/analysis-mali-coup-shakes-cocktail-of-instability-in-sahel-idUSBRE82N07120120324.153 Bård Drange, “The potential and limits of peace agreements,” Accord 25, last modified 11 February 2019, https://www.accord.org.za/conflict-trends/the-potential-and-limits-of-peace-agreements/.154 Marco Stojanovik, “A Revised Approach Is Needed To Implement Peace In Mali”, The Organization for World Peace, last modified 13 July 2019, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U-rEvaWkzi9mhSGhqOGojUgaPnQqMVFw7HVWLheyzRw/edit?pli=1.155 Ibid.156 Ibid.157 “Mandate,” MINUSMA, accessed 14 July 2019, https://minusma.unmissions.org/en/mandate-0.158 Ibid.159 Stojanovik, “A Revised Approach Is Needed To Implement Peace In Mali.”160 “Terror attacks on the rise in Mali: UN,” France 24, last modified 5 March 2019, https://www.france24.com/en/20190305-terror-attacks-rise-mali-un.161 “Mali attack: At least 95 killed in ethnic Dogon village,” Al Jazeera, last modified 11 June 2019, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/scores-killed-attack-central-mali-village-190610131528097.html.162 Ibid.163 Ibid.164 Ibid.165 “Mali: Events of 2018,” Human Rights Watch, accessed 16 July 2019, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/mali.166 Ibid.167 Ibid.

Nonetheless, soldiers from MINUSMA are not the only ones in need of protection. According to a report by the United Nations’ Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, 2018 alone saw a total of 237 terrorist attacks in Mali, an increase from previ-ous years.160 Besides extremism, the country also faces long-standing inter-communal tensions, another common threat for security in the Sahel.161 Those tensions are created by eth-nic rivalries and disputes for land, water, and grazing.162 One of the most troublesome rivalries is between the Dogon and Fulani villages. In June 2019, 95 Dogon villagers—including children— were killed by Fulani as an act of revenge for an earlier attack that killed 160 Fulani.163 Ethnic retaliatory vio-lence has become a staple of both Mali and the Sahel region, and the situation is only worsened by extremist movements that spark even more mistrust and resentment between com-munities.164

Apart from the rising violence, Mali also faces state abuse and absence that is seen throughout neighboring countries. The 2018 elections were plagued with insecurity, allegations of ir-regularities, and violation of political rights, such as banning certain political demonstrations like protests, and even can-celing a radio station.165 The military is allegedly involved in cases of extrajudicial killing, disappearance, and torture, with investigations having little progress.166 Additionally, insecurity causes many judicial authorities to abandon their posts in the North and center of the country, leading an already oversatu-rated system to act even slower.167 Professionalizing and show-ing accountability for security forces’ actions and protecting

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members of the judiciary prove to be crucial to strengthening institutions not only in Mali, but in the entire Sahel. Overall, Mali is a reflection of the Sahelian crisis as a whole, as other Sahelian countries experience similar issues, even if to a lesser degree. Although it is necessary to discuss the entire region, individual states must be addressed, not only for individual solutions to be planned, but also because they offer a clearer image of the general situation in the region.

Current UN Action

Understanding the urgency of the situation in the region, the United Nations has provided several programs and strategies to tackle the challenges facing the Sahel. One that integrates the most in the region is the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), an evolution of the Of-fice of the Special Envoy for the Sahel (OSES).168 Established in 2002, UNOWAS is tasked with utilizing preventive diplo-macy and political mediation to resolve the region’s issues, such as strengthening its democratic institutions and promot-ing peace.169 A crucial characteristic of UNOWAS is its work and dialogue with regional organizations, such as the African Union and the G5 Sahel, which assist regional institutions and promote international cooperation.170

Additionally, other organizations are present in the Sahel and assist in the search for immediate aid and long-term solutions. An example of such efforts is the UNODC Support Pro-gramme, which promoted more than 400 activities between 2014 and February 2018.171 Some of the program’s achieve-ments include the improvement of judicial investigations through anti-corruption and anti-money laundering training, as well as strengthening the frameworks of human rights, legal

168 “Background,” UNOWAS, accessed 30 June 2019, https://unowas.unmissions.org/background.169 Ibid.170 Ibid.171 Jeffery Bawa, “Sahel: Governments achieve positive results with UN Support,” UNODC, accessed 30 June 2019, https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press/releases/2018/February/sahel_-governments-achieve-positive-results-with-un-support.html.172 “The Sahel Programme,” UNODC, accessed 17 July 2019, https://www.unodc.org/westandcentralafrica/en/newrosenwebsite/sahel-programme/sahel-programme.html.173 “Sahel - Early ActionEarly action and scale-up of emergency response 2018,” FAO, UNICEF, WFP, accessed 30 June 2019, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/I8940EN.pdf.174 Amina Mohammed, “Deputy Secretary-General’s remarks to the Annual Session of the Peacebuilding Commission: “Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace in the Sahel Region [as prepared for delivery],” United Nations, last modified 12 November 2018, https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/dsg/statement/2018-11-12/deputy-secretary-generals-remarks-annual-session-peacebuilding.175 Ibid.176 Amandla Thomas-Johnson, “Massacre in Mali: How the ‘war on terror’ fuels tribal violence in the Sahel,” Middle East Eye, last modified 28 March 2019, https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/massacre-mali-how-war-terror-fuels-tribal-violence-sahel.177 Jezequel, “Central Mali: Putting a Stop to Ethnic Cleansing.”

aid, victim and witness protection, and prison reforms.172 Oth-er branches of the UN that have developed responses for the situation in the Sahel are the FAO, UNICEF, and the World Food Programme (WFP), which have established missions in their occupational areas, requiring USD 415.5 million in fund-ing to help approximately seven million people.173

Funding has become one of the biggest problems for opti-mizing the operation of UN action in the region.174 In 2018, the estimated cost of implementing the Sustainable Develop-ment Goals was USD 140 billion, with the possibility of this rising annually up to USD 157 billion by 2022.175 Therefore, securing funding for programs aiming to rebuild the region must be one of the main priorities of the Commission, as well as maintaining dialogue between regional institutions and UN branches.

Another issue recently faced by the United Nations in the re-gion is the recent criticism that UN action, especially peace-keeping operations, are failing to guarantee the security of the Sahelian population. Drissa Traoré, national coordinator of the Malian Association for Human Rights (AMDH), stated after the massacre of a Fulani community in March 2019 that the UN is “helplessly witnessing” massacres in the region and failing in their primary mission to protect civilian pop-ulations.176 Overall, UN missions such as MINUSMA have concentrated their efforts in defined areas, but have had their mobility compromised by security rules and a lack of resourc-es.177 Critics also say that the UN is too focused on counterter-rorism and institutional stabilization which, although crucial, ignores the security of the general population, leaving it vul-nerable to armed militias and abuse of authority by state forc-

26|ToPiC a: The siTUaTioN iN The sahelCUrreNT sTaTUs

es.178 Understanding the faults of UN action in the region, and committing to strategies to reduce these gaps, is crucial for the success of humanitarian and development plans in the Sahel.

UN agencies have recently held annual meetings and briefings discussing intervention in the Sahel to optimize efforts and decide where to focus. In July 2019, the Security Council held a briefing over the situation in the Sahel, where a UNOWAS representative highlighted the importance of tackling regional instability by taking measures against poor governance, under-development, and climate change.179 In March 2019, the UN-PBC also discussed the situation in the Sahel with the Security Council, where the committee advocated for joint efforts by the international community and security responses to ensure the safe operation of such efforts180

Sustainable Development Agenda

The international community has long based efforts to im-prove the Sahel on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) even though the region has not shown great progress in reaching them. SDG 1: No Poverty remains one of the big-gest challenges for Sahelian countries, with 30 to 40% of its population living in extreme poverty.181 The effects of poverty are already substantial in the Sahel, with millions at risk from hunger and leaving women vulnerable to early marriage and repeated unwanted pregnancies.182 Another urgent matter for the Sahel is SDG 13: Climate Action, as the region has one of the largest numbers of people disproportionately affected by climate change in the world.183

178 Dörrie, “Europe Has Spent Years Trying to Prevent ‘Chaos’ in the Sahel. It Failed.”179 “West Africa and the Sahel: Briefing and Consultations,” What’s in Blue, last modified 23 July 2019, https://www.whatsinblue.org/2019/07/west-africa-and-the-sahel-briefing-and-consultations-2.php.180 “Informal Interactive Dialogue with the Peacebuilding Commission on the Sahel,” What’s in Blue, last modified 19 March 2019, https://www.whatsinblue.org/2019/03/informal-interactive-dialogue-with-the-peacebuilding-commission-on-the-sahel.php.181 Aïssa Diarra, “Sahel’s demographic transition,” Le Monde, last modified 29 June 2019, https://mondediplo.com/2019/07/20women.182 John May, “Advancing Solutions in the Sahel,” Center for Global Development, las modified 1 October 2012, https://www.cgdev.org/blog/advancing-solutions-sahel.183 “UN: Sahel region one of the most vulnerable to climate change,” Climate Change Center, last modified 14 November 2018, https://www.climatecentre.org/news/1066/un-sahel-region-one-of-the-most-vulnerable-to-climate-change.184 F. Jane Madgwick, Robert Oakes, Fred Pearce, Rebecca E. Tharme, “Wetlands and Human Migration in the Sahel,” Wetlands International, last modified May 2017, accessed 30 June 2019, https://www.wetlands.org/publications/water-shocks-wetlands-human-migration-sahel/.185 “States Members of the United Nations and States members of specialized agencies,” Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform, accessed 17 July 2019, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/memberstates.html.186 “In the Sahel, pastoralists rely on satellites to search for water,” UN Environment, last modified 17 January 2019, https://www.unenviron-ment.org/news-and-stories/story/sahel-pastoralists-rely-satellites-search-water.187 Ibid.188 Liam Scollins, “Disarmament and SDG 16,” Medium, last modified 24 August 2018, https://medium.com/nonviolenceny/disarma-ment-and-sdg-16-86f91fb18b87.189 Whalter, “The blurred boundaries of political violence in the Sahel-Sahara.”190 Scollins, “Disarmament and SDG 16.”

The impact caused by climate change, as well as the lack of protection for the region’s wetlands, jeopardizes the availabil-ity of clean water in the region, part of SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation.184 Important rivers are losing volume due to climate change, the construction of dams, and irrigation of agriculture, all of which contribute to water scarcity in some parts of the region. However, Sahelian countries are moving toward solutions for these issues. Many have developed na-tional plans for adapting to climate change, such as Burkina Faso, which has committed to reducing air pollution and es-tablishing sustainable tourism activities.185 Regarding access to clean water, it is worth highlighting the use of Garbal mobile phone service, a public-private partnership that aims to pro-vide pastoralists the location of water spots with geo-satellite images.186 This partnership already has 21,000 users and has successfully given pastoralists quick and reliable information over where to take their herd, increasing their resilience to climate change.187

Additionally, the region longs to make improvements towards SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, especially re-garding Target 16.4, which hopes to “significantly reduce illicit financial and arms flows and combat all forms of organized crime.”188 Weapons and criminals easily travel through Sahe-lian borders due to their weak security.189 Moreover, the Sahel struggles with physical security and stockpile management, meaning that weapons stored in depots are constantly stolen and diverted to the illegal arms market, fueling armed conflict and terrorism.190 In this scenario, promoting disarmament in

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the region through stronger border control and military secu-rity is extremely important to secure peace. The Sustainable Development Goals manifest through the many challenges facing the Sahel, and the most effective solutions will priori-tize addressing the interconnected challenges to attaining the goals.

Bloc Analysis

Point of Division

Although there is unanimous support for the Sahel in the in-ternational community, multilateral efforts are not always in-tegrated, and countries express and act upon differing beliefs relating to methods to tackle the crisis. The primary alliance in the discussion is the G5 Sahel (G5S), the organization formed by Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Chad, with most international disputes in the region appearing as diplomatic disagreements on how to support its task force.191 The G5S countries have diplomatic ties with a number of countries not directly involved in the conflict, which typically emphasize their contributions in the form of development aid, and will prioritize joint and regional cooperation in the peace-building process. Groups with much more distant ties to the Sahel re-gion are more difficult to categorize as they generally pursue more unilateral goals shaped by strategic and economic inter-ests. Despite differences on how to approach the situation, common objectives are shared and widely sought after by members of the United Nations, with the question focusing on how to coordinate actions and promote shared responsi-bilities and dialogue between disagreeing states.

191 “Council of Despair? The Fragmentation of UN Diplomacy,” International Crisis Groups, last modified 30 April 2019, https://www.crisisgroup.org/global/b001-council-despair-fragmentation-un-diplomacy.192 Bassou, “State, Borders and Territory in the Sahel: The Case of the G5 Sahel.” 193 Belfakir, “G5 Sahel Force Struggles with Funding, Coordination.”194 Fergus Kelly, “G5 Sahel leaders again call for UN assistance to fund Joint Force,” The Defense Post, last modified 6 February 2019, https://thedefensepost.com/2019/02/06/g5-sahel-joint-force-leaders-call-un-funding/.195 Peter Dörrie, “Europe Has Spent Years Trying to Prevent ‘Chaos’ in the Sahel. It Failed,” World Politics Review, last modified 25 June 2019, https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/27977/europe-has-spent-years-trying-to-prevent-chaos-in-the-sahel-it-failed.196 Kelly, “G5 Sahel leaders again call for UN assistance to fund Joint Force.”197 Ibid.198 “Priority Investment Program,” G5 Sahel Permanent Secretariat, last modified October 2018, accessed 10 September 2019, https://www.g5sahel.org/images/DOCPIP/PIP_G5S_EN__VF.pdf.

G5 Sahel

Although the G5 Sahel is most known for its joint military force, the initiative was created in 2014 with the goal of im-proving the region’s quality of life through democracy and good governance.192 Its mandate is based on four pillars com-posed of combating terrorism and drug trafficking, contrib-uting to the restoration of state authority, returning displaced persons and refugees and facilitating humanitarian operations, and implementing development strategies in G5S countries.193 However, the 2015 creation of the counter-terrorist opera-tion G5 Sahel Joint Force, State-members have placed more importance on the first pillar of its alliance and prioritized military actions as their main approach to tackling the issue.194 G5S countries are spending more than 15% of their national budgets on security, setting the spotlight on work to improve food security, education, or social services aside.195

Their efforts are not restricted to military operations though, as members have also created elaborate plans for mutual eco-nomic development.196 States in the alliance recognize the influence of poverty on the increasing influence of terrorist organizations throughout their populations, and have entered partnerships for regional financial development.197 These vary from social programs to economic and infrastructure invest-ments, with strengthening the resilience of small-scale farm-ers using climate-smart farming and road construction proj-ects across the region, respectively, serving as examples of initiatives carried out by the five countries.198 The G5S have also relied on support from foreign allies, such as members of the European Union (EU) and African Union (AU), to carry out development projects like interconnecting the region’s electrical infrastructure and actions toward aiding displaced

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people.199 Consequently, the G5S has consistently requested funding and assistance from international donors, as regional actors lack financial resources to effectively implement the necessary measures to secure and develop the region.200 The search for funding and other forms of aid therefore serve as one of the group’s priorities during interactions with the in-ternational community, as increasing outside investments are the most reliable route for development in the near future.

G5 Sahel Regional Allies

The African Union and European Union represent the big-gest allies in the G5S’s efforts to improve living standards and combat organized crime in the region. In their coordination, assistance, and diplomacy efforts with the Sahel, the AU and EU tend to emphasize cooperation amongst their blocs as a whole and prioritize clarity and consistency in their support for the region. G5 operations were endorsed by the African

199 “The Projects,’ Sahel Alliance, accessed 10 September 2019, https://www.alliance-sahel.org/en/the-projects/.200 Ibid.201 “The African Peace Facility: EU Support to G5 Sahel Joint Force,” European Commission, accessed 18 July 2019, https://www.africa-eu-partnership.org/sites/default/files/apf_factsheet_-_g5_sahel.pdf.202 “Investing today in the Sahel for the Africa of tomorrow,” Sahel Alliance, accessed 30 June 2019, https://www.alliance-sahel.org/en/.203 Dörrie, “Europe Has Spent Years Trying to Prevent ‘Chaos’ in the Sahel. It Failed.”204 Ibid.

Union Peace and Security Council (AU PSC) in April 2017 and first received donation pledges by the EU in June 2017, mark-ing the kickstart of combined efforts by the three regional or-ganizations.201 In addition to broad EU commitments, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, and Denmark are also individually partnering in development and peace efforts. The increasing interest in the region has resulted in the creation of the Sahel Alliance, which includes the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and the United Nations Development Programme, working in conjunction on a unified set of goals.202 Germany and France are the countries who currently provide the largest support for the improvement of the region, with German Prime-Minister Angela Merkel visiting Africa eight times since 2016, twice more than ten years prior.203 France, on the other hand, has always been a consistent presence in the Sahel due to the colonial ties many Sahelian countries to France.204

A press conference with representatives from G5 Sahel

|29ToPiC a: The siTUaTioN iN The sahelBloC aNalysis

Apart from the EUR 100 million the European Union has provided as support for the G5 Sahel Joint Force, the regional bloc is also projected to spend at least EUR 8 billion on devel-opment aid in the Sahel between 2014 and 2020.205 Addition-ally, the EU, and especially France, are actively pushing for effective implementation of the peace agreement signed in 2015.206 Overall, it has dedicated more political, financial and military resources to the region than to any other part of the world, with achieving stability in the Sahel becoming one of the main goals of European foreign policy.207 It is therefore crucial for members of both the African Union and the Eu-ropean Union to support Sahelian countries and contribute to the implementation and elaboration of solutions that bring about dialogue between these regional organizations, prioritiz-ing collective interests and the pillars that guide them.

Countries with Independent Foreign Policy Regarding the Sahel

The situation in the Sahel calls for action from the entire inter-national community, with the majority of UN member states involved, to some degree, in peace missions or development programs. Some countries, however, have had individual ap-proaches to the crisis, as a reflection of specific interests in the region and changes in foreign policy. One example of such a case is the United States. Although working together and collaborating with the major alliances in the Sahel, the United States has had its differences with both local and re-gional parties that limit its ability to cooperate directly with other groups.208 In the Security Council, the United States and France have disagreed about the expenses and objectives of military missions in the region, with the French government arguing to reinforce MINUSMA and offer practical support 205 Ibid.206 Ibid.207 Ibid.208 “Council of Despair? The Fragmentation of UN Diplomacy,” International Crisis Groups.209 Ibid.210 Ibid.211 Belfakir, “G5 Sahel Force Struggles with Funding, Coordination.”212 Oana Burcu and Eloïse Bertrand, “Explaining China’s Latest Catch in Africa,” The Diplomat, last modified 16 January 2019, https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/explaining-chinas-latest-catch-in-africa/.213 Ibid.214 Ibid.215 Ibid.216 Yunnan Chen, “Silk Road to the Sahel: African ambitions in China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” Washington International Trade Association, last modified 25 August 2018, https://wita.org/atp-research/silk-road-to-the-sahel-african-ambitions-in-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative/.217 Ibid.

to the G5 Sahel.209 On the other hand, the United States gov-ernment has consistently questioned priorities on the cost of both requests, decreasing its participation in some UN mis-sions.210 Both countries recognize that they share a common goal of stabilizing the region, as the United States has collabo-rated with USD 111 million to the G5 Sahel Joint Force.211

China, on the other hand, has offered to help the region separately from other countries, according to its own foreign policy.212 A big obstacle to Chinese cooperation in the past was Burkina Faso’s close diplomatic ties with Taiwan, Prov-ince of China (hereafter Taiwan).213 China maintains a “One-China policy” in which countries that wish to hold positive diplomatic relations with China must only recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan. By recognizing Taiwan as the Chi-nese sovereign state, Burkina Faso was barred from having diplomatic relations with China, causing China to refuse to provide funding to the G5S, opting to assist the other mem-bers individually instead.214 After pressure from its neighbors and promises of economic incentives, Burkina Faso broke ties with Taiwan in favor of China, with the Chinese government now pledging USD 44 million for the G5 Sahel Joint Force.215

Chinese foreign investment and development assistance shares similar motivations. The Chinese Belt and Road Initia-tive (BRI) is a major development project aimed at creating close trade links with major ports and overland trading cit-ies connecting China to most of Eurasia, including plans to expand even further into the Sahel.216 The BRI has become a centerpiece of China’s foreign economic policy and would benefit from security and stability in the Sahel in order to suc-cessfully expand.217 Given the unilateral nature of China’s as-sistance however, delegates should note the political and fi-nancial incentives that shape this specific relationship.

30|ToPiC a: The siTUaTioN iN The sahelCoMMiTTee MissioN

Other countries, like the Russian Federation and Iran, have also adopted unique policies towards the region. Since 2016, the Russia has become increasingly close to the Malian gov-ernment, as Mali seeks more funding for the G5S.218 Russia has declared itself interested in fighting terrorist organizations in the region and its cooperation has become increasingly popular. A petition with 6,684,329 signatures, approximately a third of Mali’s population, requested Russian intervention and claims the country is being “torn apart by foreign forces”.219 Russian activity could bring discomfort for members of the EU, whose actions have been criticized by the region’s popula-tion and even members of NATO, if it escalates to military intervention.220 Meanwhile, Iran also shows growing invest-ment and influence in the region, which has caused discom-fort for Saudi Arabia and regional allies.221 Such tensions over involvement in the region are likely to develop into diplomatic and financial competition within the region, which provides a less consistent, inclusive model of foreign involvement.

Countries is this bloc have showed support for bringing peace and development to the Sahel and also worked with other countries for the cause. These states, however, have followed their own ambitions in the region and shown little to no inter-est in putting them aside in favor of cooperation in the Sahel, as exemplified by China’s relations with Burkina Faso and the United States’ disagreements with France.222

Committee Mission

The situation in the Sahel is delicate; resident countries contin-ue to demonstrate enormous fragility, crippled by the constant demands for military intervention from the region’s numerous armed groups and social factors continuously hindering the

218 “Russia moves in on the Sahel”, Menas Associates, last modified 14 September 2017, https://www.menas.co.uk/blog/russia-moves-sahel/219 Ibid.220 Ibid.221 Jacques Roussellier, “A Role for Russia in the Western Sahara?,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, last modified 5 June 2018, https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/76532.222 Burcu and Bertrand, “Explaining China’s Latest Catch in Africa.”; “Council of Despair? The Fragmentation of UN Diplomacy,” In-ternational Crisis Groups.223 Andrew Korybko, “The Mali-Burkina Faso-Niger Border Triangle Is the New “Syraq” (Syria-Iraq),” Global Research, last modified 17 May 2019, https://www.globalresearch.ca/mali-burkina-faso-niger-border-triangle-new-syraq/5677712224 Ibid.225 “Mandate | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING,” United Nations, accessed July 28, 2019, https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/commission/mandate.226 “Mandate | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING,” United Nations.227 Andrew Korybko, “The Mali-Burkina Faso-Niger Border Triangle Is the New “Syraq” (Syria-Iraq),” Global Research.

lives of its population. These tensions have already brought some territories, including Northern Mali and some parts of Burkina Faso, to the brink of collapse, threatening the basic capabilities of local populations.223 The geographic scope of the destabilization seen in the Sahel is arguably unparalleled in any other part of the world—ten countries are already calling for aid in order to prevent a massive-scale humanitarian disas-ter that could precipitate without warning.224

UNPBC’S mandate states that it must work to bring sustained international attention to long-term peace efforts and provide political support and advocacy to countries affected by con-flict.225 The committee must actively consider security, devel-opment, and human rights in the project of peacebuilding, and particularly recognize the degree to which such concepts are closely interlinked and mutually reinforcing.226 Many parts of the Sahel are already in conflict, and other areas face the threat of seeing conflict expand into them or escalate into full military confrontations.227 It is therefore crucial that UNPBC thoroughly discuss every dimension of conflict and strife within the region. The committee’s work will be accomplished not only by ensuring funding for the Sahel, but most impor-tantly by proposing comprehensive solutions to the structural weaknesses and anxieties that the populations face on a daily basis.

UNPBC

NHSMUN 2020

Photo Credit: UK Department for International Development/Derek Markwell

Topic B:The Situation in Liberia

32|ToPiC B: The siTUaTioN iN liBeriaiNTroDUCTioN

Introduction

1 “Liberia Profile - Timeline,” BBC News, 22 January 2018, accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13732188.2 Sarah Left, “War in Liberia,” The Guardian, 04 August 2003. accessed 18 August 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/aug/04/westafrica.qanda.3 Ibid.4 Samue Momodu, “Second Liberian Civil War (1999–2003),” BlackPast, 3 October 2017, accessed 18 August 2019, https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/second-liberian-civil-war-1999-2003/.5 “War in Liberia.”6 Ibid.7 “Second Liberian Civil War.”8 “Liberia: Impacts of the War.” PeacebuildingData.org, accessed 26 June 2019, http://www.peacebuildingdata.org/research/liberia/about-liberia/impacts-war.9 “Timeline,” United Nations Mission in Liberia, accessed 27 July 2019, https://unmil.unmissions.org/timeline.10 “UNMIL Peacekeeping,” United Nations, accessed 27 July 2019, https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/unmil.11 Ibid.; Chandrima Das, “Liberia’s Transition from Peacekeeping to Peacebuilding,” United Nations Foundation, 11 April 2018, accessed 27 July 2019, https://unfoundation.org/blog/post/liberias-transition-peacekeeping-peacebuilding/.12 “UNMIL Peacekeeping.”13 “Liberia | Human Development Indices and Indicators: 2018 Statistical Update” United Nations Development Programme, 2018, accessed 10 September 2019, http://hdr.undp.org/sites/all/themes/hdr_theme/country-notes/LBR.pdf.14 Ibid.

Between 1989 and 2003, Liberia endured a brutal and transformative period of civil war, consisting of two distinct periods of internal conflict.1 These wars resulted from violent competitions among multiple parties for political power over the country. At first, the country was united by a common goal to oust president Samuel Doe, led by rival warlords Charles Taylor and Prince Yormie Johnson.2 After Doe’s removal from office, however, the question of leadership remained unresolved and the resulting power vacuum led to the growth of domestic tensions.3 The country remained at peace for two years before a second civil war broke out in 1999.4 Charles Taylor was known as the country’s de facto leader, but rebel forces and neighboring countries fought to oust him after he gave support to rebel groups in Guinea, Ivory Coast, and Sierra Leone, causing extensive civil unrest and violence that spilled back into Liberia.5 At the same time, Taylor’s allies were at the center of controversy due to their alleged widespread involvement in torture and sexual assault during the civil war. 6 The sec-ond war ended as rebel groups and neighboring countries overpowered Taylor’s forces and began a siege of the capital, forcing Taylor’s surrender on 11 August 2003.7

While the greater conflicts ended in 2003, the successive wars left Liberia in a state of disrepair, leaving an estimated 250,000 people killed and one million people displaced.8 The period ended with the signing of the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which sought to help transition the coun-try into a more peaceful era by establishing a National Tran-sitional Government and implementing disarmament, demo-bilization, rehabilitation, and reintegration (DDRR).9 In order to help with these objectives, the United Nations established and sent the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) on 19 September 2003.10 UNMIL successfully oversaw a disar-mament of forces, assisted in national security reform, and supported Liberia through three successful elections, includ-ing the most recent presidential election which marked the first peaceful transition of power in 74 years.11 On 30 June

2016, UNMIL transferred complete security responsibility to Liberian authorities and proceeded to see out its mandate, which ended on 30 March 2018.12

While UNMIL’s campaign in Liberia was successful, there is still much progress to be made. Liberia’s 2018 Human De-velopment Index (HDI) ranks at 181 out of 189 countries and territories.13 The HDI is a measure assessing long-term progress in a long and healthy life, measured in life-expectan-cy, access to knowledge, measured by current expected years of schooling for children, and a decent standard of living, measured in Gross National Income per capita.14 As the poor HDI illustrates, development, distribution, and governance is-sues remain nationwide in Liberia.

The wars were both the causes and the effects of widespread

|33ToPiC B: The siTUaTioN iN liBeriahisTory aND DesCriPTioN of The issUe

national instability in the state caused by poverty, a lack of education, and inequalities, along with countless other factors. UNMIL helped mitigate some of these factors but more per-manent measures need to be put in place to ensure that con-flict does not reignite within the country. The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission is dedicated to working with post-conflict countries to implement strategies to foster sustainable peace and development.15 The Commission’s duties in Liberia fall along those same lines. While the UNMIL’s mission was a success, it is up to the Commission.

History and Description of the Issue

Once the period of war ended, it became abundantly clear that Liberia needed international assistance to get back onto its feet and continue to progress. The UN Security Council responded by creating UNMIL, however, UNMIL’s mandate has ended after overseeing multiple elections, including a suc-cessful transfer of power.16 Despite UNMIL’s relative success, there remain plenty of issues that continue to plague Liberia. Below are concerns that have yet to be allayed by the state and its citizens that stand in opposition to successful peacebuild-ing.

Poverty and Employment

There is an empirical link between economic development and domestic peace.17 Every 1% decline in gross domestic product (GDP) is correlated with an increase in the likelihood of civil conflict by about 2% among countries in sub-Saharan Africa.18 This relationship is likely because people will sup-port rebel groups—the main perpetrators in the Liberian Civil

15 “Mandate | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING,” United Nations, accessed 28 June 2019. https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/commission/mandate.16 “UNMIL Peacekeeping.”; “As Mission in Liberia Closes, Security Council Intends to Consider Best Practices in Ongoing Efforts to En-hance Effectiveness of Peacekeeping | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases,” United Nations, 19 April 2018. accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/sc13308.doc.htm.17 Håvard Hegre, Gudrun Østby, and Clionadh Raleigh, “Poverty and Civil War Events,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 53, no. 4 (2009): 598-623, doi:10.1177/0022002709336459.18 Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel, “Conflicts Cause Poverty, or Is It Vice-Versa?” VOX EU Center for Economic and Policy Research Policy Portal, 29 November 29, 2008, accessed 9 September 2019, https://voxeu.org/article/conflicts-cause-poverty-or-it-vice-versa.19 Hegre, Østby, and Raleigh, “Poverty and Civil War Events,” (2009)20 “Mandate | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING.”21 Robin Dopoe, “LISGIS Report: Half of Liberians Live in Abject Poverty,” Liberian Observer, 11 April 2018, accessed 27 June 2019, https://www.liberianobserver.com/news/lisgis-report-half-of-liberians-live-in-abject-poverty/.22 “Relative vs Absolute Poverty: Defining Different Types of Poverty,” Habitat for Humanity GB, accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.habi-tatforhumanity.org.uk/blog/2018/09/relative-absolute-poverty/.23 Dopoe, “LISGIS Report: Half of Liberians Live in Abject Poverty.”24 Ibid.

Wars—if they feel discontent with the status quo, often be-cause of poverty and a lack of economic opportunity.19 Pov-erty is also an obstacle for sustainable development, a core part of the UNPBC mandate.20

The Liberia Institute for Statistics and Geo-Information Ser-vices (LISGIS) reports that 50.9% of Liberians live in ab-solute poverty.21 Absolute poverty is defined as the level of poverty where people cannot afford their most basic needs such as food, water, shelter, and education. 22 LISGIS also re-leased additional statistics, indicating that 16.5% of Liberians are even worse off living in extreme poverty—less than USD 1.90 a day.23

At first glance, LISGIS employment statistics seem to offer a positive outlook on the country’s economic future, with only a 3.9% unemployment rate.24 However, the reality is that 79.5% of those employed are in “vulnerable employment,” which are informal jobs with poor working conditions and little to no job security. Often, vulnerable employment involves low-skill

UN peacebuilding operations in Liberia

34|ToPiC B: The siTUaTioN iN liBeriahisTory aND DesCriPTioN of The issUe

jobs taken only because of a lack of other opportunities.25 Vulnerable employment also pays lower wages and shows lower productivity from workers without protective regula-tions or bargaining power.26

The civil war period had a major impact on Liberia’s economic landscape. With more than 200,000 casualties, Liberia expe-rienced a significant loss of human capital.27 Children were forced to fight in the wars, keeping them out of school and creating major obstacles towards reintegration into civilian life, leading many to live a life of crime and poverty.28 In ad-dition to the effects from the civil war period, Liberia faces a multitude of factors that contribute to the poverty level, such as government corruption, a major factor in the unfair economic treatment of citizens.29 One consequence of cor-ruption is Liberia’s failure to utilize its natural resources pro-ductively.30 Despite having ample supplies of iron ore, timber, diamonds, gold, and rubber, contracts to develop these re-sources are given mostly to well-connected people, with gov-ernment officials taking bribes throughout the process.31 Effi-cient, inclusive use of these resources will be a key mechanism for sustainable economic development in the region.32

Recognizing that poverty is an increasingly urgent problem for the country, the Liberian president, George Manneh Weah, announced that his administration would be a pro-poor ad-ministration focused on the immediate needs of the poor and lifting them out of poverty. 33 With this administration, Presi-dent Weah created the Pro-Poor Agenda for Development and Prosperity (PAPD). The PAPD focuses on acknowledg-25 “Vulnerable Employment,” UN WOMEN, accessed 18 August 2019, https://esa.un.org/unmigration/documents/retreat/UN%20WOMEN_Indicator_vulnerable_employment.pdf26 Ibid.27 Chavez Spicer, “Causes of Poverty in Liberia,” The Borgen Project, 29 September 2017, accessed 27 June 2019, https://borgenproject.org/causes-of-poverty-in-liberia/.28 Ibid.29 David A. Yates, ““Corruption Main Cause of Poverty,” Says World Bank Official,” Liberian Observer, 25 April 2018, accessed 18 August 2019, https://www.liberianobserver.com/news/corruption-main-cause-of-poverty-says-world-bank-official/.30 Spicer, “Causes of Poverty in Liberia.”31 Ibid.32 Ibid.33 Mory DA Sumaworo, “Prospects and Challenges of Liberia’s Midterm Economic Strategy “Pro-poor Agenda for Prosperity and Devel-opment”,” The Perspective, 17 November 2018, accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.theperspective.org/2018/1117201803.php.34 Republic of Liberia, Pro Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development, accessed 27 June 2019, http://liberianconsulatega.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/PAPD-Pro-Poor-Agenda-for-Prosperity-and-Development.pdf..35 Ibid.36 Iris Goa, “5 Organizations Working to Reduce Poverty in Liberia,” The Borgen Project, 26 March 2019, accessed 06 July 2019, https://borgenproject.org/addressing-poverty-in-liberia/.37 Ibid.38 Ibid.; Dopoe, “LISGIS Report: Half of Liberians Live in Abject Poverty,”39 Security Council Resolution 1645 (2005), S/RES/1645 (2005), (20 December 2005), available from undocs.org/S/RES/1645%20(2005)

ing and addressing the fact that Liberia has many human and natural resources, but its human capital is unable to transform them into wealth due to a widespread lack of knowledge and education.34 Other government measures, such as the 2008-2011 Poverty Reduction Strategy under former-President El-len Johnson Sirleaf, have also been used to attempt to combat and mitigate Liberia’s rampant poverty.35

In addition to the government’s efforts, some non-govern-mental organizations (NGOs) are also working to combat poverty in Liberia.36 Organizations such as the Canadian Or-ganization for Development through Education (CODE), Friends of Liberia, Liberian Assistance Program, and Save the Children all focus on poverty reduction through children’s education by expanding teacher training programs, establish-ing schools, or strengthening the Liberian Ministry of Educa-tion.37 Other NGOs, such as ActionAid Liberia and Save the Children, focus on empowering women and girls, spearhead-ing the Safe Cities Program, which addresses violence against women in places they are particularly vulnerable; empowering women and girls is critical to combating poverty in Liberia as female-headed households have higher rates of food shortage and illiteracy.38 These NGOs are working towards effective solutions and their progress could be enhanced with support from the UNPBC, which has the ability to collaborate with NGOs.39 However, NGO mobilization should only be a part of a meaningful resolution as development must ideally be sustainable by Liberia itself.

Addressing poverty is absolutely key in any state’s develop-


ment and countries with lower rates of poverty are less likely to lapse into civil war.40 Taking actions to eradicate poverty is a major step in the peacebuilding process.

Reconciliation

According to the United Nations peacebuilding plan for Libe-ria, Liberians agree that national reconciliation is vital for long term stability and sustained conflict transformation.41 Recon-ciliation is defined as “the process of making two people or groups of people friendly again after they have argued seri-ously or fought and kept apart from each other, or a situation in which this happens.”42 Reconciliation is a crucial step to any

40 Håvard Hegre, Gudrun Østby, and Clionadh Raleigh, “Poverty and Civil War Events.”41 “Sustaining Peace and Securing Development Liberia Peacebuilding Plan,” Government of the Republic of Liberia; United Nations Liberia, 20 March 2019, accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/040417_sg_let-ter_of_4_april_liberia.pdf42 Cambridge Dictionary. accessed August 18, 2019. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/reconciliation.43 “Liberia,” Human Rights Watch, accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.hrw.org/africa/liberia.44 “Peace Accords Matrix,” Peace Accords Matrix, accessed 06 July 2019, https://peaceaccords.nd.edu/provision/truth-or-reconciliation-mechanism-accra-peace-agreement.

post-conflict development and progress.

In Liberia specifically, a key demand of reconciliation by citi-

zens appears to be satisfying and validating victims. Many Li-

berians are appealing to President George Weah to make a war

crimes court to recognize and prosecute the crimes commit-

ted against them and their families.43 In 2003, following the

end of the war, the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement

(CPA) was signed, which included an article that called for

the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission

(TRC).44 A TRC is often an effective response to widespread

human rights violations, especially those that plague internal

Opening ceremonies for the Liberia TRC Diaspora Public Hearings


armed conflict.45 TRCs investigate and record the violations to hold those committing atrocities accountable for their ac-tions, within the domestic jurisdiction of a single state.46 The Liberian TRC’s mandate, as per the Truth and Reconciliation Act of 2005, was “to promote national peace, security, unity, and reconciliation” by investigating transgressions of human rights and humanitarian law, “sexual violations, and econom-ic crimes that occurred between January 1979 and October 2003.”47 In 2009, the TRC’s nine commissioners issued a final report that posits that the major causes of conflict can be traced back to poverty, greed, corruption, lack of access to ed-ucation, economic, social, civil, and political inequalities, iden-tity and tribal divisions, land distribution, and lack of good mechanisms for dispute settlement.48 The report also said that rebel and government groups alike were responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including gender-based violence and recruitment of child soldiers.49 The recommend-ed next steps for achieving reconciliation included establish-ing a criminal tribunal in Liberia, publicizing the names of entities who should be investigated or prosecuted, restoring rights to citizens, paying reparations to those affected (USD 500 million over 30 years), and institutional reform.50 Howev-er, despite the thorough investigation and recommendations from the TRC, many of the recommendations remain unre-alized.51 In fact, the UN’s peacebuilding plan stated that “the slow pace of legislative reform hinders reconciliation.”52 The peacebuilding plan for Liberia wishes to re-energize reconcili-ation to establish parameters for long-term healing.53

45 “Truth and Reconciliation Commissions,” International Justice Resource Center, accessed 18 August 2019, https://ijrcenter.org/cases-before-national-courts/truth-and-reconciliation-commissions/.46 Ibid.47 “Truth Commission: Liberia,” United States Institute of Peace, 22 October 2018, accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.usip.org/publica-tions/2006/02/truth-commission-liberia.48 Ibid.49 Ibid.50 Ibid.51 “Sustaining Peace and Securing Development Liberia Peacebuilding Plan.”52 Ibid.53 Ibid.54 “Liberia: Impacts of the War.”55 Ruth MacLean, and Tecee Boley, “Protests in Liberia over George Weah’s Failure to Tackle Corruption,” The Guardian, 07 June 2019. accessed 19 July 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/07/thousands-protest-in-liberia-against-failure-to-tackle-corruption.56 “Thousands Protest in Liberia against President Weah,” France 24, 11 June 2019. accessed 19 July 2019, https://www.france24.com/en/20190608-thousands-protest-liberia-against-president-weah.57 Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, “Civil War,” Encyclopædia Britannica, accessed 19 July 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/civil-war.58 “Help Us Help Ourselves: Education in the Conflict to Post-Conflict Transition in Liberia,” Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, March 2006, accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/images/zdocs/lr_ed.pdf59 Ibid.60 “Basic Education,” UNICEF Liberia, accessed 27 June 2019, https://www.unicef.org/liberia/basic-education.61 Ibid.

Reconciliation is a vital step to peacebuilding through satisfy-ing citizens. The victims of the war—the countless child sol-diers, casualties, displaced persons, and people dispossessed of their property—continue to call for justice as they still feel the impacts of the conflict today.54 On 7 June 2019, more than 5,000 citizens took part in a protest against the Weah adminis-tration, speaking out against injustice and the culture of impu-nity in Liberia in response to the president’s noncommitment to enacting the TRC’s recommendations.55 The 7 June protest peaceful, but demonstrated the anger that continues to be felt by many Liberians.56 This discontent and lack of faith in the justice system could very well be the seeds of future violence, and therefore these issues must continue to be addressed.57

Education

Not only is education a human right firmly established in numerous international laws and treaties, it is also a vital in-gredient to peacebuilding. Attending school makes children less likely to join armed groups or be coerced and forced into human trafficking. 58 The structure and organization found in schools provide security and stimulation for children who might otherwise be integrated into the system of violence and exploitation partially responsible for the civil wars.59

Unfortunately, many of Liberia’s current issues stem from the fact that it is difficult to acquire a strong education.60 Last-ing effects of the civil war left the Liberian education system damaged, both structurally and institutionally.61 Almost 60%


of school buildings, including their water and sanitation facili-ties, were destroyed or damaged during the conflict, resulting in very few schools remaining open during the conflict.62 The 2014 Ebola outbreak further exacerbated the issue, forcing school closures and making it even more difficult for children to access education.63

The initial impact of war and disease outbreak on education has been somewhat mitigated by efforts from organizations such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United States Agency for International Development 62 Ibid.63 Ibid.64 “Basic Education,”; “Education in Liberia,” Global Partnership for Education, accessed 27 June 2019, https://www.globalpartnership.org/country/liberia.65 “Basic Education.” 66 Ibid.67 Ibid.68 Ibid.

(USAID).64 However, when comparing Liberia to other Af-rican countries, it still falls significantly behind in education.65 Schools are often filled with teachers who are untrained and therefore unqualified, with 36% of primary school teachers and 29% of secondary school teachers fitting this category.66 In addition, 15% to 20% of children from ages 6–14 do not attend class and only 54% of children even complete primary education.67 A large factor in this poor completion rate is the fact that the vast majority of children are over-age for their grade, making them more likely to drop out.68 This is a direct result of late entry into the school system coupled with lack

Liberian students studying in a school with dilapidated infrastructure


of enforcement of age guidelines for enrollment.69 There also exists a great disparity between urban and rural areas; only 64.7% of the population is literate overall, but the urban lit-eracy rate is 78.1% compared to just 47% for rural areas.70 This is partly due to the fact that private schools often offer a higher standard of education, but the fees required are only affordable for the wealthiest Liberians.71 This is also why only 17.9% of candidates for the University of Liberia entrance exam came from public schools.72 Clearly, educational oppor-tunities are not equally accessible throughout the country.

In 2016, the Liberian government began implementing an experimental program called Partnership Schools for Liberia (PSL) to create a quasi-private school system.73 The program, spearheaded by Education Minister George Werner, trans-ferred management of 93 government schools to eight pri-vate operators in the hopes that those operators improve the quality of education in school.74 Even though management was transferred, the PSL schools still remained government schools with no enrollment fees or restrictions.75 Once the school year was underway, the government then rigorously evaluated the program to see if it was improving the system and functioning how it was intended to.76 By September 2017, the program showed positive outcomes for those involved.77 Learning gains were 60% larger for PSL students than for non-PSL public school students, meaning PSL students were 0.6 years ahead of their peers.78 This was due, in large part, to 69 Ibid.70 Dopoe, “LISGIS Report: Half of Liberians Live in Abject Poverty.” 71 “Education System in Liberia,” Scholaro Pro, accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.scholaro.com/pro/countries/liberia/education-system.72 “Private Schools Top University of Liberia Entrance Registration Preliminary List,” FrontPageAfrica, 4 July 2019, accessed 19 July 2019, https://frontpageafricaonline.com/news/private-schools-top-university-of-liberia-entrance-registration-preliminary-list/.73 David Laws, “Liberia’s Big School Experiment,” BBC News, 03 January 2018, accessed 27 June 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/busi-ness-42413639.74 Ibid.75 Ibid.76 Ibid.77 Nat Malkus, “The Price of Learning in Liberia,” U.S. News & World Report, 07 November 2017, accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-bank/articles/2017-11-07/partnership-schools-for-liberia-is-a-bold-experiment-to-improve-education.78 Steve Cantrell, “Liberia’s First Successful Steps Toward “Getting to Best”,” World Innovation Summit for Education, 10 October 2017, ac-cessed 18 August 2019, https://www.wise-qatar.org/liberia-steps-getting-to-best-steve-cantrell/.79 Malkus, “The Price of Learning in Liberia.”80 Ibid.81 Ibid.82 Laws, “Liberia’s Big School Experiment.” 83 Mauricio Romero, Justin Sandefur, and Wayne Aaron Sandholtz, “Can Outsourcing Improve Liberia’s Schools? Preliminary Results from Year One of a Three-Year Randomized Evaluation of Partnership Schools for Liberia,” SSRN Electronic Journal, September 2017. accessed 18 August 2019. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3062941.84 Ibid.85 Laws, “Liberia’s Big School Experiment.”86 Romero, Sandefur, Sandholtz, ““Can Outsourcing Improve Liberia’s Schools? Preliminary Results from Year One of a Three-Year Ran-domized Evaluation of Partnership Schools for Liberia.”

the private operators’ new approaches which the improved quality of instruction and increased teacher attendance likeli-hood by 50%.79 This figure is extremely significant as teacher absenteeism averages 60% in Liberia due to lack of account-ability and low funding, which PSL aims to eradicate.80 As a result, PSL students receive double the instruction of peers in non-PSL public schools.81 These results are reported from an external evaluation conducted by researchers from the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC and the Univer-sity of California at San Diego to prevent the Liberian gov-ernment from reporting on its own project.82

Unfortunately, despite all of the positive results, the experi-ment cannot necessarily be called a full-fledged success. Ac-cording to a 2017 report from the Center for Global Develop-ment, while public schools operate on a government budget of USD 50 per child, private operators and external investors give a minimum of USD 50 (and often more) per child in ad-dition to the government allocation.83 One operator is even es-timated to have spent USD 663 per child—more than 1226% higher than government spending per child.84 While this ad-ditional investment is good for the students benefitting from it, this suggests that the successes of PSL schools may not be scalable to the whole country.85 Additionally, there were 37% more teachers at PSL schools than non-PSL schools, and PSL schools were able to select better-trained and more qualified educators before non-PSL schools could.86 It stands to reason


that a school with more teachers and higher quality educators is more successful, but Liberia needs a much higher supply of trained educators to fill other schools at a level where program benefits can be seen across more schools.87

On the other hand, despite higher spending, learning gains across different private operators did not necessarily increase at the same rate.88 Since the 2017 report, two more years of evaluation are planned which will foreseeably give a better idea of the viability of the program.89 In 2018, the govern-ment changed the program’s name to the Liberian Education Advancement Program (LEAP) to better reflect its objec-tives.90 While the government seems to remain staunch and unwavering in its support for what it sees and projects as an overwhelmingly positive program, many longstanding donors have not committed more funding to LEAP, leaving its future in doubt.91

Foreign entities, such as the Global Partnership for Educa-tion (GPE), are also pitching in.92 With the help of the GPE’s grant of USD 11.5 million, the Liberian Ministry of Edu-cation was able to launch “Getting to Best in Education,” a program which targets six Liberian counties with the goals of improving early childhood education, teacher training, and monitoring and accountability, with hopes to reach the rest of Liberia.93

While Liberia’s current state with respect to education is 87 Laws, “Liberia’s Big School Experiment.”88 Ibid.89 Romero, Sandefur, Sandholtz, ““Can Outsourcing Improve Liberia’s Schools? Preliminary Results from Year One of a Three-Year Ran-domized Evaluation of Partnership Schools for Liberia.” 90 Marcus Wleh, “PSL to LEAP, Government Commits to the Continuation of Its Flagship Education Public Private Partnership in Libe-ria,” Medium, 27 September 2018, accessed 18 August 2019, https://medium.com/talking-education/psl-to-leap-gov-t-of-liberia-commits-to-the-continuation-of-its-flagship-education-ppp-b5b4a56cf640.91 Ibid; Sophie Edwards, “What next for Liberia’s Controversial Education Experiment?” Devex, 28 September 2018, accessed 18 August 2019, https://www.devex.com/news/what-next-for-liberia-s-controversial-education-experiment-93251.92 “Education in Liberia.” 93 David Woods Baysah, “Liberia Launches “getting to Best in Education” Program,” Global Partnership for Education, 10 September 2018, accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.globalpartnership.org/blog/liberia-launches-getting-best-education-program.94 “Poverty and Education,” ChildFund, accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.childfund.org/poverty-and-education/.95 “Basic Education.”96 “Mandate | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING.”97 “Liberia: Hunger Relief in Africa,” Action Against Hunger, accessed 19 July 2019, https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/countries/africa/liberia.98 “Liberia - Agricultural Sectors,” Export.gov, 29 March 2019. accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.export.gov/article?id=Liberia-Agricul-tural-Sectors.99 “Agricultural Productivity, Resources, and Related Terms,” Michel Serres Institute for Resources and Public Goods, accessed 10 September 2019 http://institutmichelserres.ens-lyon.fr/spip.php?article39.100 “Liberia: Hunger Relief in Africa.”101 Kailey Brennan, “Furthering the Development of Sustainable Agriculture in Liberia,” The Borgen Project, 28 January 2018, accessed 19 July 2019, https://borgenproject.org/sustainable-agriculture-in-liberia/.

sorely inadequate, there are programs in place to bring the system onto a better track following the wars and disease out-breaks. Lack of access to education is the direct root of other problems, like poverty, which plagues Liberia today.94 Educa-tion is extremely instrumental in keeping children away from violence and exploitation, ultimately improving the country’s condition, ushering it away from a post-conflict landscape into an era of peace and opportunity. Despite the steps taken above, Liberia still has glaring issues with its education sys-tem.95 A large part of UNPBC’s task is to lay the foundation for sustainable development; education is a major contributor to this goal.96

Food Security and Agriculture

The detrimental impact that the civil wars had on poverty and infrastructure has spread to many additional sectors—notably agriculture and food security.97 Low agricultural productivity is a major issue in Liberia.98 Agricultural productivity is a mea-sure of agricultural output (production) for a certain amount of agricultural inputs (land, labor, livestock).99 Liberia’s low productivity, a result of the loss of human capital and infra-structure and poor household incomes due to the war, has caused the country to fall victim to food insecurity since the period of conflict.100 Due to the war, sustainable agriculture was not maintained as many people and programs saw sur-viving the war and contributing to war efforts as a priority.101 Consequently, during that period, farmland shrunk, water re-


sources were mismanaged, and food production and distribu-tion were negatively impacted.102 All of these legacies of the wars contribute heavily to Liberia’s current food security and agriculture problems. Although, despite the host of negative impacts from the period of conflict, Liberia was doing well to recover until March 2014 when an Ebola outbreak violently disrupted the progress.103

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”104 Unfortunately, many Liberians struggle to meet these standards. 16% of households are food insecure, unable to steadily eat healthy, nutritious diets, and 2% of Liberian households are severely food insecure, having an inadequate quantity of food and energy.105 And, as a result of rampant poverty, a quarter of Liberian families end up with 65% of their total expenditures allocated for food with 18% of households resorting to strategies such as begging to be able to eat.106 An even higher amount of the population is un-dernourished, unable to acquire enough food to meet dietary energy requirements for at least one year, at 42.8%.107

In addition to the Liberian population being so dangerously food insecure, the country also imports 50% to 60% of its staple food requirements.108 This heavy reliance on imports makes Liberia vulnerable to any volatility in the food mar-102 Ibid.103 “Investing in Rural People in Liberia,” International Fund for Agricultural Development, accessed 19 July 2019, https://www.ifad.org/docu-ments/38714170/39150184/Investing+in+rural+people+in+Liberia_f.pdf/0d3bdf17-46a8-48a3-8d21-a021ea8a3165.104 “Food Security: Definition & General Information,” Disabled World, accessed 19 July 2019, https://www.disabled-world.com/fitness/nutrition/foodsecurity/.105 “Liberia,” World Food Programme, accessed 27 June 2019, https://www1.wfp.org/countries/liberia.; Max Roser, and Hannah Ritchie, “Hunger and Undernourishment,” Our World in Data, accessed 9 September 2019, https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment#definitions-of-measures-of-hunger-and-undernourishment.106 Ibid.107 “Liberia,” Food Security Portal, accessed 27 June 2019, http://www.foodsecurityportal.org/liberia.108 “Food Security Desk Review for Liberia 2016-2020,” USAID Office of Food for Peace, February 2016, accessed 18 August 2019, https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/FFP-Desk-Review-Liberia-Feb2016v2.pdf.109 Ibid.110 “Liberia.”111 Ibid.112 Ibid.113 “Liberia,” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States, 20 May 2019, accessed 06 July 2019, http://www.fao.org/giews/coun-trybrief/country.jsp?code=LBR.; “Liberia Overview,” World Bank, accessed 9 September 2019, https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/liberia/overview.114 “Liberia.”115 “Liberia - Agricultural Sectors.” 116 “Liberia - Agriculture,” Encyclopedia of the Nations, accessed 10 September 2019, https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Africa/Liberia-AGRICULTURE.html.117 Ibid.

ket.109 In fact, import prices for Liberia’s main staple, rice, which it imports heavily, have continued to rise since 2011.110 This increase in price is due to many factors, such as higher transportation costs, poor roads, and an increase in food de-mand–none of which are limited only to rice and extend to other imports as well.111 The government recognized this is-sue and suspended its import tariff on rice so that prices are lower for citizens.112 Recently, some double-edged news came from the FAO regarding food imports. The Economic Intel-ligence Unit found that Liberia’s economic growth is expected to slow down due to a paltry 1.3% GDP increase in the non-mining sector (responsible for 90% of GDP) including 0% growth in rubber production, a key cash crop, in 2018.113 As a result, its dollar will depreciate, but all of this will come with a decrease in food inflation from 23.6% in 2018 to 13.9% in 2019, which will lower the prices of food items such as rice and cooking oil.114 While importing food is getting cheaper, it would be more productive to promote the sale of domesti-cally sourced food as agriculture is the primary livelihood for over 60% of the Liberian population.115

This substantial figure owes itself to the wars which helped establish agriculture as the Liberian economy’s most dominant sector.116 Unfortunately, this is more of a reflection of other economic sectors’ dismal conditions rather than how the agri-culture sector is flourishing.117 Despite the major presence of agriculture, Liberia continues to rely on imports because of


the poor infrastructure and equipment in the agricultural sec-tor. A shortage of quality machinery, tools, roads, fertilizers and pesticides, and storage facilities all affect food produc-tion.118 Seeing inadequate farming infrastructure and equip-ment plague Liberian farmers and cause an over-reliance on imports, this should be a major area of focus for the UNPBC.

Agriculture is also a primary factor in the Liberian economy, with around 300,000 people being employed by commercial rubber farms and an additional 60,000 households growing rubber trees.119 Rubber is the main cash crop followed, in no particular order, by cocoa, coffee, and palm oil.120 Unfortu-nately, many of the smallholder cash crop farmers are also plagued by inadequate farm-to-market roads.121 Due to a lack of education, these farmers are also unaware of measurement qualities and standards.122 This lack of knowledge results in running inefficient farms which may be far from ideal in terms of production quality and quantity, negatively affecting the farmers as well as the consumers.

In addition to the economic aspect of food insecurity, mal-nutrition risk poses an even greater threat. As of 2013, 32% of children under five years old were found to have stunted growth and 15% were underweight.123 Stunted growth can have a negative impact on brain function, organ development, and immune system efficacy, and can affect the child through-out their life.124 UNICEF Liberia asserts that stunting, and, by extension, malnutrition, contributes to the cycle of pov-erty as those children are likely to have poor achievement in school due to the debilitating health problems. These distract

118 “Liberia - Agricultural Sectors.”119 Ibid.120 .”Liberia - Agriculture.” 121 “Liberia - Agricultural Sectors.”122 Ibid.123 United States, US Agency for International Development, Liberia: Nutrition Profile, February 2018, accessed 19 July 2019. https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1864/Liberia-Nutrition-Profile-Feb2018-508.pdf.124 “Combating Malnutrition,” UNICEF Liberia, accessed 19 July 2019, https://www.unicef.org/liberia/combating-malnutrition.125 Ibid.126 “Assessment of Chronic Food Insecurity in Liberia, June 2017 - Liberia,” ReliefWeb, 30 June 2017, accessed 27 June 2019, https://relief-web.int/report/liberia/assessment-chronic-food-insecurity-liberia-june-2017.127 “Combating Malnutrition.”128 Alicia Chavy, “Under the Radar: Chronic Food Insecurity Could Hurt Liberia’s Economic Growth and Stability,” Global Risk Insights, 21 July 2018, accessed 27 June 2019, https://globalriskinsights.com/2018/07/food-insecurity-liberia-economic-growth-stability-agriculture/. 129 “The Problem of Corruption in Liberia | Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission,” Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission, accessed 27 June 2019, http://lacc.gov.lr/the-problem-of-corruption-in-liberia/. 130 Ibid.131 Ibid.132 Ibid.

them from schoolwork, ultimately leading to “decreased pro-ductivity and earnings in adult life.”125 Malnourished children are more susceptible to disease as well. Many households are likely to have very limited resistance and resilience to events such as the Ebola epidemic.126 Other, more common, mala-dies such as malaria and pneumonia are also more likely to plague malnourished children and the World Health Organi-zation (WHO) reports that 45% of deaths of children under 5 are linked to malnutrition.127

Food insecurity must be addressed when considering any peacebuilding situation as it is both a cause as well as a con-sequence of conflict.128 This makes it extremely relevant in a post-conflict landscape where prevalent food insecurity makes devolution into more conflict a distinct risk if not addressed.

Corruption

Corruption is an issue that affects nearly every business and political sector in Liberia. Political, social, economic, and even environmental damage are caused by corrupt systems.129 Po-litically, citizens lose faith in official institutions, destabiliz-ing the government and its authority.130 Socially, it dissolves the trust between citizens and government officials as well as between those within a community.131 The economic im-pact of corruption is perhaps the most obvious as well as the most extensive. It undermines the national development and economy it significantly damaging the development of a fair market and deterring legitimate investment from inside and outside the country.132 The environment also suffers because


protections are ignored when corrupt officials exploit natural resources for personal gain.133

The most difficult part about combating corruption is that much of it is secret, making statistics and information difficult to assess.134 Transparency International, an organization dedi-cated to identifying and fighting corruption, releases a yearly Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) which ranks 180 coun-tries by the perceived corruption levels in the public sector.135 On a 0–100 scale, where zero means highly corrupt and 100 is not corrupt, Liberia earned a CPI score of 32 in 2018, plac-ing it 120th out of 180 countries in rankings from lowest to highest corruption perception.136 Transparency International also notes that incentives and opportunities for corruption in Liberia come from low public sector salaries, lack of training, and inefficient regulations.137

The low CPI score seems justified as a number of Liberia’s public officials have alleged involvement in illicit affairs. No-tably, four government officials were dismissed in 2013 for involvement in human trafficking while others were also dis-missed for infractions such as conflicts of interest and ille-gally issuing work permits to foreigners after taking bribes.138 The previous year, Human Rights Watch reported that they spoke with more than 120 victims of police corruption and abuse.139 These people reported that the police ask for money for things such as registering cases while criminals easily pay bribes to get released from detention.140 Many citizens report that police often raid areas and take what they want while plac-

133 Ibid.134 Ibid.135 “Corruption Perceptions Index 2018,” Transparency International, accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018.136 Ibid.137 “OVERVIEW OF CORRUPTION AND ANTI-CORRUPTION IN LIBERIA,” Transparency International, accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/answer/overview_of_corruption_and_anti_corruption_in_liberia.138 “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2013--Liberia,” U.S. Department of State, accessed 06 July 2019, https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2013humanrightsreport/index.htm?year=2013&dlid=220129.139 “Liberia: Police Corruption Harms Rights, Progress,” Human Rights Watch, 22 April 2013, accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/08/22/liberia-police-corruption-harms-rights-progress.140 Ibid.141 Ibid.142 Ibid.143 “About The LACC: Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission,” Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission, accessed 06 July 2019, http://lacc.gov.lr/about-lacc/.144 “2017/2018 Annual Report,” Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission, 2018, accessed 27 July 2019, http://lacc.gov.lr/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-2018-Draft-Annual-Report.pdf145 “Liberia: Police Corruption Harms Rights, Progress.”146 William Q. Harmon, “Corruption Greatest Threat to Liberia’s Future,” Liberian Observer, 11 June 2018, accessed 27 June 2019, https://www.liberianobserver.com/news/corruption-greatest-threat-to-liberias-future/.147 Ibid.148 Ibid.

ing those they raid in detention and then require them to pay their way out.141 On the other end, Human Rights Watch also spoke to 35 police officers who expressed frustration with poor supplies, low salaries, and superiors who also expected bribes for benefits.142

As corruption in the public sector became recognized, the Li-beria Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) was formed in 2008 as an independent organization which would investigate, prosecute, and prevent corrupt acts by Liberian public offi-cials.143 From 2017–2018, the LACC examined 33 different cases of possible corruption, taking some cases to trial at the country’s Supreme Court.144 However, according to the report from Human Rights Watch, the LACC struggles to get con-victions in corruption cases and the report alleges that anti-corruption institutions in Liberia are weak.145

Corruption, however, is not limited to the public sector. The LACC Program Manager for Education and Prevention, James Kingsley, explained that it is “practiced at all levels of society and affects all irrespective of class, culture, and reli-gion as well as the poor in agonizing proportion.”146 Kingsley also notes that children are especially vulnerable to corrup-tion.147 He pointed to the overall corruption of the school system, where 90% of the children the LACC spoke to in 2013 admitted bribing teachers to achieve a grade.148 John P. Furnari, Chief of Party of the USAID-funded Legal Profes-sional Development of Anti-Corruption (LPAC), mentions teachers demanding gifts, accepting bribes, or even abusing


students sexually in exchange for a passing grade.149 This prac-tice not only undermines the legitimacy of the school system but also teaches children that what they are doing is right be-cause it is validated by those in positions of power around them. Kingsley points out that it is shocking that students are openly confessing to paying bribes.150 This cavalier admittance is extremely indicative of how commonplace bribery and cor-ruption are and how it has become ingrained in the daily lives of Liberians. Fortunately, the LPAC has very recently begun a pilot phase for the Corruption-free School Project in Liberia to “strengthen existing efforts in the fight against corruption, increase anti-corruption education, and promote integrity sys-tems in schools.”151 This project’s methods and effects remain to be seen but it is undeniably a step in the right direction to help relieve children so vulnerable to a corrupt system.

In a peacebuilding context, corruption is something that must be taken care of because it can directly undermine any re-form that the UNPBC may look to carry out. When outside funds come in, that money can be diverted into the pockets of corrupt office holders and others to keep them quiet, sti-fling any sort of productivity that a peacebuilding agenda may look to accomplish.152 It is also important to note that a lot of care must be taken when addressing higher level issues. Sud-denly breaking corruption as the status quo will simply breed instability and violence since the beneficiaries of the current system will fight and struggle to maintain their current status and power.153 And, because those beneficiaries are often in a position of authority, they are likely to have the power to cre-ate a conflict.

149 “Liberia: USAID/LPAC Boss Stresses Significance of Curbing Corruption In Liberian Schools.” Front Page Africa, 15 August 2019, accessed 18 August 2019, https://frontpageafricaonline.com/crime/liberia-usaid-lpac-boss-stresses-significance-of-curbing-corruption-in-liberian-schools/.150 Harmon, “Corruption Greatest Threat to Liberia’s Future.”151 “LIBERIA: LPAC, USAID Pledges Support In Fighting Corruption In Schools,” The World News, 19 August 2019, accessed 19 August 2019, https://theworldnews.net/lr-news/liberia-lpac-usaid-pledges-support-in-fighting-corruption-in-schools.152 Susan Rose-Ackerman, Corruption and Post-Conflict Peace-Building, Report, Yale Law School, Faculty Scholarship Series, 2008, accessed 06 July 2019, https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1579&context=fss_papers.153 Ibid.154 “Liberia - Infrastructure, Power, and Communications,” Encyclopedia of the Nations, accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.nationsencyclo-pedia.com/economies/Africa/Liberia-INFRASTRUCTURE-POWER-AND-COMMUNICATIONS.html.155 “Liberia - Infrastructure,” International Trade Center, accessed 06 July 2019, http://www.intracen.org/country/liberia/Infrastructure/.156 “Liberia - Infrastructure, Power, and Communications.”157 Ibid.158 Andrew Revord, “Rebuilding Infrastructure in Liberia,” The Borgen Project, 11 December 2017, accessed 06 July 2019, https://borgen-project.org/infrastructure-in-liberia/.159 “Liberia - Infrastructure.”160 Ibid.

Infrastructure

Infrastructure affects the functions of whole countries, from education to transportation and even agriculture. Because it is such an omnipresent factor, it is critical that infrastructure be addressed in the peacebuilding process, especially in relation to many of Liberia’s primary issues. Unfortunately, Liberia’s infrastructure was severely damaged by the civil war period.154 In 2013, the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report ranked its overall quality of infrastructure as 103 out of 148 countries.155 Only 6% of the roads in the country are paved and the state has no passenger rail service.156 There is a rail network for iron ore transport, but the structures for it are in a state of disrepair following the sale of large portions of it for scrap metal to finance civil war efforts.157

The destruction from the war also wiped out large portions of the country’s agricultural infrastructure as well as the schools and other municipal buildings and services.158 While Liberia must certainly pay attention to the needs of those structures, the International Trade Center posits that the most problem-atic aspects of Liberian infrastructure lie in electricity and telecommunication.159 With its power generation capacity at only a tenth of the benchmark level for other low-income African countries, Liberia is unmistakably lacking in this sec-tor.160 However, the situation is set to improve with some in-ternational assistance.

Recognizing Liberia’s inadequacy in electricity, in 2017, US-AID helped the Liberian government improve its electrical in-

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frastructure.161 564 households in rural Liberia were connected to sources that used solar energy, rubber wood chips biomass, and crude palm oil biofuel to power the homes.162 This project was also valuable in that it showed that solar power is the most scalable renewable energy source for the area.163 Such projects illustrate the power of collaboration in rebuilding and grow-ing infrastructure, helping the country develop, which is a key part of the UNPBC mandate.164

In a 2013 paper on infrastructure and inclusive growth in Li-beria, the African Development Bank (AfDB) stated that it believes that poor infrastructure is a crucial obstacle to pov-erty reduction and growth acceleration on the continent.165 In addition, Zondo Sakala, Vice President of Country and Re-gional Programs and Policy of AfDB, mentioned that invest-ing in infrastructure generally leads to more growth and GDP, and that the economic returns from countries with severe infrastructure disrepair is even more favorable.166 Improving infrastructure can have extensive impacts across sectors with its ability to stimulate the economy.

161 “Power Africa in Liberia: Power Africa,” U.S. Agency for International Development, 08 November 2018, accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.usaid.gov/powerafrica/liberia.162 Ibid.163 Ibid.164 “Mandate | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING.”165 “Liberia: infrastructure and Inclusive Growth,” African Development Bank Group, 2013, accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Project-and-Operations/Liberia_-_Infrastructure_and_Inclusive_Growth_-_Full_Report.pdf.166 Ibid.167 Revord, “Rebuilding Infrastructure in Liberia.”168 Ibid.169 “Liberia - Infrastructure.”170 Ibid.171 Ibid.172 Ibid.173 “Building Democracy: An Historic Transition in Liberia With a Helping Hand From the U.S,” US Global Leadership Coalition, accessed

This was a major reason that Sirleaf developed the Agenda for Transformation, a peacebuilding plan which focuses on infra-structure.167 It calls for cooperation to help Liberia rebuild and improve and encourages Liberia to participate in major in-frastructure projects promoted by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).168 Liberia is also receiving assistance from other governments and organizations such as USAID.

Efforts to improve Liberia’s infrastructure are unfortunately hampered by some aspects of the Liberian system. Its short-comings are partly caused, and exacerbated by, inefficient state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which operate sectors such as roads and energy.169 Traditionally SOEs are very corrupt, financially opaque, and mismanaged.170 Even though Liberia has established disciplines for managing and operating these entities, the Bureau of State Enterprise—the body that over-sees SOEs—is extremely under-resourced.171 Liberia also only implements about 60%–65% of budgeted capital expendi-tures as of 2013 leading to lower rates of infrastructure im-provement.172 All of these obstacles need proper attention if they are to be mitigated in order to improve Liberian infra-structure. That would then become the avenue needed to al-low improvement of other sectors such as agriculture, educa-tion, and transportation.

Current Status

The Weah Administration

Soccer legend and 1995 FIFA World Player of the Year, George Weah, is Liberia’s current president after the state’s first peaceful transition of power since 1944.173 The process Poor road conditions in Lofa, located in northern Liberia

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may not have been seamless, but the fact that this transition happened without major incident is a positive indication for the advent of a more stable democracy in Liberia.174 Weah’s predecessor, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is famous for her efforts in peacekeeping, but was criticized for not adequately tackling corruption or poverty.175

The new president made a whole host of promises when be-ing sworn in on 22 January 2018, vowing to crack down on corruption and unite the country.176 In his inaugural speech, Weah explained, “It is my belief that the most effective way to directly impact the poor, and to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor is to make sure that public resources do not end up in the pockets of government officials.”177 Along the campaign trail, he also made promises to reform the economy and combat nepotism.178 He also declared that he would run a “pro-poor” government with his Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) party.179 Pro-poor government is generally un-derstood to imply that the policies of the government directly target those in poverty or designed to reduce total poverty.180 Weah declared that this entailed “transforming the lives of all Liberians” and made it the core focus of his administration.181

Promises aside, Weah’s time as president and his decision mak-ing has been difficult to characterize. Early on in his presiden-cy, Weah took a 25% pay cut and waived exam fees for 34,000 secondary school students.182 In October 2018, he announced free tuition at state universities and colleges.183 The govern-ment also set aside USD 200,000 to begin planning and build-ing a military hospital.184 The country’s abysmal infrastructure is also set to get a boost as Weah negotiated a memorandum 14 July 2019, https://www.usglc.org/blog/building-democracy-historic-transition-liberia-helping-hand-u-s/.174 Ibid.175 James Giahyue, “Weah Sworn in as Liberian President, Vows to End Corruption,” Reuters, 22 January 2018, accessed 14 July 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-liberia-politics/weah-sworn-in-as-liberia-president-vows-to-end-corruption-idUSKBN1FB24B.176 Ibid.177 Ibid.178 Stephen D. Kollie, “Liberia’s President Weah 100 Days In: Promises Made, Promises Kept?” African Arguments, 02 May 2018, accessed 27 June 2019, https://africanarguments.org/2018/05/02/liberia-president-weah-100-days-in-promises-made-promises-kept/. 179 Ibid.180 “Understanding Pro-poor Policy Processes,” Overseas Development Institute, accessed 14 July 2019, https://www.odi.org/projects/28-understanding-pro-poor-policy-processes.181 Kollie, “Liberia’s President Weah 100 Days In: Promises Made, Promises Kept?”182 Ibid.183 “What Is President Weah’s Liberia Scorecard One Year On?” BBC News, 22 January 2019, accessed 14 July 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46947032.184 Kollie, “Liberia’s President Weah 100 Days In: Promises Made, Promises Kept?”185 “Liberia Signs MoU for Construction of Modern Coastal Highway,” Journal Du Cameroun, 03 April 2018, accessed 19 August 2019, https://www.journalducameroun.com/en/liberia-signs-mou-for-construction-of-modern-coastal-highway/.186 Kollie, “Liberia’s President Weah 100 Days In: Promises Made, Promises Kept?”

for USD 536 million with an Asian conglomerate to build a coastal highway.185 He also negotiated plans to have the Indian government finance a convention center in the capital city of Monrovia.186 All of this seems to be incredibly positive de-

Current President of Liberia, George Weah presents his Ballon d’Or (1995)


cision making, moving the country forward. However, some critics complain that instead of an entirely new hospital, mon-ey should have been allocated to improving existing medical facilities in dire need.187 In April 2018, Liberia’s chief medical officer stated that a number of medical services would have to be shut down due to funding concerns.188 Some detractors early on also question whether the current administration’s policies and decisions are truly “pro-poor,” pointing out that none of these projects actually target slums and those living in abject poverty.189 The government did address some of these concerns by connecting slum communities around Monrovia to major roads and made strides in providing public utilities, responding to wishes to directly address the poor.190

Unfortunately, despite all of this, the economy has faltered under the Weah administration. The Liberian dollar (LRD) has weakened considerably, falling 33% against the US dollar since Weah took office.191 Although both currencies circulate in Liberia, the LRD is impacted by corruption as well as hy-perinflation due to the rapidly rising costs of some goods.192 Inflation has been an incredibly pressing issue with rates as high as 28%.193 The government sees pressure from interna-tional donors, whom the Liberian government depends on for over 66% of its expenditures, as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.194 The latter two enti-ties have even warned that future support is contingent on deep cost cutting, particularly in public service wages, which account for two thirds of government spending. However, Weah will conceivably run into issues himself if he cuts wages as he relies heavily on political support from his appointments who are earning lucrative wages. This leaves him in a precari-187 Ibid.188 Ibid.189 Ibid.190 Ibrahim Al-Bakri Nyei, “Liberia: How Is President Weah Faring One Year On?” African Arguments, 22 January 2019. accessed 27 July 2019. https://africanarguments.org/2019/01/22/liberia-how-is-president-weah-faring-one-year-on/.191 Prue Clark, and James Harding Giahyue, “Liberians Are Worried Their Country Is Sliding into Economic Uncertainty under President Weah,” Quartz Africa, 28 May 2019, accessed 27 June 2019, https://qz.com/africa/1629355/liberias-george-weah-is-struggling-with-a-sink-ing-economy/.192 James Chen, “LRD (Liberian Dollar),” Investopedia, 21 July 2018, accessed 27 July 2019, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lrd.asp.193 “Liberians Are Worried Their Country Is Sliding into Economic Uncertainty under President Weah.”194 Ibid.195 Ibid.196 “Liberia Central Bank Denies It Lost $100 Million,” Reuters, 02 October 2018, accessed 27 July 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-liberia-money/liberia-central-bank-denies-it-lost-100-million-idUSKCN1MC2RE.197 Ibid.198 Nyei, “Liberia: How Is President Weah Faring One Year On?”199 “What Is President Weah’s Liberia Scorecard One Year On?” 200 Ibid.201 Kollie, “Liberia’s President Weah 100 Days In: Promises Made, Promises Kept?”.

ous situation where he has to decide between possibly risking impeachment after a loss of support from wage cuts and do-ing what is ultimately projected to be best for the country by complying with IMF and World Bank standards to avoid pos-sible economic calamity.195 Perhaps the single most impactful event of Weah’s tenure was in September 2018, which marked the disappearance of more than USD 100 million in newly printed notes.196 The equivalent of 5% of Liberia’s GDP went missing when being moved in two shipments of cash. An in-vestigation with support from the US Federal Bureau of In-vestigation saw more than thirty former bank officials saddled with a travel ban, barring them from leaving the country.197 However, two weeks later, the Central Bank claimed that the missing notes could actually be accounted for and the travel bans were lifted.198 Regardless, the entire incident cast a mas-sive shadow of doubt on the government, endowing it with an unshakeable culture of distrust.

Weah’s policies and actions have also been tremendously inconsistent with his promises of anti-corruption and anti-nepotism. After being sworn in, the president failed to de-clare his assets to the LACC, a practice required by Liberia’s National Code of Conduct.199 While he finally did declare in July 2018 after a lot of public pressure, the saga generated natural doubt amongst citizens about Weah’s supposed anti-corruption agenda.200 This display of neglect is not an isolated incident as other worrying decisions have been made under Weah. He initially chose a Justice Minister who had previously misappropriated USD 25,000 for a client and lost his legal license.201 Weah withdrew this nomination but made more ignorant decisions such a replacing a head of secretariat for


the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, an anti-corruption body in the natural resource extraction sec-tor), something he was not authorized to because it would undermine the entire anti-corruption function of the entity. There have also been accusations of nepotism after it was revealed that three of Weah’s brothers were employed by the government and paid four times more than the heads of their departments.202

While it remains to be seen how Weah’s presidency will play out in terms of being pro-poor or anti-corruption, his admin-istration has clearly lacked action regarding reconciliation. On 26 July 2018, the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHCR) urged Weah’s government to hold those responsible for war crimes accountable after “concern that none of the alleged perpetrators of gross human rights violations and war crimes mentioned in the TRC report, has been brought to justice.”203 The UNHCR then proceeded to require Liberia to report back regarding these issues by 2020.204 Disapproval of the lack of accountability is not limited to the UNHCR as citizens took to the streets, citing the lack of a war crimes court as one of many stressors causing them to protest.205

On 7 June 2019, the Council of Patriots (CoP), a diverse Li-berian civil protest group composed of entities ranging from taxi drivers and farmers to political parties and civil society groupings, planned an organized protest in Monrovia.206 This was to be a demonstration against the corruption and eco-nomic decline that citizens feel should be blamed on Weah and his administration.207 Around 10,000 participated, using events such as the 100 million dollar disappearance and lack of war crime accountability as fuel.208 Before the protest, the government blocked social media and messaging services, 202 Ibid.203 “Letter to President Weah: Endorsing Accountability for Past Crimes at the UN General Assembly,” Human Rights Watch, 20 Septem-ber 2018, accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/09/20/letter-president-weah-endorsing-accountability-past-crimes-un-general-assembly.204 Ibid.205 Maclean and Boley, “Protests in Liberia over George Weah’s Failure to Tackle Corruption.” 206 “Liberia: Petition to Save the State 2019,” AllAfrica.com, 7 June 2019, accessed 9 September 2019, https://allafrica.com/sto-ries/201906070444.html.; Maclean and Boley, “Protests in Liberia over George Weah’s Failure to Tackle Corruption.”207 “Thousands Protest in Liberia against Corruption, Economic Decline,” Reuters, 07 June 2019, accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-liberia-protest/thousands-protest-in-liberia-against-corruption-economic-decline-idUSKCN1T82ER.208 Maclean and Boley, “Protests in Liberia over George Weah’s Failure to Tackle Corruption.”209 Ibid.210 “Thousands Protest in Liberia against Corruption, Economic Decline.”211 Lennart Dodoo, “Liberia: ECOWAS Ambassador Disappointed Protest Petition to President Weah Was Not Delivered,” Front Page Af-rica, 8 June 2019, accessed 28 June 2019, https://frontpageafricaonline.com/news/liberia-ecowas-ambassador-disappointed-protest-petition-to-president-weah-was-not-delivered/.

hinting towards a more authoritarian tone. The (CoP) had a list of demands detailing the main points of their demonstra-tion and among them were corruption, governance, removal of a supreme court justice, increases in domestic violence and rape, economic issues, and the culture of impunity.209 The or-ganizers also circulated a “Save the State” petition that called out the administration for misusing public funds, violating freedom of the press, and failing to fund health and educa-tion programs adequately while also accusing Weah of build-ing “scores of luxury homes” despite failing to declare his assets.210 Unfortunately, that petition was never actually deliv-ered to government officials who were expecting it as the CoP introduced a sudden extraneous demand stating that it would only be delivered if recent detainees of the Liberian National Police were released.211

Weah still has years left on his term and his true impact re-mains to be seen. However, his first two years in charge threat-en to drag Liberia onto the path of instability with the same problems it had before and possibly even more. The UNPBC is responsible for ensuring that a rebuilding country remains stable and a venue in which sustainable development is viable rather than a breeding ground for the ingredients for conflict.

Collaboration with the UN

The era of war has been over for more than a decade. After the conflict, a multitude of efforts have been put forth by a host of domestic and international entities in an attempt to successfully aid Liberia’s peacebuilding era. While much of the post-war management has been marked by ineptitude and negligence by the Liberian government, there have been measures and plans put in place that present viable paths for


peacebuilding in the country with UN guidance.

Security Council Resolution 2333, created in 2016, led the Government of Liberia to submit a peacebuilding plan on 20 March 2017 with support from the UN, the World Bank, the European Union, civil society actors, and the UNPBC itself.212 This plan had multiple objectives: to sustain the momentum of post-war recovery while transitioning to a new adminis-tration and addressing UNMIL’s departure; to recognize and address interlinked areas such as development, security, and human rights affairs to “prevent relapse into conflict, con-tinue reform efforts, promote reconciliation, strengthen the security environment, and lay the foundations for conflict sensitive development;” and to recognize that the plan is a col-laborative effort involving the Liberian government, the UN, bilateral and multilateral actors, and all entities with a stake in Liberia’s situation.213 This plan created a timetable for transi-tion running from April 2017 to, at most, 2020. The timetable consists of two phases: the first phase is from April 2017 to March 2018 and will focus on what the UN system must do to support the state’s commitment to sustenance of peace be-fore UNMIL’s departure.214 The second phase concentrates on longer term integration of peacebuilding measures into development frameworks to prevent, mitigate, and manage the risks of conflict.215 UNPBC held a series of regular meet-ings in New York to help formulate this plan and monitor its implementation.216

More recently introduced, but similar to the peacebuilding plan, is the Pro-Poor Agenda for Development and Prosper-ity (PAPD). The PAPD is the second part of the Liberia Vi-sion 2030 framework following the 2012-2017 Agenda for Transformation (AfT).217 The Liberia Vision 2030’s goal is to improve the nation through a series of five year National De-212 “Liberia: Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace in Practice | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING,” United Nations, accessed 14 July 2019, https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/news/liberia-peacebuilding-and-sustaining-peace-practice.213 “Sustaining Peace and Securing Development Liberia Peacebuilding Plan.”214 Ibid.215 Ibid.216 “Liberia: Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace in Practice | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING.”217 Republic of Liberia, Pro Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development.218 Ibid.219 “Liberian Government Presents National Development Plan to the United Nations,” Front Page Africa, 02 February 2019, accessed 27 July 2019. https://frontpageafricaonline.com/diaspora/liberian-government-presents-national-development-plan-to-the-united-nations/.220 “Liberia: Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace in Practice | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING.”221 Republic of Liberia, Pro Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development.222 Ibid.223 Ishmael F. Menkor, “‘We Cannot Develop Liberia Without Good, Quality Infrastructure’,” Liberian Observer, 30 October 2018, accessed 27 July 2019, https://www.liberianobserver.com/news/we-can-develop-liberia-without-good-quality-infrastructure/.

velopment Plans (NDPs), such as the AfT and the PAPD.218 Following the end of UNMIL’s mandate, the Liberian govern-ment presented the PAPD at UN Headquarters in New York on 31 January 2019 to the UNPBC, receiving positive recep-tion by several entities and UN Member States.219 The PAPD and the peacebuilding plan are closely related as the UNPBC stated that it expects that NDPs “incorporate the peacebuild-ing plan, and will also form the basis for future engagement between the Government and the international community, including the Peacebuilding Commission.”220

The PAPD’s objectives are to improve trust in the govern-ment and to bring absolute poverty rates down by 23%.221 The document hopes to achieve this with the guidance of four pillars:

1. Power to the People: the empowerment of citizens through providing them equal opportunities in “edu-cation, health, youth development, and social protec-tion”

2. The Economy and Jobs: stabilizing the economy and creating jobs via “effective resource mobilization and prudent management of economic inclusion”

3. Sustaining the Peace: “promoting a cohesive soci-ety for sustainable development”

4. Governance and Transparency: holding the public sector accountable for their actions to fight corrup-tion and aid sustainable development.222

The timeline for the PAPD as the NDP for Liberia is from July 2018 to June 2023.223

President Weah vowed that every line of the plan would be


implemented.224 While some reports statistically suggest that the PAPD has many shortfalls, notably budgetary shortfalls at 5% of GDP (112 million USD), which will make it next to impossible to fully implement, it is currently too early and dif-ficult to comment on its efficacy.225 A vital function of the UN in this scenario is aid in funding the plan as Samuel Tweah, Minister of Finance and Development Planning of Liberia, explained that full implementation would cost an estimated 6.2 billion USD.226 Along with the Liberian government fund-ing, 25% of GDP over the five year period, the plan also relies on outside aid.227

The UN has several entities in place that are responsible and capable of funding the PAPD and similar efforts. Tweah not-ed that investment from the Liberia Multi-Partner Trust Fund (LMPTF), the Liberia Reconstruction Trust Fund, and the private sector were all very important for domestic resource mobilization.228 Domestic resource mobilization (DRM) is “the process through which countries raise and spend their own funds to provide for their people,” which is a vital com-ponent of the PAPD and any other peacebuilding plan.229 A common implementation of DRM is to raise taxes or tax a specific, in-demand, commodity and make sure that paying taxes is a simple system that is easy for citizens to understand and execute and then use those funds to finance services that would improve institutions such as healthcare, education, or infrastructure.230 Because of its reliance on taxation, DRM can be used to affect social change. For example, a government may tax tobacco products and then use those funds specifi-224 “‘Every Line In PAPD Will Be Implemented,’ Pres. Weah Vows,” Executive Mansion, 28 October 2018, accessed 27 July 2019, https://www.emansion.gov.lr/2press.php?news_id=4696&related=7&pg=sp.225 “Pro-Poor Agenda – Long on Aspirations but Short on Reality,” Front Page Africa, 6 November 2018, accessed 27 July 2019, https://frontpageafricaonline.com/politics/pro-poor-agenda-long-on-aspirations-but-short-on-reality/.226 “PBC Ambassadorial Meeting on Liberia,” United Nations Peacebuilding Committee, 31 January 2019, accessed 27 July 2019, https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/20190131_pbc_csc_liberia_chairs_summary_.pdf227 Republic of Liberia, Pro Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development.228 “PBC Ambassadorial Meeting on Liberia.”229 “Domestic Resource Mobilization,” U.S. Agency for International Development, 21 November 2018, accessed 27 July 2019, https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/economic-growth-and-trade/domestic-resource-mobilization.230 “Domestic Resource Mobilization,” World Bank, 04 October 2018, accessed 27 July 2019, https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/gov-ernance/brief/domestic-resource-mobilization.231 Ibid.232 “Domestic Resource Mobilization.”233 Ibid.234 “Liberia: Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace in Practice | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING.”235 “PBC Ambassadorial Meeting on Liberia.”; “United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office Approves US$5M for Liberia,” United Na-tions Peacebuilding, 23 January 2019, accessed 27 June 2019, https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/news/united-nations-peacebuilding-support-office-approves-us5m-liberia.236 “Liberia: Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace in Practice | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING.”237 “Liberian Government Presents National Development Plan to the United Nations.” 238 Ibid.

cally for schools or healthcare.231 DRM is used as a long term

sustainable development finance strategy which can lead Li-

beria out of aid dependence.232 Tweah also asked for the UN-

PBC’s Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) to continue its support.233

The UN and UN-funded entities have recently made sizable

monetary contributions to Liberian wellbeing. The PBF fund-

ed eight projects that addressed four areas--women’s empow-

erment, youth political engagement, justice and human rights,

and peaceful management of concession-related conflicts--by

investing 14 million USD from 2017 to 2019.234 The PBF’s

most recent action was an approval of 5 million USD to the

LMPTF to help implement multiple projects involved in aid-

ing reconciliation and enhancing sustained peace in Liberia.235

Co-chaired by the Liberian government and the UN, the

LMPTF is a comprehensive fund which aids in achieving the

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while also involved

in collaborating with other entities to allocate resources where

they are most needed.236 At the 31 January meeting, Yacoub

El Hillo, Resident Coordinator of the United Nations Office

in Liberia, cited adequately funding the LMPTF as a way to

prioritize conflict prevention in Liberia.237 However, despite

all of the past collaboration and the concrete plan outlined by

the PAPD, there are still notably valid concerns over financing

as UN Assistant Secretary General for Peacebuilding Support,

Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, expressed.238

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Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Olof Skoog, Chair of the Liberia Configuration during the 31 January UNPBC meeting pointed out that the PAPD “re-inforced the vital link between sustainable development and sustaining peace.”239 The peacebuilding plan written prior to the PAPD was written with the goal of achieving the per-tinent SDGs in mind.240 In addition to these two Liberian peacebuilding plans, African heads of state came together to write another plan for the whole continent focused on imple-menting the SDGs called Agenda 2063.241 Clearly, peacebuild-ing and sustainable development are inextricably linked; the UNPBC’s mandate even mentions developing strategies to lay the foundation for sustainable development.242

In 2016, Former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf listed seven SDGs for definite implementation and another two for con-sideration.243 These include SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being, SDG 4: Quality Education, SDG 5: Gender Equality, SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG 9: Industry, Innova-tion, and Infrastructure, SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions, and SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals.244 There is one notable goal missing from Sirleaf ’s assessment, and that is SDG 2: Zero Hunger.245 As Liberia is a food-deficit country with high rates of malnutrition by World Health Organization standards whose response to food insecurity has not been ef-fective, SDG 2 is vital to implement in an effort to combat hunger and build peace.246 All of these SDGs are addressed in a multitude of peacebuilding plans, including the AfT as well as the PAPD and Agenda 2030, and all parts, past, present, and future, of Vision 2030. However, despite these efforts fo-cused on addressing SDGs, Liberia is in urgent need of better

239 “PBC Ambassadorial Meeting on Liberia.”240 “Sustaining Peace and Securing Development Liberia Peacebuilding Plan.”241 “Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want,” African Union, 12 October 2014, accessed 17 July 2019. https://au.int/en/agenda2063/overview.242 “Mandate | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING.”243 “Liberia Progress on the Implementation of the SDGs,” Ministry of Finance and Development Planning Republic of Liberia, 05 March 2018, 27 July 2019, https://unstats.un.org/unsd/capacity-building/meetings/DA9-regional-workshop-Addis-Ababa/documents/7-Liberia_pre-sentation.pdf.244 Ibid.; “SDGs .:. Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform,” United Nations, accessed 17 July 2019. https://sustainabledevelop-ment.un.org/sdgs.245 “SDGs .:. Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform.”246 Republic of Liberia, Ministry of Agriculture, Zero Hunger Strategic Review Report. May 2017, accessed 27 June 2019, https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000040056/download/.247 Jeffrey Sachs, Guido Schmidt-Traub, Christian Kroll, Guillaume Lafortune, and Grayson Fuller, Sustainable Development Report 2019, Report. June 2019, accessed 27 July 2019, https://s3.amazonaws.com/sustainabledevelopment.report/2019/2019_sustainable_develop-ment_report.pdf.248 Ibid.

implementation of the goals. According to the 2019 Sustain-able Development Report, the country currently ranks 157 out of 162 on the SDG Index, which tracks a country’s per-formance on progress towards SDGs.247 The report also lists 11 of the 17 SDGs as being faced with major challenges, three SDGs as being faced with significant challenges, two SDGs have some challenges remaining, and SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production as achieved.248 Keeping the SDGs in mind throughout deliberations is vital and extremely beneficial to UNPBC decisions when considering how to best serve Liberia.

Bloc Positions

Point of Division

Economic interests tend to be the point of convergence for other countries’ policies towards Liberia. Therefore, the blocs in our committee should break down according to each group’s economic interest in the country. While there aren’t many—if any—countries with malicious or hostile policies, there are differences in what each country believes Liberia’s development priorities should be and the role that Liberia should play in regional politics and regional trade. As always, these blocs are not meant to be absolute, and some countries may find themselves sympathizing with multiple blocs.

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)

Established in 1975, ECOWAS is a regional economic orga-

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nization of West African countries.249 ECOWAS is a trading union between its member states that strives toward the cre-ation of a single trading bloc.250 ECOWAS’s member states include: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.251 All 15 countries have planned to adopt a single currency, the “eco,” by 2020, although the AfDB reports that the deadline will be post-poned as it has been multiple times before.252 Solely based on this fact, ECOWAS members naturally have a vested interest in Liberia’s peacebuilding. Because this currency will only be implemented if all members are economically aligned, which is currently not the case, ECOWAS’s objective is to foster col-lective self-sufficiency for its members.253

ECOWAS also had a direct role in the First Liberian Civil War. It became involved for a multitude of reasons includ-ing humanitarian concerns, political support for the Liberian government, and attempts to manage spillover effects from the conflict, such as regional instability and the flight of refu-gees.254 The security and business climate of Liberia in general is a deep concern to ECOWAS’s mission of economic inte-gration, thus the bloc has strong incentives to intervene to stabilize any political or security concerns in the region, as it did in the civil war.255

In addition to assisting in the war, ECOWAS is deeply in-volved with post-conflict rehabilitation in Liberia, which is due, in great part, to ECOWAS’s mandate for regional peace, security, and stability.256 ECOWAS has expressed contempt for the Weah administration—when the prominent protest 249 “Economic Community of West African States,” International Democracy Watch, accessed 28 June 2019, http://www.internationaldemoc-racywatch.org/index.php/economic-community-of-west-african-states-.250 “Basic Information,” Economic Community of West African States, accessed 27 July 2019, https://www.ecowas.int/about-ecowas/basic-information/.251 “Economic Community of West African States(ECOWAS),” Economic Community of West African States, accessed 27 July 2019, https://www.ecowas.int/member-states/.252 Aisha Salaudeen, “West African Countries Choose New ‘ECO’ Single Trade Currency,” CNN, 09 July 2019, accessed 27 July 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/01/africa/single-trade-currency-ecowas/index.html?no-st=1563410513.253 Ibid.; “Basic Information,” Economic Community of West African States.254 “ECOWAS and the Subregional Peacekeeping in Liberia,” The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance, 25 September 1995, accessed 28 June 2019, https://sites.tufts.edu/jha/archives/66.255 Ibid.256 Chris Kwaja, “The Role of Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) in Post-Conflict Rehabilitation: Lessons from Liberia,” NUST Journal of International Peace & Stability1 (2017): 53-71, accessed 28 June 2019, https://watson.brown.edu/files/watson/imce/HI2/research/ecowas%20and%20post%20conflict%20rehabilitation%20in%20liberia.pdf.257 Dodoo, “Liberia: ECOWAS Ambassador Disappointed Protest Petition to President Weah Was Not Delivered.”258 Ibid.259 “History: Conflict in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Côte D’Ivoire,” Conciliation Resources, accessed 27 July 2019, https://www.c-r.org/where-we-work/west-africa/history-conflict-sierra-leone-guinea-liberia-and-c-te-d-ivoire.

group, the CoP’s, “Save the State” petition was not delivered to officials on the 7 June 2019 protest, an ECOWAS ambas-sador expressed the organization as a whole was disappoint-ed.257 While it did want a protest petition to be delivered to the Liberian government, ECOWAS claims it’s motivation was the sustainable peace and stability of Liberia. The Com-munity said that it wishes for the government and the CoP to collaborate for a constructive discussion on how to address concerns and sustain peace and stability.258 As a heavily in-volved and invested party, ECOWAS Member States will have a heightened sense of urgency and connection when involved in UNPBC’s discussion of Liberia.

Because ECOWAS members form a trading bloc with Libe-ria, their interests would align with Liberia’s economic devel-opment through regional ties. Most critically, if Liberia can become self-sufficient, the Community becomes more stable and also gets one step closer to its goal of creating a unified currency. ECOWAS members would have a tendency to push for measures such as strengthening the LACC to be better equipped to fight corruption as well as funding and elevating education to secure a better future for the country’s youngsters and, by extension, a better future for Liberia which translates to a better future for ECOWAS. Reconciliation would also be at the forefront of several ECOWAS members’ minds as many of the members have undergone civil wars themselves and understand the feeling of injustice that comes with it.259 Some of the conflicts, such as the devastating war in Sierra Leone, are even inter-related with the Liberia conflict with some of the same actors, providing even further impetus for these states to push for reconciliation.

52|ToPiC B: The siTUaTioN iN liBeriaBloC PosiTioNs

World Bank and International Monetary Fund Stakeholders

As the primary global financial and development institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are key actors in Liberia’s stabilization and development. The key stakeholders of the World Bank and IMF are determined by total financial contributions—the members with the highest contribution shares are generally Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Sweden.260 As these members collectively hold the most significant shares of voting power throughout these institutions, the priorities and preferences of these in-stitutions will largely reflect those of these key stakeholders.

Much of Liberia’s reconstruction has come from agreements with the World Bank and IMF. In the past 5 years the World Bank has committed 487 million USD to projects in Liberia and the IMF has been in regular, long-term discussions with the Liberian government about economic policy, such as the country’s signature Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and De-velopment.261

The World Bank and IMF’s approach emphasizes fiscal re-straint and stability as the key development strategies; the organizations will err on the side of caution in Liberia’s fi-nancial management, as they pursue gradual development strategies.262 As Liberian president George Weah considered granting two loans of 536 and 420 million USD from private entities, the World Bank and IMF have expressed skepticism over the country borrowing funds above its budget ceiling and have so far delayed him from granting such loans.263 Within the IMF and World Bank’s Liberia profiles, the two organiza-tions stress the development of strong and independent po-

260 “IMF Member Quotas and Voting Power, and IMF Board of Governors,” International Monetary Fund, 22 September 2019, https://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/memdir/members.aspx.261 “IMF Executive Board Concludes 2019 Article IV Consultation with Liberia,” International Monetary Fund, 11 June 2019, https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2019/06/11/pr-19208-imf-executive-board-concludes-2019-article-iv-consultation-with-liberia.262 Healthy Development : the World Bank Strategy for Health, Nutrition, and Population Results, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007.263 “Chinese US $60 Billion: How Much Can Liberia Get? As 51 Nations Battle for Lion’s Share,” Front Page Africa Online.264 “The World Bank in Liberia,” World Bank, 9 Apr. 2019, https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/liberia/overview#2.265 “Map of Foreign Assistance Worldwide,” Foreign Assistance, accessed 27 July 2019, https://www.foreignassistance.gov/explore.266 Ibid.267 “Our Work: Liberia,” U.S. Agency for International Development, 28 February 2019, accessed 17 July 2019, https://www.usaid.gov/liberia/our-work.268 Ibid.269 Ibid.

litical structures, transparency and accountability in the public sector, and support for the country’s commercial agriculture as an export-oriented development strategy.264

World Bank and IMF stakeholders do also continue to shape Liberia’s development through national policy. In line with World Bank and IMF objectives however, these countries’ commitments may be less ambitious than what regional or local partners would like, they typically promote development objectives, like investing in pro-poor growth and stability as an inherent objective of the country’s economic management. The United States, through organizations such as the USAID, regularly appropriates funds to Liberia to bolster a number of sectors including health, human rights, governance, educa-tion, peace and security, economic development, and environ-mental wellbeing, among others.265

USAID provides hundreds of millions of dollars every year for Liberia; in 2018, the organization appropriated USD 112 million and Liberia spent USD 231 million, despite only ask-ing for USD 29 million.266 USAID has four objectives for its work in Liberia: “more effective, accountable, and inclusive governance, sustained market-driven economic growth to re-duce poverty, better educated Liberians, and improved health status of Liberians.”267 The organization works directly with, and helps fund, many domestic and international entities to propel Liberia towards its peacebuilding goals.268

Unilateral Investors and Trade-Partners in Li-beria

The countries in this bloc include Liberia’s most significant trade partners. The EU, China, and Indonesia are Liberia’s top export destinations while South Korea, China, the EU, and India are its top import origins.269 Each of these countries has

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a vested interest in gaining from trade relations as Liberia is a country rich in natural resources.270

China’s new set of investments in African countries through the Belt and Road Initiative rivals World Bank and IMF fund-ing, yet it takes a markedly different approach to financing Liberia’s development. Chinese premier Xi Jinping pledged USD 60 billion to African development through the Belt and Road initiative, and pledged an initial USD 54 million grant to Liberia.271 President Weah however, is reportedly looking to acquire as much as USD 3 billion from China to finance a variety of infrastructure projects including a highway in the Southeast part of the country aimed at connecting a greater portion of the country by road network.272

Evidence suggests that China is actively considering President Weah’s request. Chinese investment and development policy prioritize development of strong infrastructure and commer-cially viable projects like commercial highways and ports.273 Paired with infrastructure investments, China has also taken steps to promote trade relations with Liberia and neighbor-ing countries. The country has offered the complete removal of tariff barriers on exports of more than 440 commodities to China if the goods are based in least developed countries, which includes Liberia.274 Throughout these investments, Chi-na has opened up its access to cheaper natural resource mar-kets and created strong trade relationships that will benefit the country for years to come.275

While the potential benefits to Liberia from such investments are obvious, by taking on significant levels of debt, Liberia also puts itself at risk of facing financial pressures. China’s

270 Svend E. Holsoe, Donald Rahl Petterson, and Abeodu Bowen Jones, “Liberia,” Encyclopædia Britannica, 10 July 2019, accessed 17 July 2019, https://www.britannica.com/place/Liberia. 271 “Chinese US $60 Billion: How Much Can Liberia Get? As 51 Nations Battle for Lion’s Share,” Front Page Africa Online, 5 September 2018, https://frontpageafricaonline.com/politics/chinese-us60-billion-how-much-can-liberia-get-as-51-nations-battle-for-lions-share/.272 “Chinese US $60 Billion: How Much Can Liberia Get? As 51 Nations Battle for Lion’s Share,” Front Page Africa Online.273 Andrew Chatzky and James McBride, “China’s Massive Belt and Road Initiative,” Council on Foreign Relations, 21 May 2019, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative274 “Chinese US $60 Billion: How Much Can Liberia Get? As 51 Nations Battle for Lion’s Share,” Front Page Africa Online.275 Ibid.276 W. Gyude Moore, “The Debt-Trap Narrative around Chinese loans shows Africa’s weak economic diplomacy,” Center for Global De-velopment, 5 February 2019, https://www.cgdev.org/article/%E2%80%9Cdebt-trap%E2%80%9D-narrative-around-chinese-loans-shows-africa%E2%80%99s-weak-economic-diplomacy-quartz.277 “India-Liberia Relations,” Embassy of India, ABIDJAN-COTE D’IVOIRE, accessed 28 June 2019, http://www.eoiabidjan.gov.in/page/india-liberia-relations/.278 Ibid.279 Ibid.280 Ibid.281 “How Was the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission Established? - Ask DAG!” United Nations, accessed 24 July 2019, http://ask.

Africa development strategy has been dubbed by some critics as “debt book diplomacy”, referring to a phenomenon where countries deeply indebted to China fall prey to Chinese politi-cal and strategic interests.276 Loans from the World Bank and IMF are specifically structured to avoid such scenarios, but typically offer less robust financing in turn.

Another trade partner, India, maintains strong relations with Liberia and has provided Liberia with an all-female police unit as a part of UNMIL procedures who served not only to help secure the nation but also to inspire Liberian women.277 The nature of the economic relationship between the two coun-tries, serves a domestic Indian political interest. The Indian government will also be constructing a convention center in Monrovia for Liberian citizens and government.278 India also contributed more than USD 10 million to Ebola fighting ef-forts in the area as well as SDR 11.15 million to the IMF’s Financial Package for Liberia’s Debt Relief in October 2007 in addition to numerous vehicles and other equipment and train-ing.279 In return, Liberia supports India’s bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.280

Committee Mission

On 20 December 2005, as a result of the 2005 World Summit Outcome, two resolutions (Resolution 60/180 adopted by the General Assembly and Resolution 1645 (2005) adopted by the Security Council) established the UNPBC and its Organiza-tional Committee.281 The committee was established with the belief and recognition “that development, peace, and security

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and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing.”282 The General Assembly and the Security Council decided that a dedicated institution was necessary to specifically focus on post-conflict peacebuilding in order to achieve sustainable peace.283

Per the 2005 resolutions, the UNPBC is encouraged to con-sult with NGOs, civil society, and the private sector.284 Once peacebuilding is complete, and foundations for sustainable peace and development are established, or if the national au-thorities ask the Commission to leave, the UNPBC will termi-nate its mission in a country-specific situation.285

2016 saw a review of the peacebuilding architecture with two more resolutions from the General Assembly and the Security Council: 70/262 and 2282 (2016) respectively.286 In addition to everything listed in the previous resolutions, certain aspects were stressed. These notably included bringing consensual international attention in efforts to sustain peace in affected countries, the Commission serving as a “bridging role” among relevant bodies and entities in the UN “by sharing advice on peacebuilding needs and priorities.” It also included providing a platform for all relevant UN and non-UN actors to convene in order to facilitate more transparent coordination of efforts, ideas, and financing.287

The situation in Liberia is a pressing issue which affects not only those in the country but demonstrably the whole trad-ing bloc as well and, by extension, any and all countries who interact with that area. As the resolutions explain, the purpose of the UNPBC is to not only build peace but to ensure that that peace is sustainable and pragmatic so the solutions imple-mented must be viable for the long term. While temporary so-lutions have their place and can be provisionally implemented to prevent the effects of immediate, urgent dangers, the goal of the UNPBC is to mitigate those issues with lasting effects for more than a few years down the road.

un.org/faq/22821. 282 S/RES/1645 (2005)283 General Assembly Resolution 60/180, The Peacebuilding Commission, A/RES/60/180, (20 December 2005), available from undocs.org/A/RES/60/180284 Ibid.285 S/RES/1645 (2005)286 “Mandate | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING.”287 General Assembly Resolution 70/262, Review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture, A/RES/70/262, (27 April 2016), available from undocs.org/A/RES/70/262288 “UNDP in Liberia,” United Nations Development Program, accessed 27 July 2019, http://www.lr.undp.org/.

Because the UNPBC’s mandate enables a platform on which interaction between governments, UN actors, the private sec-tor, and NGOs is not only permissible but encouraged, discus-sion on the Situation in Liberia can extend to involving such actors as the LACC to help them develop more proper and ef-fective techniques to combat corruption while also addressing the Liberian government directly holding it accountable for the same issue. This ability also enables the UNPBC to advise the actions of other UN bodies such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which also has a major role in advancing the development of Liberia.288 The UNPBC also has the PBF at its disposal along with the LMPTF to assist financing ideas and solutions to aid Liberia on its jour-ney to post-conflict sustainable peace. While discussing the Situation in Liberia, it is vital to keep in mind the topic and the issues that exist within it, the committee’s jurisdiction in adherence to its mandate, and individual countries’ stances on the issues and their relations with Liberia.

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Research and Preparation Questions

Your dais has prepared the following research and preparation questions as a means of providing guidance for your research process. Delegates are NOT obligated to formally answer these questions either in committee or in position papers. Rather, these questions should be carefully considered, as they embody some of the main critical thought and learning objectives surrounding your topic.

Topic A

1. How can your country help achieve increased data and transparency regarding corruption in the Sahel region? How can greater transparency be achieved within countries with unstable and corrupt governments?

2. What is your country’s policy on the specific ways to combat terrorism? Does your country support military or eco-nomic responses? In which circumstances is your nation available to give resources to the victimized nation of a terrorist attack?

3. What major factors contribute to women’s economic empowerment in the Sahel? What role does

4. gender equality play in women’s economic empowerment?

5. What are some ways to ensure the protection of human rights in camps which welcome all refugees, including those who may be in conflict with another group over religious, cultural, or social differences? How can your country provide better security for refugee camps in order to prevent recruitment for armed organizations?

6. What are the possible effects of prolonged unemployment, economic, social, or otherwise? How can we eliminate the social barriers that prevent women and other marginalized groups from taking advantage of employment opportunities?

7. Does your country suffer with effects from climate change? If so, how does it deal with these problems? Does your country emphasize sustainable development? Why or why not?

Topic B

1. What logistical matters need to be taken care of in terms of UNPBC working with the newly elected government to prevent future disagreements? What specific aspects need to be addressed to prevent full-blown conflict during times of transition or unrest?

2. What are some of the main obstacles that Liberia faces in combating the extreme rate of vulnerable employment? What steps can be taken to overcome these obstacles and would other areas in need of development also benefit from taking those steps? If so, which ones?

3. Consider the issues outlined and examine their relationships; if progress towards resolving a critical issue in one sector is made, how could that have a positive impact on another sector as well? For example, how might addressing education and corruption positively affect agricultural productivity and impoverished citizens?

4. What obstacles lie in the path of reconciliatory efforts? What are some reasons that Weah has failed in this regard? What steps can be taken to push an agenda of reconciliation so that the government actually carries it out and the citizens feel satisfied?

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5. What can your country do to support the implementation of Liberia’s PAPD? What impact can your country have in aiding Liberia’s human capital in transforming natural resources to wealth?

6. What influences drive corruption in Liberia at each level? What are some factors that anti-corruption institutions may be ineffective? What can be done to mobilize institutions such as the LPAC and the LACC to overcome these factors and effectively allay these driving influences?

7. When considering all of the issues that Liberia faces, what problems need to be prioritized over others? What issues remain conspicuous and require immediate attention?

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Important Documents

Topic A

“UN Support Plan for the Sahel.” United Nations. Accessed 7 June 2019. https://www.un.org/africarenewal/sites/www.un.org.africarenewal/files/English%20Summary%20Report_0.pdf.

The most complete of all recent UN sources. It details the plans set by the international community regarding the region and reflects UNPBC’s own policy regarding the issue. It is a great starting point for delegates to begin their research and fits the foreign policies of all countries to some extent at least. The “UN Support Plan for the Sahel does not necessarily announce concrete measures to be implemented, but it certainly points towards the direction that is considered the most efficient and may serve as inspiration for possible clauses in a resolution.

Muggah, Robert and Luengo Cabrera, José. “The Sahel is engulfed by violence. Climate change, food insecurity and extremists are largely to blame.” World Economic Forum. Last modified 23 January 2019. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/all-the-warning-signs-are-showing-in-the-sahel-we-must-act-now/.

This source provides a general information over all the major subtopics discussed in the background guide, providing additional links that may help expand upon them. By itself it does not fully explore any of the necessary topics, but it is useful to understand the scope of the issue and how one problem faced by the Sahel directly affects another problem that at first might seem completely unrelatable.

Tall, Ousman. “Herders vs Farmers: Resolving deadly conflict in the Sahel and West Africa.” Medium. Last modified 18 April 2018. https://medium.com/@OECD/herders-vs-farmers-resolving-deadly-conflict-in-the-sahel-and-west-africa-e096702b5055.

The subject of this analysis is an example of the relation between food security, violence and climate change. It also depicts one of the many conflicts that happens constantly in the region, not only by extreme jihadist organizations. The escalation of tensions between herders and farmers in the Sahel is of great importance because it shows to what lengths many regular inhabitants of the region go in order to pursue survival. Conflict in the Sahel has many faces and many reasons and focusing only in organized crime is something delegates must avoid.

Darby, Megan. “Boko Haram terrorists thriving on climate crisis: report.” Climate Change News. Last modified 20 April 2017. https://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/04/20/boko-haram-terrorists-thriving-climate-crisis-report/.

This source comments on the effects of climate change on violence in the region, detailing how organized crime uses it as a facilitator to recruit new members. It is also recommended that delegates look at the Security Council’s resolution linked in the source over the conflict in Lake Chad, as it shows its approach to the situation in the region.

“If Victims Become Perpetrators.” International Alert. Last modified 28 June 2018. https://www.international-alert.org/sites/default/files/Sahel_ViolentExtremismVulnerabilityResilience_EN_2018.pdf.

This report goes into how corruption and poor governance impacts society to stimulate an increase in the influence of violent extremism in the region. The report is based mostly on surveys carried with Sahelian communities and serves to show and analyze the popular opinion over the reasons for such insecurity in the region. It shows why state authority is often illegitimate for many citizens and how this feeling is detrimental to the interests of Sahelian countries.

Golovko, Katia. “Education and language: global and local strategies of Sahelian jihadism.” Security Praxis. Last modified 3 May 2018. https://securitypraxis.eu/education-language-sahel-jihadism/.

Provides an extensive explanation of Sahelian education system, explain with objectivity some of its major flaws. It compares two of the most common

58|UNPBCiMPorTaNT DoCUMeNTs

school systems, and how they appear as opposites. It also explains the symbolism that schools have in the region, and how it is used by terrorist organiza-tions to spread their message and challenge the government.

Cooke, Jennifer. “Understanding the G5 Sahel Joint Force: Fighting Terror, Building Regional Security?.” Center for Strategic and International Studies. Last modified 15 November 2019. https://www.csis.org/analysis/understanding-g5-sahel-joint-force-fighting-terror-building-regional-security.

This academic study provides an in-depth examination of the G5 Sahel, explaining the motivation of its members and allies and some of its major difficulties. The efficiency of the alliance is a major focus of study, and this source gives the information needed to start understanding the bloc members’ positions as well as how their interference may be improved in order to show better results. The G5S is the most important player in the region and understanding how it operates and its obstacles is extremely important.

Roby, Christin. “Nexus of climate and conflict exacerbates Sahel food security crisis.” 13 August 2018. Accessed 28 June 2019. https://www.devex.com/news/nexus-of-climate-and-conflict-exacerbates-sahel-food-security-crisis-93160.

Gives light on the main causes of food insecurity in the Sahel, as well as how many are affected by it. This source has an interesting focus on how the issue is being seen and tackled by multiple UN agencies as well as looking in some Sahelian countries individually. Additionally, it shows that food scarcity has lasting effects on Sahelian society, and that resolving the issue of food security also involves resolving part of its social instability.

“Sahel - Early ActionEarly action and scale-up of emergency response 2018,” FAO, UNICEF, WFP, accessed 30 June 2019, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/I8940EN.pdf.

This document shows some of the efforts and plans elaborated by UN agencies to tackle Sahel’s food insecurity. The joint efforts also analyze future risks for the region and its population. The importance of this document lies on how it both presents the issue and its dimensions, but also proposes solutions and inform of already existing efforts.

“Mandate | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING,” United Nation, accessed July 28, 2019, https://www.un.org/peace-building/commission/mandate.

The official UNPBC mandate has to always be in mind when discussing any topic during committee. Our mandate sets the limitations on what can be discussed and what is better suited to other organs or the country itself, as well as on how much the UNPBC is allowed to interfere in the region. It also serves as a great guideline to debate, as the mandate also lists the committee’s objective and therefore what delegates will want to reach with their discussion

Topic B

General Assembly Resolution 70/262. Review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture. A/RES/70/262, (27 April 2016). Available from undocs.org/A/RES/70/262.

This Resolution is the most recent review of the UNPBC’s Peacebuilding architecture. It gives an overview of not only what the committee does, but why it does it and why it is necessary. This source makes it easier to understand the bigger picture of the purpose of the committee which sometimes might get a little unclear and broad since there are so many aspects that are covered.

“Liberia Overview.” World Bank. Accessed 9 September 2019. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/liberia/overview.This is the World Bank’s overview on Liberia over multiple sectors with lots of helpful statistics and important information. It summarizes some of what happened during President Weah’s first year in office and measures he and his administration have taken. It also provides a comprehensive eco-nomic overview including statistical information and what a successful economic adjustment would require.

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“Mandate | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING.” United Nations. Accessed 28 June 2019. https://www.un.org/peace-building/commission/mandate.

This is the UNPBC’s official mandate listing what is within the committee’s jurisdiction as per resolutions General Assembly Resolutions 60/180 and 70/262 and Security Council Resolutions 1645 (2005) and 2282 (2016). It outlines what the duty of the committee is as well as what its parameters are and includes the revised review of the mandate.

Republic of Liberia, Pro Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development, 30 September 2018, Accessed 27 June 2019, http://liberiancon-sulatega.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/PAPD-Pro-Poor-Agenda-for-Prosperity-and-Development.pdf.

The PAPD has a goal towards accelerated, inclusive, and sustainable development which coincides considerably with the UNPBC’s goals. Weah’s NDP focuses heavily on those stricken by poverty--a major issue in Liberian peacebuilding. A lot of the ideas and plans outlined in this document are great ideals but Weah has had trouble implementing them. Enforcing the implementation of these ideas is something to consider while exploring sustainable solutions to the situation in Liberia.

“Sustaining Peace and Securing Development Liberia Peacebuilding Plan,” Government of the Republic of Liberia; United Na-tions Liberia, 20 March 2017, Accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuild-ing/files/documents/040417_sg_letter_of_4_april_liberia.pdf

This is the 2017 Peacebuilding Plan for Liberia in response to Security Council Resolution 2333 (2016) which called for the Secretary General to prepare a well-developed peacebuilding plan in order to direct the UN and other actors’ roles in Liberian peacebuilding. It was made in part to secure the transition after UNMIL’s mandate. In principle, this plan does not extend beyond 2020 but Liberia still needs plenty of help to progress. This plan can be used as a jumping off point to glean new ideas for actions and resolutions.

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Works Cited

Committee History and Simulation

A/RES/60/180. “The Peacebuilding Commission.” 20 December 2005. Accessed 30 October 2018. undocs.org/en/A/

RES/60/180.

This resolution created the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission as a subsidiary organization of the General Assembly and UN Security Coun-

cil, and outline the Commission’s mandate for reporting observations and creating recommendations regarding peacebuilding in conflict-ridden areas.

A/69/674–S/2014/911. “Letter Dated 15 December 2014 from the President of the General Assembly and the President of

the Security Council addressed to the Secretary-General.” 17 December 2014. Accessed 30 October 2018. http://www.

un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/69/674.

Letters addressed to a UN official show the opinions and needs of countries firsthand through a formal lens.

“Mandate of the Peacebuilding Commission.” United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (UNPBC). Accessed 30 October 2018.

http://www.un.org/en/peacebuilding/mandate.shtml.

Delegate should always first consult primary sources about an entity’s mandate and limits of power when preparing for debate.

“Peacebuilding and the United Nations.” United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office. Accessed 30 October 2018. http://www .un.

org/en/peacebuilding/pbso/pbun.shtml.

The United Nations has a narrow view of the PBC’s scope and mandate, so delegates must be familiar with it.

S/RES/1645. “Resolution 1645.” 20 December 2005. Accessed 30 October 2018. http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.

asp?symbol=S/RES/1645%20(2005).

This key document is a prime source because it established the PBC and its accompanying fund.

“Structure and Membership.” UNPBC. Accessed 30 October 2018. http://www.un.org/en/peacebuilding/structuremember.

shtml.

Membership in the PBC results from a particular process that affects the Commission’s internal dynamics.

“The Peacebuilding Commission.” Global Policy Forum. Accessed 30 October 2018. http://www.globalpolicy.org/un-reform/

un- reform-topics/the-peacebuilding-commission.html.

Delegates must also review outside views on the PBC to understand its broader global context.

“Working Group on Lessons Learned.” UNPBC. Accessed 30 October 2018. http://www.un.org/en/peacebuilding/sm_les-

sonslearned.shtml.

The PBC’s own reflections show how delegates should consider the Commission’s limitations and room for improvement.

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Topic A

UN Sources

“Background.” UNOWAS. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://unowas.unmissions.org/background.Explains the goals and organization of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel., specifically by analyzing the mandate upon which the group was built

Bawa, Jeffery. “Sahel: Governments achieve positive results with UN Support.” UNODC. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press/releases/2018/February/sahel_-governments-achieve-positive-results-with-un-support.html

Gives light on the UN’s collaboration with governments in the region, as well as its effectivity; this source explicitly focuses on the situation in the Sahel region and the systematic changes which have been achieved through the governments.

“Easing fears and promoting gender equality in Chad’s girls-only classrooms.” Africa Renewal. Last modified February 2019. Accessed 8 July 2019. https://www.un.org/africarenewal/news/easing-fears-and-promoting-gender-equality-chad%E2%80%99s-girls-only-classrooms.

A source which discusses about steps towards gender equality through education in the Sahel by analyzing the lack of awareness on the issue, as well as early marriage culture.

Eide, Hans. “How to reduce poverty’s impact on education.” World Education Blog. Last modified 16 October 2011. https://gem-reportunesco.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/how-to-reduce-poverty%E2%80%99s-impact-on-education/.

Discusses the relation between poverty and education, and further goes to analyze how poverty is a crucial barrier when trying to reach the goal of universal primary education.

“In the Sahel, pastoralists rely on satellites to search for water.” UN Environment. Last modified 17 January 2019. https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/sahel-pastoralists-rely-satellites-search-water.

Shows a successful movement towards SDGs, by specifically looking at the use of satellites to improve water access in the Sahel

“Mandate.” MINUSMA. Accessed 14 July 2019. https://minusma.unmissions.org/en/mandate-0.This source provides a holistic overview of MINUSMA’s mandate, and the group’s emphasis on communication, its zero-tolerance policy, and emphasis on freedom for UN personnel.

“Mandate | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING,” United Nation, accessed July 28, 2019, https://www.un.org/peace-building/commission/mandate.

The official UNPBC mandate has to always be in mind when discussing any topic during committee. Our mandate sets the limitations on what can be discussed and what is better suited to other organs or the country itself, as well as on how much the UNPBC is allowed to interfere in the region. It also serves as a great guideline to debate, as the mandate also lists the committee’s objective and therefore what delegates will want to reach with their discussion

Mohammed, Amina. “Deputy Secretary-General’s remarks to the Annual Session of the Peacebuilding Commission: “Peace-building and Sustaining Peace in the Sahel Region [as prepared for delivery].” United Nations. 12 November 2018. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/dsg/statement/2018-11-12/deputy-secretary-generals-

62|UNPBCWorks CiTeD

remarks-annual-session-peacebuildingThis official statement at the PBC’s Annual Session express the organization’s thoughts on the situation in Sahel.

“New. Fringe Pastoralism: Conflict and Insecurity and Development in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel.” United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Accessed 6 July 2019. https://www.uneca.org/sites/default/files/PublicationFiles/new_fringe_pastoralism_eng1.pdf.

Discusses the problems faced by Herders in Northern Africa.

“Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy Programme,” UNICEF, accessed 18 August 2019, https://www.unicef.org/sites/default/files/2018-10/F_UNICEF1006_LFP_R3-online_single.pdf

Informs and provides data of the benefits of education for peacebuilding.

“Sahel - Early ActionEarly action and scale-up of emergency response 2018,” FAO, UNICEF, WFP, accessed 30 June 2019, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/I8940EN.pdf.

This document shows some of the efforts and plans elaborated by UN agencies to tackle Sahel’s food insecurity. The joint efforts also analyze future risks for the region and its population. The importance of this document lies on how it both presents the issue and its dimensions, but also proposes solutions and inform of already existing efforts.

“The Sahel Programme,” UNODC, accessed 17 July 2019, https://www.unodc.org/westandcentralafrica/en/newrosenwebsite/sahel-programme/sahel-programme.html.

Shows improvement UN agencies have brought to some institutions.

“Sahel Regional Strategy 2013.” United Nations. Accessed 6 July 2019. https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/SahelStrategy2013_Dec2012.pdf .

Regional Plan for the Development of the Sahel Region in 2013.

“States Members of the United Nations and States members of specialized agencies,. Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform. Accessed 17 July 2019. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/memberstates.html.

Country evaluation of their own progress towards SDGs.

S/2019/549, “Activities of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel,” 5 July 2019, accessed 22 August 2019, https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/S_2019_549.pdf.

This source goes over recent activities of the Sahel , including but not limited to political and governance, security, sustainable development, and hu-manitarian trends.

“Understanding Electoral Violence To Better Prevent It;” UNOWAS. Last modified 6 December 2017, https://unowas.unmis-sions.org/understanding-electoral-violence-better-prevent-it.

Discusses all aspects of illicit activities during the electoral period, including the causes for the violence, how to approach the issue, and “contributions of regional and international instruments”.

“UN: Sahel region one of the most vulnerable to climate change.” Climate Change Center. Last modified 14 November 2018.

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https://www.climatecentre.org/news/1066/un-sahel-region-one-of-the-most-vulnerable-to-climate-change

Exposes the Sahel’s vulnerability to climate change and its effects, with focuses on the statistics behind beekeeping and possible solutions to the issue.

“UN Support Plan for the Sahel.” United Nations. Accessed 7 June 2019. https://www.un.org/africarenewal/sites/www.un.org.africarenewal/files/English%20Summ.

The most complete of all recent UN sources. It details the plans set by the international community regarding the region and reflects UNPBC’s own policy regarding the issue. It is a great starting point for delegates to begin their research and fits the foreign policies of all countries to some extent at least. The “UN Support Plan for the Sahel does not necessarily announce concrete measures to be implemented, but it certainly points towards the direction that is considered the most efficient and may serve as inspiration for possible clauses in a resolution.

“West Africa and the Sahel: Briefing and Consultations.” What’s in Blue. Last modified 23 July 2019. https://www.whatsinblue.org/2019/07/west-africa-and-the-sahel-briefing-and-consultations-2.php.

Backstage details of the negotiations in the Security Council regarding the Sahel, as well as an analysis of statements made from United Nations officials on future action.

“What is malnutrition?.” World Health Organization. Last modified 8 July 2016. https://www.who.int/features/qa/malnutrition/en/.

Explains essential concepts of malnutrition, including international health consequences, and what is being done to address the issue.

“Women vital for ‘new paradigm’ in Africa’s Sahel region, Security Council hears.” Africa Renewal Online. Accessed 10 Sep-tember 2019. https://www.un.org/africarenewal/news/women-vital-%E2%80%98new-paradigm%E2%80%99-africa%E2%80%99s-sahel-region-security-council-hears.

Discusses the benefits of gender empowerment in the Sahel, as well how to the Sudanese Prime Minister is taking action to rebuild the country and restore its values.

Non-UN Sources

Abdi, A., J. Seaquist, D. E. Tenenbaum, L. Eklundh, J. Ardö. “The supply and demand of net primary production in the Sahel.” Environmental Research Letters 9 (2014). Accessed 8 July 2019. https://iopscience.iop.org/arti-cle/10.1088/1748-9326/9/9/094003/pdf.

Compares crop production growth with population growth alongside the “supply and demand of net primary production in the Sahel”.

Ajala, Olayinka. “Nigeria is not ready to hold free and fair elections next year. Here’s why.” The Conversation. last modified 21 June 2018. https://theconversation.com/nigeria-is-not-ready-to-hold-free-and-fair-elections-next-year-heres-why-97300.

Analysis of the crucial elements for successful elections, and action that Nigeria must take in order to do so

Ampomah, Brenda. “The Impact of Climate Change on Water Supply in the Sahel Region: The case of Burkina Faso,” Inter-national Water Association, last modified 1 February 2019, https://iwa-network.org/the-impact-of-climate-change-on-water-supply-in-the-sahel-region/.

This source analyses the consequences of climate change on the access to clean water, specifically with an emphasis on the case of Burkina Faso.

Bawa, Jeffery. “Sahel: Governments achieve positive results with UN Support.” UNODC. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://www.

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unodc.org/unodc/en/press/releases/2018/February/sahel_-governments-achieve-positive-results-with-un-support.html.

Gives light on the UN’s collaboration with governments in the region, as well as its effectivity.

Belfakir, Fatiha. “G5 Sahel Force Struggles with Funding, Coordination.” Voice of America. 27 December 2018. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/g5-sahel-force-struggles-funding-coordination.

Explains the difficulties that the bloc faces and how it organizes itself. Specifically, this includes financial barriers, limited resources, and a vast opera-tional area.

Berger, Flore. “Jihadist violence and communal divisions fuel worsening conflict in Mali and wider Sahel.” International Institute for Strategic Studies. Last modified 20 June 2019. https://www.iiss.org/blogs/analysis/2019/06/conflicts-in-mali.

Notes the rising ethnic tensions in the Sahel and how the situation in the country has escalated due to overlapping conflict and barriers in security.

Bhandari, Meena. “Water Scarcity in the Sahel.” Pulitzer Center. Accessed 7 July 2019. http://pulitzercenter.org/your-story/water-scarcity-sahel.

Informs how the Sahelian population deals with water scarcity, as well as a personal story of Hawa, a young mother, who lives in the Sahel

Boeke, Sergei and de Valk, Giliam. “The Unforeseen 2012 Crisis in Mali: The Diverging Outcomes of Risk and Threat Analy-ses.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. 29 March 2019. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2019.1592356

This article provides a more in-depth analysis of the causes and consequential explosion of the crisis in 2012, as well as its development until now.

“Boko Haram.” Counter Extremism Project. Accessed 8 July 2019. https://www.counterextremism.com/threat/boko-haram. Gives light on the organization and activities of Boko Haram, including the geographical location of the group as well as its ideology.

Bonnecase, Vincent. “Building knowledge on a crisis. Famine in Sahelian Africa in the early 1970s.” Politique Africaine. March 2010. Accessed 6 July 2019. https://www.cairn.info/revue-politique-africaine-2010-3-page-23.htm#.

Article about the beginning of humanitarian aid in the region, as well as the development of nutritional research.

Borchers, Jens. “Why are ex-colonies in Africa so important to France?” Deutsche Welle. last modified 5 May 2017. https://www.dw.com/en/why-are-ex-colonies-in-africa-so-important-to-france/a-38680154.

Displays the history of most Sahelian countries and its consequence on their position in the international community.

Bassou, Abdelhak. “State, Borders and Territory in the Sahel: The Case of the G5 Sahel.” Policy Center for the New South. Last modified 6 October 2017. https://www.policycenter.ma/publications/state-borders-and-territory-sahel-case-g5-sahel.

Discusses the effect that the G5 Sahel will have on border control and other aspect of cooperation between members.

Burcu, Oana and Bertrand, Eloïse. “Explaining China’s Latest Catch in Africa.” The Diplomat. 16 January 2019. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/explaining-chinas-latest-catch-in-africa/.

Explains China’s political movement and dialogue in the midst of the Sahelian crisis; specifically, this source focuses on the historical background behind the movement and what led to its build-up.

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Chen, Yunnan. “Silk Road to the Sahel: African ambitions in China’s Belt and Road Initiative” 25 August 2018. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://wita.org/atp-research/silk-road-to-the-sahel-african-ambitions-in-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative/.

Explains China’s growing economic influence in the African continent, as well as cross-border railway networks, new economic zones, and industrial estates.

“Climate protection through soil rehabilitation”. Green Sahel. Accessed 28 June 2019. https://www.greensahel.org/.Presents a possible solution on how to work around the effects of climate change.

“Commonly Asked Questions About the Sahel Food Crisis.” CARE International. Last modified 21 January 2014. https://www.care.org/emergencies/sahel-food-crisis-faq.

Answers about the Sahelian food crisis, and how organizations can contribute to the global Great Green Wall Initiative.

Cooke, Jennifer. “Understanding the G5 Sahel Joint Force: Fighting Terror, Building Regional Security?.” Center for Strategic and International Studies. Last modified 15 November 2019. https://www.csis.org/analysis/understanding-g5-sahel-joint-force-fighting-terror-building-regional-security

This academic study provides an in-depth examination of the G5 Sahel, explaining the motivation of its members and allies and some of its major difficulties. The efficiency of the alliance is a major focus of study, and this source gives the information needed to start understanding the bloc members’ positions as well as how their interference may be improved in order to show better results. The G5S is the most important player in the region and understanding how it operates and its obstacles is extremely important.

“Council of Despair? The Fragmentation of UN Diplomacy.” International Crisis Groups. Last modified 30 April 2019. https://www.crisisgroup.org/global/b001-council-despair-fragmentation-un-diplomacy.

Shows the disagreement between member-states, as well as the impact of the issue and what should be done moving forward.

Coulouris, Renee. “Sahel Women Have The Potential To Solve Food Insecurity In The Region.” Diplomatic Courier. 20 August 2018. Accessed 29 June 2018. https://www.diplomaticourier.com/posts/sahel-women-have-the-potential-to-solve-food-insecurity-in-the-region

This source bases itself in a study published by FAO, which gives notice about the gender inequality, focusing on agriculture, and how tackling the gender gap could be beneficial on improving the region’s food security issue.

Dan Suleiman, Muhammad. “Sahel region, Africa.” The Conversation. Last modified 27 February 2017. https://theconversation.com/sahel-region-africa-72569.

This source provides information on recent occasions which occurred in individual countries in the region, as well as emphasizing the regions geographical importance

Darby, Megan. “Boko Haram terrorists thriving on climate crisis: report.” Climate Change News. Last modified 20 April 2017. https://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/04/20/boko-haram-terrorists-thriving-climate-crisis-report/.

This source comments on the effects of climate change on violence in the region, detailing how organized crime uses it as a facilitator to recruit new members. It is also recommended that delegates look at the Security Council’s resolution linked in the source over the conflict in Lake Chad, as it shows its approach to the situation in the region.

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Darby, Megan. “Climate change affecting stability across West Africa and Sahel: UN security council”. Climate Change News. 31 January 2018. Accessed 29 June 2019. https://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/01/31/climate-change-affecting-stability-across-west-africa-sahel-un-security-council/.

This source reports on the Security Council’s recognition of climate change as cause of conflict and instability, as well as the current action being taken in order to ensure a sustainable future for the international community.

de Haan, Cees, Etienne Dubern, Bernard Garancher, Catalina Quintero. “Pastoralism Development in the Sahel.” World Bank. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/24228/K8813.pdf?sequence=2.

This pdf document analyses the current state and future of pastoralist societies and development.

Diarra, Aïssa. “Sahel’s demographic transition.” Le Monde. Last modified 29 June 2019. https://mondediplo.com/2019/07/20women.

Reports over the evolution of female representation in the Sahel and action that various United Nations organizations, such as UNICEF, UNPF, and WHO, in order to better the status of women internationally.

Dioura, Cheick. and Diarra, Adama . “Mali Rebels Assault Gao, Northern Garrison.” Reuters. Last modified 31 March 2013. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mali-rebels-assault_n_1393415.

Reports the growth of the armed group, specifically including a case study on Mali assaults in Gao.

Dörrie, Peter. “Europe Has Spent Years Trying to Prevent ‘Chaos’ in the Sahel. It Failed.” World Politics Review. 25 June 2019. Ac-cessed 29 June 2019. https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/27977/europe-has-spent-years-trying-to-prevent-chaos-in-the-sahel-it-failed

A very recent report on the current state of the Sahel and an explanation of the political movement from countries outside the region to tackle its issues.

Drange, Bård. “The potential and limits of peace agreements.” Acord 25,. Last modified 11 February 2019. https://www.accord.org.za/conflict-trends/the-potential-and-limits-of-peace-agreements/.

This source highlights the limitations of 2015’s peace agreement, alongside background on the issue, political solutions, and peace agreements.

“Droughts”. BBC. Accessed 28 June 2019. https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zt9ncwx/revision/4.A case study about the impact of droughts in the region, including deforestation, overgrazing, and desertification.

Essa, Azad. “Why do youth in the Sahel join armed groups? It’s complicated.” Independent Online. Last modified 4 July 2018. https://www.iol.co.za/news/opinion/why-do-youth-in-the-sahel-join-armed-groups-its-complicated-15824524.

Explains the relation between abuse of authority in the Sahel and the growth of terrorist organizations.

“EU Support to G5 Sahel Joint Force”. African Union. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://www.africa-eu-partnership.org/en/proj-ects/eu-support-g5-sahel-joint-force.

Completes the information over the alliance’s background and objectives.

Kelly, Fergus. “G5 Sahel leaders again call for UN assistance to fund Joint Force.” The Defense Post. 6 February 2019. Accessed

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30 June 2019. https://thedefensepost.com/2019/02/06/g5-sahel-joint-force-leaders-call-un-funding/Demonstrates the bloc’s reliance on assistance to fully achieve its objective

F. Jane Madgwick, Robert Oakes, Fred Pearce, Rebecca E. Tharme. “Wetlands and Human Migration in the Sahel.” Wetlands In-ternational. May 2017. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://www.wetlands.org/publications/water-shocks-wetlands-human-migration-sahel/.

This report relates the lack of access to clean water and migration, due to worsening human conditions

Golovko, Katia. “Education and language: global and local strategies of Sahelian jihadism.” Security Praxis. Last modified 3 May 2018. https://securitypraxis.eu/education-language-sahel-jihadism/

Provides an extensive explanation of Sahelian education system, explain with objectivity some of its major flaws. It compares two of the most common school systems, and how they appear as opposites. It also explains the symbolism that schools have in the region, and how it is used by terrorist organiza-tions to spread their message and challenge the government.

Gubbels, Peter. “A new drumbeat for the Sahel.” Humanitarian Practice Network. October 2012. Accessed 22 August 2019. https://odihpn.org/magazine/a-new-drumbeat-for-the-sahel/.

Explains the origins of the humanitarian crisis in the Sahel.

Hahonou, Eric Komlavi. “Security in the Sahel: Corruption, Insecurity and Border Control in Niger.” International Development Research Group (February 2016). Accessed 10 July 2019. http://pure.diis.dk/ws/files/422938/PB_Sahel_WEB.pdf.

This pdf document discusses corruption practices present in Sahelian society, with case studies on cross-border smuggling and the direct impact of security reform.

Harmsworth, Jill. “Small-Scale Projects and Sahel Nomads.” Cultural Survival. Last modified 12 February 2010. https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/small-scale-projects-and-sahel-nomads.

Analysis of possible solutions to educate children of nomadic communities both on a short-term and long-term timeline.

“Harnessing Renewable Energy for Development in the Sahel.” United Nations Economic and Social Council. Accessed 29 June 2019. https://www.un.org/ecosoc/sites/www.un.org.ecosoc/files/files/en/2018doc/Energie_Renouvelable_Engl_VF.PDF

This UN study dives into how the Sahel region might benefit from renewable energy, such as possible improvements to rural economy.

“If Victims Become Perpetrators.” International Alert. Last modified 28 June 2018. https://www.international-alert.org/sites/default/files/Sahel_ViolentExtremismVulnerabilityResilience_EN_2018.pdf.

This report goes into how corruption and poor governance impacts society to stimulate an increase in the influence of violent extremism in the region. The report is based mostly on surveys carried with Sahelian communities and serves to show and analyze the popular opinion over the reasons for such insecurity in the region. It shows why state authority is often illegitimate for many citizens and how this feeling is detrimental to the interests of Sahelian countries.

“Informal Interactive Dialogue with the Peacebuilding Commission on the Sahel.” What’s in Blue. Last modified 19 March 2019. https://www.whatsinblue.org/2019/03/informal-interactive-dialogue-with-the-peacebuilding-commission-on-the-sahel.php.

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Explains UNPBC’s expectations in the region, which includes the informal dialogues with the UNPBC in the Sahel.

“IMF Member Quotas and Voting Power, and IMF Board of Governors,” International Monetary Fund, 22 September 2019, https://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/memdir/members.aspx.

Details the voting shares and capital commitments of IMF and World Bank member countries. A valuable resource for determining which countries are best represented in those institutions.

“Investing today in the Sahel for the Africa of tomorrow.” Sahel Alliance. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://www.alliance-sahel.org/en/.

Announces the principles of the partnership between the EU and the African Union with the GS Sahel, and also features the ongoing projects.

“Jihadists are trying to take over the Sahel.” The Economist. Last modified 12 July 2018. https://www.economist.com/lead-ers/2018/07/12/jihadists-are-trying-to-take-over-the-sahel.

Explains the level of the terrorist threat in the region as well as defining the armed groups’ goals.

Jezequel, Jean-Hervé. “Central Mali: Putting a Stop to Ethnic Cleansing.” International Crisis Group. Last modified 25 March 2019. https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/sahel/mali/centre-du-mali-enrayer-le-nettoyage-ethnique.

Discusses the causes of the ethnic cleansing incidents in the Sahel.

Korybko, Andrew. “The Mali-Burkina Faso-Niger Border Triangle Is the New “Syraq” (Syria-Iraq).” Global Research. Last modi-fied 17 May 2019. https://www.globalresearch.ca/mali-burkina-faso-niger-border-triangle-new-syraq/5677712.

Highlights the level of state absence in the region by analyzing the state of the crisis in the Sahel in terms of terrorism.

Lazareva, Inna. “Nearly Half a Million Children Aren’t in School in Africa’s Sahel Region.” Global Citizen. Last modified 28 Feb-ruary 2019. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/sahel-education-crisis-unicef/.

Tackles the topic of school closure and evasion in the Sahel from the perspective of statistics and UN officials.

Lewis, David. “Analysis: Mali coup shakes cocktail of instability in Sahel.” Reuters. Last modified 24 March 2012. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mali-sahel-instability/analysis-mali-coup-shakes-cocktail-of-instability-in-sahel-idUS-BRE82N07120120324.

Demonstrate the effect that Mali’s instability has in other countries, as well as the lack of organization present in governmental groups in the region.

Lyammouri, Rida. “Quranic Schools in the Sahel and the Radicalisation Risk.” Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. Last modified 5 July 2016. https://institute.global/insight/co-existence/quranic-schools-sahel-and-radicalisation-risk.

Explains the risks and weaknesses of Quranic schools.

“Mali: Events of 2018.” Human Rights Watch. Accessed 30 June 2018. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chap-ters/mali

This report shows the latest developments in the conflict and political instability in Mali, as well as providing its implication on human rights abuse.

“Mali attack: At least 95 killed in ethnic Dogon village.” Al Jazeera. Last modified 11 June 2019. https://www.aljazeera.com/

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news/2019/06/scores-killed-attack-central-mali-village-190610131528097.html.This report exemplifies the ethnic tensions seen in the Sahel.

“Mali prime minister resigns after Ogossagou massacre.” Deutsche Welle. Last modified 19 April 2019. https://www.dw.com/en/mali-prime-minister-resigns-after-ogossagou-massacre/a-48395948.

Reports over the resignation of former Malian Prime-Minister.

Mathieu, Aurore. “Sahel: Priorities for Resilience and Development.” Oxfam International, Save the Children, Action Contre La Faim. De-cember 2018. Accessed 22 August 2019. https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/620609/bp-sahel-priorities-resilience-development-011218-en.pdf?sequence=7.

Clarifies how the numerous food crisis the region has faced hindered its community.

May, John. “Advancing Solutions in the Sahel.” Center for Global Development. Last modified 1 October 2012, https://www.cgdev.org/blog/advancing-solutions-sahel.

Discusses how to use SDGs in favor of Sahelian development., with a focus on population growth.

Muggah, Robert and Luengo Cabrera, José. “The Sahel is engulfed by violence. Climate change, food insecurity and extremists are largely to blame.” World Economic Forum. Last modified 23 January 2019. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/all-the-warning-signs-are-showing-in-the-sahel-we-must-act-now/.

This source provides a general information over all the major subtopics discussed in the background guide, providing additional links that may help expand upon them. By itself it does not fully explore any of the necessary topics, but it is useful to understand the scope of the issue and how one problem faced by the Sahel directly affects another problem that at first might seem completely unrelatable.

Nickels, Benjamin. “Interdiction Efforts Adapt as Drug Trafficking in Africa Modernizes.” Africa Center for Strategic Studies. Last modified 7 November 2017. https://africacenter.org/spotlight/interdiction-efforts-adapt-drug-trafficking-africa-modernizes/.

Relates Boko Haram with drug trafficking, and the international connection of the regional drug trafficking issue.

“Nigeria: Presidential Election Marred by Fraud, Violence.” Human Rights Watch. Last modified 28 April 2007. https://www.hrw.org/news/2007/04/25/nigeria-presidential-election-marred-fraud-violence.

Reports the failure of Nigerian elections, in terms of equality and justice by highlighting a case in which voters were intimidated and turned away.

“Nigeria’s Tramadol crisis: The drug fuelling death, despair and Boko Haram.” BBC. Last modified 1 June 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-44306086.

Explains one of Boko Haram’s impact on public health.

“Persistent needs in the Sahel, conflict driving massive displacement.” ReliefWeb. Last modified 6 March 2019. https://reliefweb.int/report/mali/persistent-needs-sahel-conflict-driving-massive-displacement.

Presents the displacement issues in the Sahel.

Penney, Joe. “Mali’s Model Democracy Myth.” Global Policy Forum. Last modified 8 February 2013. https://www.globalpolicy.

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org/home/269-mali/52270-malis-model-democracy-myth.html.Contradicts the idea that Mali’s democracy was as efficient as its memory.

Peyton, Nellie. “Sahel must tackle child marriage for peace, says population expert.” Reuters. 17 June 2019. Accessed 28 June 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-westafrica-child-marriage/sahel-must-tackle-child-marriage-for-peace-says-population-expert-idUSKCN1TI29V

Introduces the issue of excessive population growth as a factor that contributes to instability, as well as introducing one of the causes of said population growth.

Pradelle, Jean-Marc. “Rapid population growth of the Sahel Region: A Major Challenge for the Next Generation.” Ideas for Development. 26 February 2019. Accessed 28 June 2019. https://ideas4development.org/en/population-growth-sahel-challenge-generation/

Presents the expectations for demographic changes in the region, allowing delegates to develop long-term solutions with better precision.

“Priority Investment Program.” G5 Sahel Permanent Secretariat. Last modified October 2018. Accessed 10 September 2019. https://www.g5sahel.org/images/DOCPIP/PIP_G5S_EN__VF.pdf.

Demonstrates the areas of interest for the G5S in terms of investment.

“The Projects.’ Sahel Alliance. Accessed 10 September 2019. https://www.alliance-sahel.org/en/the-projects/.Show the alliance’s main investments in the region, and how its members are “taking action through more than 500 projects.”

Roby, Christin. “Nexus of climate and conflict exacerbates Sahel food security crisis.” Devex. 13 August 2018. Accessed 28 June 2019. https://www.devex.com/news/nexus-of-climate-and-conflict-exacerbates-sahel-food-security-crisis-93160

Gives light on the main causes of food insecurity in the Sahel, as well as how many are affected by it. This source has an interesting focus on how the issue is being seen and tackled by multiple UN agencies as well as looking in some Sahelian countries individually. Additionally, it shows that food scarcity has lasting effects on Sahelian society, and that resolving the issue of food security also involves resolving part of its social instability.

Roussellier, Jacques. “A Role for Russia in the Western Sahara?” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 5 June 2018. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/76532.

Explains how Russia is reacting to the conflict in the Sahel.

“Russia moves in on the Sahel.” Menas Associates. 14 September 2017. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://www.menas.co.uk/blog/russia-moves-sahel/.

Illustrates some of the tension and differences that may appear between this and the second bloc.

“Sahel: The world’s most neglected and conflict-ridden region.” Norwegian Refugee Council. Accessed 27 July 2019, https://www.nrc.no/shorthand/fr/sahel---the-worlds-most-neglected-and-conflict-ridden-region/index.html.

Offers data that quantifies the precarious situation in which human development finds itself in the Sahel.

Scollins, Liam. “Disarmament and SDG 16.” Medium. 24 August 2018. Accessed 30 June 2019. https://medium.com/nonvio-lenceny/disarmament-and-sdg-16-86f91fb18b87

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Gives a look on the scope of SDG 16 and connects it with the Sahel.

Schultz, Karl and Adler, Linus. Addressing Climate Change Impacts in the Sahel Using Vulnerability Reduction Credits (Springer, 2017). Accessed 07 July 2019. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-59096-7_17#citeas.

Relates troubling agriculture and climate change with an emphasis on statistics that correlate between the two.

Sears ,Jonathan. “On the brink: why 2019 may be another bad year for beleaguered Mali.” The Conversation. Last modified 4 December 2018. https://theconversation.com/on-the-brink-why-2019-may-be-another-bad-year-for-beleaguered-ma-li-107444.

This source goes over the major issues present in Mali, as well as briefly mentions previous action taken in order to improve the current situation in the country.

Scott, Zach. “Libya and the Sahel: Has a Dictator’s Demise Doomed the Region?” Foreign Policy. Last modified 16 July 2013. https://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2013/07/16/libya-and-the-sahel-has-a-dictators-demise-doomed-the-region/.

Explains how the Libyan Civil War affected the region, including the long-lasting impact left on the country as a result of the previous government.

Stojanovik, Marco. “A Revised Approach Is Needed To Implement Peace In Mali” The Organization for World Peace. Last modified 13 July 2019. https://theowp.org/reports/a-revised-approach-is-needed-to-implement-peace-in-mali/.

Goes through solutions for the Mali situation based on recent failures, as well as why the crisis in Mali continues to remain unsolvable.

Tall, Ousman. “Herders vs Farmers: Resolving deadly conflict in the Sahel and West Africa.” Medium. Last modified 18 April 2018. https://medium.com/@OECD/herders-vs-farmers-resolving-deadly-conflict-in-the-sahel-and-west-africa-e096702b5055

The subject of this analysis is an example of the relation between food security, violence and climate change. It also depicts one of the many conflicts that happens constantly in the region, not only by extreme jihadist organizations. The escalation of tensions between herders and farmers in the Sahel is of great importance because it shows to what lengths many regular inhabitants of the region go in order to pursue survival. Conflict in the Sahel has many faces and many reasons and focusing only in organized crime is something delegates must avoid.

Terror attacks on the rise in Mali: UN.” France 24. Last modified 5 March 2019. https://www.france24.com/en/20190305-terror-attacks-rise-mali-un.

Reports over the increasing number of attacks and death in Mali.

“The Sahel in Flames.” The New Humanitarian. Last modified 31 May 2019. https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/in-depth/sahel-flames-Burkina-Faso-Mali-Niger-militancy-conflict.

Informs over the rising violence in the region, focusing on tribal tensions.

“The African Peace Facility: EU Support to G5 Sahel Joint Force.” European Commission. Accessed 18 July 2019. https://www.africa-eu-partnership.org/sites/default/files/apf_factsheet_-_g5_sahel.pdf.

Demonstrates the partnership between the EU and AU, as well as details on the historical background of the partnership and past action.

Thomas-Johnson, Amandla. “Massacre in Mali: How the ‘war on terror’ fuels tribal violence in the Sahel.” Middle East Eye. Last

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modified 28 March 201. https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/massacre-mali-how-war-terror-fuels-tribal-violence-sahel.

How the interference in the Sahel increases the overall tension in the region.

Whalter, Olivier. “The blurred boundaries of political violence in the Sahel-Sahara.” Development Matters”. 29 September 2017. Accessed 28 June 2019. https://oecd-development-matters.org/2017/09/29/the-blurred-boundaries-of-political-vio-lence-in-the-sahel-sahara/

Explains the effects of poor border control on the proliferation of criminal organizations.

Yameogo, Diane, Georgina Thompson, Helen Wylie. “School closures in the Sahel double in the last two years due to grow-ing insecurity – UNICEF.” UNICEF. Last modified 27 February 2019. https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/school-closures-sahel-double-last-two-years-due-growing-insecurity-unicef.

This source highlights about access to education in the Sahel through the use of statics and personal quotes; specifically, this source focuses on the work of UNICEF.

Zogg, Benno. “Organized Crime: Fueling Corruption and Mali’s Desert War.” The Global Observatory. 27 February 2018. Accessed 29 June 2019. https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/02/organized-crime-corruption-mali/.

Explains the relation between organized crime and corruption, with a focus on the situation in Mali, the most problematic country in the region.

Topic B

UN Sources

“As Mission in Liberia Closes, Security Council Intends to Consider Best Practices in Ongoing Efforts to Enhance Effective-ness of Peacekeeping | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases.” United Nations. 19 April 2018. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/sc13308.doc.htm.

This article discusses what the UN plans to do after the end of UNMIL’s mandate.

“Basic Education.” UNICEF Liberia. Accessed 27 June 2019. https://www.unicef.org/liberia/basic-education.This source describes the situation of education in Liberia and explains how UNICEF is helping support solutions.

“Combating Malnutrition.” UNICEF Liberia. Accessed 19 July 2019. https://www.unicef.org/liberia/combating-malnutrition.This source describes the current prevalence of malnutrition in Liberia and explains how UNICEF is helping support solutions.

“Domestic Resource Mobilization.” World Bank. 04 October 2018. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/governance/brief/domestic-resource-mobilization.

This source details what domestic resource mobilization is as well as why it is important.

General Assembly Resolution 60/180. The Peacebuilding Commission. A/RES/60/180. (20 December 2005). Available undocs.org/A/RES/60/180.

This is the GA Resolution which called for, and detailed the foreseeable structure of, the UNPBC. General Assembly Resolution 70/262. Review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture. A/RES/70/262. (27 April 2016).

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Available from undocs.org/A/RES/70/262.. This is the GA Resolution which is a later Review of the UNPBC architecture which calls for some adjustments.

“How Was the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission Established? - Ask DAG!” United Nations. Accessed 24 July 2019. http://ask.un.org/faq/22821.

This source explains how the UNPBC was established.

“Investing in Rural People in Liberia.” International Fund for Agricultural Development. Accessed 19 July 2019. https://www.ifad.org/documents/38714170/39150184/Investing+in+rural+people+in+Liberia_f.pdf/0d3bdf17-46a8-48a3-8d21-a021ea8a3165.

This document suggests measure for eradicating poverty in Liberia with a focus on agriculture and rural Liberians.

“Liberia: Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace in Practice | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING.” United Nations. Accessed 14 July 2019. https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/news/liberia-peacebuilding-and-sustaining-peace-practice.

This is a simple, comprehensive summary of the UNPBC’s work in Liberia.

“Liberia.” World Food Programme. Accessed 27 June 2019. https://www1.wfp.org/countries/liberia. This is a summary of the plight that Liberia is in and what the WFP is doing to help.

“Liberia | Human Development Indices and Indicators: 2018 Statistical Update.” United Nations Development Programme. 2018. Accessed 10 September 2019. http://hdr.undp.org/sites/all/themes/hdr_theme/country-notes/LBR.pdf.

This is a 2018 report from the UNDP about human development statistics in Liberia.

“Liberia Overview.” World Bank. Accessed 9 September 2019. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/liberia/overview.This is the World Bank’s overview on Liberia over multiple sectors with lots of helpful statistics and important information.

“Mandate | UNITED NATIONS PEACEBUILDING.” United Nations. Accessed 28 June 2019. https://www.un.org/peace-building/commission/mandate.

This is the UNPBC mandate which details what its duties and jurisdiction are.

“PBC Ambassadorial Meeting on Liberia.” United Nations Peacebuilding Committee. 31 January 2019. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/20190131_pbc_csc_liberia_chairs_summary_.pdf.

This is a document about the most recent (at time of writing) UNPBC meeting about the situation in Liberia.

“SDGs .:. Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform.” United Nations. Accessed 17 July 2019. https://sustainabledevelop-ment.un.org/sdgs.

This is a description of the SDGs.

Security Council Resolution 1645 (2005), S/RES/1645 (2005), (20 December 2005), available from undocs.org/S/RES/1645%20(2005).

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This is the Security Council Resolution which called for, and detailed the foreseeable structure of, the UNPBC.

“Sustaining Peace and Securing Development Liberia Peacebuilding Plan,” Government of the Republic of Liberia; United Nations Liberia, 20 March 2017, Accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/040417_sg_letter_of_4_april_liberia.pdf.

This is the Liberian government’s peacebuilding plan in collaboration with the UNPBC.

“Timeline.” United Nations Mission in Liberia. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://unmil.unmissions.org/timeline.This is a timeline of significant events and UNMIL’s actions in Liberia.

“UNDP in Liberia.” United Nations Development Program. Accessed 27 July 2019. http://www.lr.undp.org/.UNDP’s main page about Liberia, explaining some of its work and what has been done.

“United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office Approves US$5M for Liberia.” United Nations Peacebuilding. 23 January 2019. Ac-cessed 27 June 2019. https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/news/united-nations-peacebuilding-support-office-approves-us5m-liberia.

This is an article from UNPBC talking about a recent approval of 5 million USD for various projects for Liberian peacebuilding.

“UNMIL Peacekeeping.” United Nations. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/unmil.This is a summary of UNMIL’s peacekeeping work in Liberia.

“Vulnerable Employment.” UN WOMEN. Accessed 18 August 2019. https://esa.un.org/unmigration/documents/retreat/UN%20WOMEN_Indicator_vulnerable_employment.pdf.

This is a document from UN Women explaining what vulnerable employment is.

Non-UN Sources

“2017/2018 Annual Report.” Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission. 2018. Accessed 27 July 2019. http://lacc.gov.lr/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2017-2018-Draft-Annual-Report.pdf.

This is the LACC’s Annual Report about corruption in Liberia.

“About The LACC: Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission.” Liberia AntiCorruption Commission. Accessed 06 July 2019. http://lacc.gov.lr/about-lacc/.

This is the LACC’s description of their makeup and what the commission is for.

“Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want.” African Union. 12 October 2014. Accessed 17 July 2019. https://au.int/en/agenda2063/overview.

This is an overview of Africa 2063 which is a master plan with the objective of improving Africa in “the global powerhouse of the future.

“Agricultural Productivity, Resources, and Related Terms.” Michel Serres Institute for Resources and Public Goods. Accessed 10 Septem-ber 2019. http://institutmichelserres.ens-lyon.fr/spip.php?article39.

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This gives a definition for certain terms, among which is “agricultural productivity.”

“Assessment of Chronic Food Insecurity in Liberia, June 2017 - Liberia.” ReliefWeb. 30 June 2017. Accessed 27 June 2019. https://reliefweb.int/report/liberia/assessment-chronic-food-insecurity-liberia-june-2017.

This assessment uses a collection of data on Liberian food insecurity to classify and rank the severity of chronic food insecurity in each of the Liberian counties.

“Basic Information.” Economic Community of West African States. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.ecowas.int/about-ecowas/basic-information/.

This is ECOWAS source which gives basic information about what ECOWAS is and what it hopes to accomplish.

Baysah, David Woods. “Liberia Launches “getting to Best in Education” Program.” Global Partnership for Education. 10 Sep-tember 2018. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.globalpartnership.org/blog/liberia-launches-getting-best-education-program.

This is a GPE article explaining its funding of the “Getting to Best in Education” program and why education is so important.

Brennan, Kailey. “Furthering the Development of Sustainable Agriculture in Liberia.” The Borgen Project. 28 January 2018. Ac-cessed 19 July 2019. https://borgenproject.org/sustainable-agriculture-in-liberia/.

This article explains agriculture’s role in the Liberian economy and the challenges it faces in making the sector stronger.

“Building Democracy: An Historic Transition in Liberia With a Helping Hand From the U.S.” US Global Leadership Coalition. Accessed 14 July 2019. https://www.usglc.org/blog/building-democracy-historic-transition-liberia-helping-hand-u-s/.

This article explains how the US has helped Liberia in its path to democracy and a less volatile political climate.

Cambridge Dictionary. Accessed 18 August 2019. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/reconciliation.This is the formal Cambridge Dictionary Definition for “reconciliation.”

Chavy, Alicia. “Under the Radar: Chronic Food Insecurity Could Hurt Liberia’s Economic Growth and Stability.” Global Risk In-sights. 21 July 2018. Accessed 27 June 2019. https://globalriskinsights.com/2018/07/food-insecurity-liberia-economic-growth-stability-agriculture/.

This article explains the widespread impact of food insecurity in Liberia, focusing on its impact on the economy.

Chen, James. “LRD (Liberian Dollar).” Investopedia. 21 July 2018. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lrd.asp.

This is a writeup about the Liberian dollar and its history and a description of its current state.

Clark, Prue and James Harding Giahyue. “Liberians Are Worried Their Country Is Sliding into Economic Uncertainty under President Weah.” Quartz Africa. 28 May 2019. Accessed 27 June 2019. https://qz.com/africa/1629355/liberias-george-weah-is-struggling-with-a-sinking-economy/.

This outlines some of the concerns that the Liberian people have about the Weah administration, mainly in the economic sector.

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“Corruption Perceptions Index 2018.” Transparency International. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018.This index shows how prevalent citizens perceive corruption to be in their country.

“Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2013--Liberia.” U.S. Department of State. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2013humanrightsreport/index.htm?year=2013&dlid=220129.

This is a US Department of State Report about the situation of human rights in Liberia detailing specific types of violations and their presence in Liberia.

Das, Chandrima. “Liberia’s Transition from Peacekeeping to Peacebuilding.” United Nations Foundation. 11 April 2018. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://unfoundation.org/blog/post/liberias-transition-peacekeeping-peacebuilding/.

This details UNMIL’s accomplishments in Liberia and what remains to be done. It also details US support for Liberia and the UNMIL.

Dodoo, Lennart. “Liberia: ECOWAS Ambassador Disappointed Protest Petition to President Weah Was Not Delivered.” Front Page Africa. 8 June 2019. Accessed 28 June 2019. https://frontpageafricaonline.com/news/liberia-ecowas-ambassador-disappointed-protest-petition-to-president-weah-was-not-delivered/.

This is an article illustrating ECOWAS’s position on the situation in Liberia and their role in the recent protest.

“Domestic Resource Mobilization.” U.S. Agency for International Development. 21 November 2018. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/economic-growth-and-trade/domestic-resource-mobilization.

This source provides a definition for domestic resource mobilization.

Dopoe, Robin. “LISGIS Report: Half of Liberians Live in Abject Poverty.” Liberian Observer. 11 April 2018. Accessed 27 June 2019. https://www.liberianobserver.com/news/lisgis-report-half-of-liberians-live-in-abject-poverty/.

This article explains a LISGIS report that shows the economic plight of many of Liberia’s citizens.

“Economic Community of West African States.” International Democracy Watch. Accessed 28 June 2019. http://www.internation-aldemocracywatch.org/index.php/economic-community-of-west-african-states-.

This source gives a brief description of the history and goals of ECOWAS.

“Economic Community of West African States(ECOWAS).” Economic Community of West African States. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.ecowas.int/member-states/.

This is a list of ECOWAS’s member states as defined from the entity itself.

“ECOWAS and the Subregional Peacekeeping in Liberia.” The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance. 25 September 1995. Accessed 28 June 2019. https://sites.tufts.edu/jha/archives/66.

This article details ECOWAS’s role in the First Liberian Civil War.

“Education in Liberia.” Global Partnership for Education. Accessed 27 June 2019. https://www.globalpartnership.org/country/liberia.

This is the main page about education in Liberia and contains a small summary about its current state.

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“Education System in Liberia.” Scholaro Pro. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.scholaro.com/pro/countries/liberia/educa-tion-system.

This is a page which includes a chart with notes on each level of education in Liberia.

Edwards, Sophie. “What next for Liberia’s Controversial Education Experiment?” Devex. 28 September 2018. Accessed 18 Au-gust 2019. https://www.devex.com/news/what-next-for-liberia-s-controversial-education-experiment-93251.

This article details what the next steps for PSL as it becomes LEAP after its third year was approved.

“’Every Line In PAPD Will Be Implemented,’ Pres. Weah Vows.” Executive Mansion. 28 October 2018. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.emansion.gov.lr/2press.php?news_id=4696&related=7&pg=sp.

This is a government publication about a speech by Weah about the implementation about the PAPD which essentially summarizes and quotes much of the speech.

“Federal Foreign Office - Liberia.” German Federal Foreign Office. June 2018. Accessed 17 July 2019. https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aussenpolitik/liberia/235414.

This article explains German relations with Liberia.

Fisman, Raymond, and Edward Miguel. “Conflicts Cause Poverty, or Is It Vice-Versa?” VOX EU Center for Economic and Policy Research Policy Portal, 29 November 2008. https://voxeu.org/article/conflicts-cause-poverty-or-it-vice-versa.

This article explores the link between poverty and conflict with a brief exploration specifically in sub-Saharan Africa.

“Food Security: Definition & General Information.” Disabled World. Accessed 19 July 2019. https://www.disabled-world.com/fitness/nutrition/foodsecurity/.

This gives a definition of food security.

“Food Security Desk Review for Liberia 2016-2020.” USAID Office of Food for Peace. February 2016. Accessed 18 August 2019. https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/FFP-Desk-Review-Liberia-Feb2016v2.pdf.

This is a USAID review of food security in Liberia over 4 years, including some suggestions and projected values.

Giahyue, James. “Weah Sworn in as Liberian President, Vows to End Corruption.” Reuters. 22 January 2018. Accessed 14 July 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-liberia-politics/weah-sworn-in-as-liberia-president-vows-to-end-corrup-tion-idUSKBN1FB24B.

This article shows Weah’s stance on corruption and the promises he initially made.

Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede. “Civil War.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Accessed 19 July 2019. https://www.britannica.com/topic/civil-war.

This is an encyclopedia entry about civil war as a whole.

Goa, Iris. “5 Organizations Working to Reduce Poverty in Liberia.” The Borgen Project. 26 March 2019. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://borgenproject.org/addressing-poverty-in-liberia/.

This is a list of organizations working on mitigating poverty in Liberia with a short description of each and its work.

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“Governments of Liberia and Indonesia Established Bilateral Cooperation.” Government of the Republic of Liberia Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Accessed 17 July 2019. http://www.mofa.gov.lr/public2/2press.php?news_id=765&related=7&pg=sp.

This illustrates the relations between Liberia and Indonesia.

Harmon, William Q. “Corruption Greatest Threat to Liberia’s Future.” Liberian Observer. 11 June 2018. Accessed 27 June 2019. https://www.liberianobserver.com/news/corruption-greatest-threat-to-liberias-future/.

This article details how detrimental corruption is to Liberia.

Hegre, Håvard, Gudrun Østby, and Clionadh Raleigh. “Poverty and Civil War Events.” Journal of Conflict Resolution53, no. 4 (2009): 598-623. doi:10.1177/0022002709336459.

This is a journal article explaining the link between poverty and civil war.

“Help Us Help Ourselves: Education in the Conflict to Post-Conflict Transition in Liberia.” Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children. March 2006. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/images/zdocs/lr_ed.pdf.

This explores the condition of the education system in Liberia with a focus on women and girls.

“History: Conflict in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Côte D’Ivoire.” Conciliation Resources. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.c-r.org/where-we-work/west-africa/history-conflict-sierra-leone-guinea-liberia-and-c-te-d-ivoire.

This explores the effects of civil war in Liberia and surrounding countries who are also ECOWAS members.

Holsoe, Svend E., Donald Rahl Petterson, and Abeodu Bowen Jones. “Liberia.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 10 July 2019. Accessed 17 July 2019. https://www.britannica.com/place/Liberia.

This is an encyclopedia entry for Liberia covering the country as a whole, including its natural resource availability.

“India-Liberia Relations.” Embassy of India. ABIDJAN-COTE D’IVOIRE. Accessed 28 June 2019. http://www.eoiabidjan.gov.in/page/india-liberia-relations/.

This source from the Indian Embassy in the Ivory Coast covers relations between India and Liberia.

Kollie, Stephen D. “Liberia’s President Weah 100 Days In: Promises Made, Promises Kept?” African Arguments. 02 May 2018. Accessed 27 June 2019. https://africanarguments.org/2018/05/02/liberia-president-weah-100-days-in-promises-made-promises-kept/.

This article focuses on Weah’s actions as of 100 days into his presidency as they pertain to his campaign promises.

Kwaja, Chris. “The Role of Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) in Post-Conflict Rehabilitation: Lessons from Liberia,” NUST Journal of International Peace & Stability1 (2017): 53-71, Accessed 28 June 2019, https://watson.brown.edu/files/watson/imce/HI2/research/ecowas%20and%20post%20conflict%20rehabilitation%20in%20liberia.pdf.

This journal article explores ECOWAS’s role in post-conflict recovery by drawing data from how it has aided Liberia.

Laws, David. “Liberia’s Big School Experiment.” BBC News. 03 January 2018. Accessed 27 June 2019. https://www.bbc.com/

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news/business-42413639.This article explains the PSL and its purpose and effectiveness.

Left, Sarah. “War in Liberia.” The Guardian. 04 August 2003. Accessed 18 August 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/aug/04/westafrica.qanda.

This is a summary of the civil war period and its causes and effects in Liberia.

“Letter to President Weah: Endorsing Accountability for Past Crimes at the UN General Assembly.” Human Rights Watch. 20 September 2018. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/09/20/letter-president-weah-endorsing-accountability-past-crimes-un-general-assembly.

This is a letter from HRW to Weah calling and urging for reconciliation efforts in Liberia.

“Liberia: Hunger Relief in Africa.” Action Against Hunger. Accessed 19 July 2019. https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/coun-tries/africa/liberia.

This webpage illustrates Liberia’s plight in terms of hunger and food security and lists a few of the efforts from Action Against Hunger to combat the situation.

“Liberia: Impacts of the War.” PeacebuildingData.org. Accessed 26 June 2019. http://www.peacebuildingdata.org/research/libe-ria/about-liberia/impacts-war.

This website contains many statistics pertaining to peacebuilding in Liberia.

“Liberia: infrastructure and Inclusive Growth,” African Development Bank Group, 2013, Accessed 06 July 2019, https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Project-and-Operations/Liberia_-_Infrastructure_and_Inclusive_Growth_-_Full_Report.pdf.

This is a report from the AfDB about the situation of Liberia’s infrastructure and some measures detailing how to mitigate the situation.

“LIBERIA: LPAC, USAID Pledges Support In Fighting Corruption In Schools.” The World News. 19 August 2019. Accessed 19 August 2019. https://theworldnews.net/lr-news/liberia-lpac-usaid-pledges-support-in-fighting-corruption-in-schools.

This is an article explaining some of the measures that are being taken by organizations to combat corruption in the education sector.

“Liberia: Petition to Save the State 2019.” AllAfrica.com. 7 June 2019. Accessed 9 September 2019. https://allafrica.com/sto-ries/201906070444.html.

This is the petition that the CaP intended to deliver to President Weah during the June 2019 protest.

“Liberia: Police Corruption Harms Rights, Progress.” Human Rights Watch. 22 April 2013. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/08/22/liberia-police-corruption-harms-rights-progress.

This source from the HRW explains the impact of police corruption on Liberians’ lives.

“Liberia: USAID/LPAC Boss Stresses Significance of Curbing Corruption In Liberian Schools.” Front Page Africa. 15 August 2019. Accessed 18 August 2019. https://frontpageafricaonline.com/crime/liberia-usaid-lpac-boss-stresses-significance-of-curbing-corruption-in-liberian-schools/.

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This is an article explaining the importance of combating corruption in the education sector in Liberia.

“Liberia.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States. 20 May 2019. Accessed 06 July 2019. http://www.fao.org/giews/countrybrief/country.jsp?code=LBR.

This source contains statistical data on Liberian agriculture.

“Liberia.” Food Security Portal. Accessed 27 June 2019. http://www.foodsecurityportal.org/liberia.This source contains statistical data on Liberian food security.

“Liberia.” Human Rights Watch. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.hrw.org/africa/liberia.This webpage is the HRW’s main page about Liberia.

“Liberia.” The Observatory of Economic Complexity. Accessed 17 July 2019. https://oec.world/en/profile/country/lbr/#Destinations.This page contains comprehensive data about Liberia’s economy including exports and imports.

Cantrell, Steve. “Liberia’s First Successful Steps Toward “Getting to Best”.” World Innovation Summit for Education. 10 October 2017. Accessed 18 August 2019. https://www.wise-qatar.org/liberia-steps-getting-to-best-steve-cantrell/.

This article explores the “Getting to Best” program and discusses the PSL with a focus on the future of education reform in Liberia.

“Liberia - Agricultural Sectors.” Export.gov. 29 March 29, 2019. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.export.gov/article?id=Liberia-Agricultural-Sectors.

This is an exploration of the Liberian agricultural sector, breaking down its important parts.

“Liberia Central Bank Denies It Lost $100 Million.” Reuters. 02 October 2018. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-liberia-money/liberia-central-bank-denies-it-lost-100-million-idUSKCN1MC2RE.

This article explains Liberia’s central bank’s response to claims that it lost over 100 million USD.

“Liberia - Agriculture.” Encyclopedia of the Nations. Accessed 10 September 2019. https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/econo-mies/Africa/Liberia-AGRICULTURE.html.

This entry explains Liberia’s agriculture-dominant economy.

“Liberia - Infrastructure, Power, and Communications.” Encyclopedia of the Nations. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.nation-sencyclopedia.com/economies/Africa/Liberia-INFRASTRUCTURE-POWER-AND-COMMUNICATIONS.html.

This entry illustrates the situation of Liberia’s infrastructure, power, and communication sectors.

“Liberia-Infrastructure.” International Trade Center. Accessed 06 July 2019. http://www.intracen.org/country/liberia/Infrastruc-ture/.

This page explains the root causes of Liberia’s mismanagement of the infrastructure sector.

“Liberian Government Presents National Development Plan to the United Nations.” Front Page Africa. 02 February 2019. Ac-cessed 27 July 2019. https://frontpageafricaonline.com/diaspora/liberian-government-presents-national-development-

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plan-to-the-united-nations/.This article is about Liberian representatives presenting the PAPD to the UNPBC and how the meeting went.

“Liberia Profile - Timeline.” BBC News. 22 January 2018. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-afri-ca-13732188.

This timeline is a list of key events in Liberian history.

“Liberia Progress on the Implementation of the SDGs.” Ministry of Finance and Development Planning Republic of Liberia. 05 March 2018. 27 July 2019. https://unstats.un.org/unsd/capacity-building/meetings/DA9-regional-workshop-Addis-Ababa/documents/7-Liberia_presentation.pdf.

This is a presentation from the Liberian government discussing implementation of the SDGs.

“Liberia Signs MoU for Construction of Modern Coastal Highway.” Journal Du Cameroun. 03 April 2018. Accessed 19 August 2019. https://www.journalducameroun.com/en/liberia-signs-mou-for-construction-of-modern-coastal-highway/.

This article explains Liberia’s MoU with Eton Financing to build a highway in Liberia.

Maclean, Ruth, and Tecee Boley. “Protests in Liberia over George Weah’s Failure to Tackle Corruption.” The Guardian. 07 June 2019. Accessed 19 July 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/07/thousands-protest-in-liberia-against-failure-to-tackle-corruption.

This article is about the June 2019 protest regarding dissatisfaction with Weah’s policies.

Malkus, Nat. “The Price of Learning in Liberia.” U.S. News & World Report. 07 November 2017. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-bank/articles/2017-11-07/partnership-schools-for-liberia-is-a-bold-experi-ment-to-improve-education.

This article explains and outlines the PSL.

“Map of Foreign Assistance Worldwide.” Foreign Assistance. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.foreignassistance.gov/explore.This is an interactive map of received foreign assistance from the world’s countries.

Menkor, Ishmael F. “’We Cannot Develop Liberia Without Good, Quality Infrastructure’.” Liberian Observer. 30 October 2018. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.liberianobserver.com/news/we-can-develop-liberia-without-good-quality-infra-structure/.

This article stresses the importance of high-quality infrastructure in the overall development of Liberia, taking from Weah’s speech introducing the PAPD.

Momodu, Samuel. “Second Liberian Civil War (1999–2003).” BlackPast. 3 October 2017. Accessed 18 August 2019. https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/second-liberian-civil-war-1999-2003/.

This is a comprehensive account of the Second Liberian Civil War.

Nyei, Ibrahim Al-Bakri. “Liberia: How Is President Weah Faring One Year On?” African Arguments. 22 January 2019. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://africanarguments.org/2019/01/22/liberia-how-is-president-weah-faring-one-year-on/.

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This is an analysis of Weah’s presidency one year after his inauguration.

“Our Work: Liberia.” U.S. Agency for International Development. 28 February 2019. Accessed 17 July 2019. https://www.usaid.gov/liberia/our-work.

This webpage details USAID’s efforts in/for Liberia.

“OVERVIEW OF CORRUPTION AND ANTI-CORRUPTION IN LIBERIA.” Transparency International. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/answer/overview_of_corruption_and_anti_corruption_in_liberia.

This article discusses corruption in Liberia and explores anti-corruption methods implemented.

“Peace Accords Matrix.” Peace Accords Matrix. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://peaceaccords.nd.edu/provision/truth-or-reconcil-iation-mechanism-accra-peace-agreement.

This is the truth and reconciliation section of the Accra Peace Agreement which is intended to facilitate efforts to right wrongs from the war.

“Poverty and Education.” ChildFund. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.childfund.org/poverty-and-education/.This is a small article discussing the link between poverty and education.

“Power Africa in Liberia: Power Africa.” U.S. Agency for International Development. 08 November 2018. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.usaid.gov/powerafrica/liberia.

This is a fact sheet about Liberia’s energy sector.

“Private Schools Top University of Liberia Entrance Registration Preliminary List.” FrontPageAfrica. 4 July 2019. Accessed 19 July 2019. https://frontpageafricaonline.com/news/private-schools-top-university-of-liberia-entrance-registration-preliminary-list/.

This article shows the positive correlation between attending private school and going to university in Liberia.

“Pro-Poor Agenda – Long on Aspirations but Short on Reality.” Front Page Africa. 6 November 2018. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://frontpageafricaonline.com/politics/pro-poor-agenda-long-on-aspirations-but-short-on-reality/.

This article takes a critical stance on the PAPD commending its intention but discussing its shortfalls.

“Relative vs Absolute Poverty: Defining Different Types of Poverty.” Habitat for Humanity GB. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.habitatforhumanity.org.uk/blog/2018/09/relative-absolute-poverty/.

This page defines relative and absolute poverty.

Republic of Liberia, Ministry of Agriculture. Zero Hunger Strategic Review Report. May 2017. Accessed 27 June 2019. https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000040056/download/.

This report details the Liberian Ministry of Agriculture’s plan and approach to accomplishing the zero hunger SDG.

Republic of Liberia, Pro Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development, 30 September 2018, Accessed 27 June 2019, http://liberiancon-sulatega.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/PAPD-Pro-Poor-Agenda-for-Prosperity-and-Development.pdf.

This is the PAPD, Weah’s NDP to bolster Liberia starting with supporting the poor.

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Revord, Andrew. “Rebuilding Infrastructure in Liberia.” The Borgen Project. 11 December 2017. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://borgenproject.org/infrastructure-in-liberia/.

This article explains the dire state of infrastructure in Liberia and introduces the AfT.

Romero, Mauricio, Justin Sandefur, and Wayne Aaron Sandholtz. “Can Outsourcing Improve Liberia’s Schools? Preliminary Results from Year One of a Three-Year Randomized Evaluation of Partnership Schools for Liberia.” SSRN Electronic Journal, September 2017. September 2017. Accessed 18 August 2019. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3062941.

This is an evaluation of the PSL.

Rose-Ackerman, Susan. Corruption and Post-Conflict Peace-Building. Report. Yale Law School. Faculty Scholarship Series. 2008. Ac-cessed 06 July 2019. https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1579&context=fss_papers.

This report examines the links between corruption and post-conflict peacebuilding.

Roser, Max, and Hannah Ritchie. “Hunger and Undernourishment.” Our World in Data. Accessed 9 September 2019. https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment#definitions-of-measures-of-hunger-and-undernourishment.

This source explains the data surrounding worldwide rates of hunger and undernourishment and also provides definitions for hunger and nutrition-related terms.

Sachs, Jeffrey, Guido Schmidt-Traub, Christian Kroll, Guillaume Lafortune, and Grayson Fuller. Sustainable Development Report 2019. Report. June 2019. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://s3.amazonaws.com/sustainabledevelopment.report/2019/2019_sustainable_development_report.pdf.

This is an independent report on the progress on SDGs in 2019.

Salaudeen, Aisha. “West African Countries Choose New ‘ECO’ Single Trade Currency.” CNN. 09 July 2019. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/01/africa/single-trade-currency-ecowas/index.html?no-st=1563410513.

This news article explains the ECOWAS collaboration and the goal of implementing the Eco.

Spicer, Chavez. “Causes of Poverty in Liberia.” The Borgen Project. 29 September 2017. Accessed 27 June 2019. https://borgen-project.org/causes-of-poverty-in-liberia/.

This is a quick summary on the causes of poverty in Liberia.

Sumaworo, Mory DA. “Prospects and Challenges of Liberia’s Midterm Economic Strategy “Pro-poor Agenda for Prosper-ity and Development”.” The Perspective. 17 November 2018. Accessed 09 July 2019. https://www.theperspective.org/2018/1117201803.php.

This is an article discussing the challenges of the PAPD and what it looks to accomplish.

“The Problem of Corruption in Liberia | Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission.” Liberia AntiCorruption Commission. Accessed 27 June 2019. http://lacc.gov.lr/the-problem-of-corruption-in-liberia/.

This is the LACC’s description of corruption in Liberia and why it is a problem.

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“Thousands Protest in Liberia against Corruption, Economic Decline.” Reuters. June 07, 2019. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-liberia-protest/thousands-protest-in-liberia-against-corruption-economic-decline-idUSKCN1T82ER.

This news article is about the June 2019 protest against Weah’s administration.

“Thousands Protest in Liberia against President Weah.” France 24. 11 June 2019. Accessed 19 July 2019. https://www.france24.com/en/20190608-thousands-protest-liberia-against-president-weah.

This news article is about the June 2019 protest against Weah’s administration.

“Truth and Reconciliation Commissions.” International Justice Resource Center. Accessed 18 August 2019. https://ijrcenter.org/cases-before-national-courts/truth-and-reconciliation-commissions/.

This is a general informational source about truth and reconciliation commissions and what they entail.

“Truth Commission: Liberia.” United States Institute of Peace. 22 October 2018. Accessed 06 July 2019. https://www.usip.org/publications/2006/02/truth-commission-liberia.

This is a full outline about the Liberian TRC and its duties and functions.

“Understanding Pro-poor Policy Processes.” Overseas Development Institute. Accessed 14 July 2019. https://www.odi.org/projects/28-understanding-pro-poor-policy-processes.

This is a general explanation on what a pro poor policy is.

United States. US Agency for International Development. Liberia: Nutrition Profile. February 2018. Accessed 19 July 2019. https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1864/Liberia-Nutrition-Profile-Feb2018-508.pdf.

This is USAID’s report on Liberia’s nutrition profile.

“What Is President Weah’s Liberia Scorecard One Year On?” BBC News. 22 January 2019. Accessed 27 July 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46947032.

This news article is an analysis of Weah’s administration over the span of his first year.

Wleh, Marcus. “PSL to LEAP, Government Commits to the Continuation of Its Flagship Education Public Private Partnership in Liberia.” Medium. 27 September 2018. Accessed 18 August 2019. https://medium.com/talking-education/psl-to-leap-gov-t-of-liberia-commits-to-the-continuation-of-its-flagship-education-ppp-b5b4a56cf640.

This article explains the progression of PSL which takes on its new form of LEAP as it continues intro its third year.

Yates, David A. “”Corruption Main Cause of Poverty,” Says World Bank Official.” Liberian Observer. 25 April 2018. Accessed 18 August 2019. https://www.liberianobserver.com/news/corruption-main-cause-of-poverty-says-world-bank-official/.

This article explains the positive correlation between corruption and poverty.

The National High School Model United Nations Con-ference (NHSMUN) is a project of IMUNA, a non-profit organization formally associated with the Unit-ed Nations Department of Global Communications (UNDGC). IMUNA is dedicated to promoting global issues education through simulation.

Written by Victor Miranda and Pranav Reddy

Edited by Jill Bendlak, Alex Burr, Walker Heintz, Jonathan Packer,

and Althea Turley

© 2019 IMUNA. All Rights Reserved.

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