Search results

On December 24, 1989, an armed insurrection began in Liberia. Charles Taylor, a former government official, led a rebel force, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), into the north-eastern Nimba County. A breakaway faction, the Independent National Patriotic Front (INPFL), led by Prince Yormie Johnson gained control of central Monrovia – the capital – and killed the President Samuel Doe. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) intervened in August 1990, sending monitoring troops (the ECOWAS Military Observer Group, ECOMOG), and convened a national conference which elected an Interim Government of National Unity. In October 1990, ECOMOG established a neutral zone in Monrovia where Dr. Amos Sawyer was installed as Interim President in November. Various different factions and opposition groups were formed and clashes between the rebel groups and the Liberian army continued.

This case puts students in the shoes of the Ebola response leadership teams of Firestone Liberia and its parent company, Bridgestone Americas, as they worked together to respond to the deadly 2014 Ebola epidemic. While the companies had received positive press for their containment of the virus on their rubber farm in Liberia, which was home to 8,000 employees and 80,000 Liberian citizens, the situation off the property was worsening. With death counts rising and hospitals across the nation closing as staff caught the virus, the Liberian government declared a national state of emergency. The teams now faced the possibility that the government might attempt to take control of the farm's medical center. How could they balance their duty to care effectively for employees against the demands of the Liberian government? Should they try to fend off the government or cooperate to meet the government's demands? Students will learn how to do a methodical situation analysis that considers ethical obligations and strategic implications, and to distill their recommendation into a briefing for senior leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the need for libraries and rural community knowledge centers using appropriate technology.

A case study discussing new ideas.

An alternative to traditional libraries is proposed for the dissemination and teaching of agriculture, literacy, health information, etc.

The paper requires the development of prototypes and grant funding.

Although the article discusses Liberia, the information represents any rural community in developing countries where often electricity, libraries, and internet connectivity do not exist.

Rethinking existing ideas and creating new ones.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the contribution of grassroots (mostly informal) businesses to post‐conflict, socio‐economic development in Liberia.

The research findings are based on quantitative data from a survey of 1,823 grassroots business owners from the central region of Liberia and qualitative data from 48 key informant interviews and 22 focus groups.

Grassroots businesses ensured access to goods and services in remote towns and villages, a key component of post‐conflict development. Although they were usually profitable and had high loan repayment rates, inadequate loan opportunities undercut their contributions to private sector growth and capacity development.

This research points to the contribution of grassroots businesses to post‐conflict social and private sector development, a relatively unexplored area of research in Liberia. The study reveals how grassroots businesses provide needed goods, services, and livelihoods in inaccessible parts of Liberia. This research can be used by government and non‐governmental organization to contribute to improve the economic situation for grassroots businesses in Liberia.

Purpose – This chapter aims to explore the causes of civil war in West Africa, including the perspectives of those directly involved, both those involved voluntarily and those involved against their will. To this end, we examine the three contiguous war – afflicted coastal countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast and as a counterweight, Ghana which has escaped civil war.

Methodology – Brief country case studies are used to explore the motivations of leaders and followers which often diverge. This chapter examines four West African countries:•Sierra Leone and Liberia, which have suffered classic brutal, ‘third war’ civil wars (Holsti, K. (Ed.). (1996). Wars of the third kind. In: The state, war and the state of war. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).•Ivory Coast, once seen as the West African ‘beacon of stability’ (Royce, E. (2003). Testimony. US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa, 2nd February, p. 12) but now suffering a seventh year of civil conflict.•Ghana, the counter case, which has so far survived multiple military coups without descending into national conflagration.

To demonstrate the basic features these countries share in common and to suggest some areas where they diverge, we present core socio-economic data in Table 1.

The respondent data on which much of the analysis is based was collected by Dele Ogunmola from individual interviews, and focus group discussions. In the case of Ivory Coast, there was also an e-interview with a medical missionary who experienced the early stages of the war. Given the tense nature of the situation, for both the individual interviews and the focus groups the selection of participants was purposive. People were selected who were willing to talk about their involvement and could represent a range of different roles and experiences. Thus, for example, the Makeni focus group quoted was recruited at Sumbaya village, which was virtually razed by the rebels. Minor warlords were interviewed but not, regrettably, randomly selected. We also refer to the interviews of ex-rebels conducted in 2009 by John-Idriss Lahai, a former member of the Sierra Leonian Civil Defence Forces and current PhD Student at the University of New England.

Findings – Interviewing in these countries still requires courage on both sides, and while we accept that respondents (especially those at risk of prosecution) may well prevaricate, the overall impression is one of the striking frankness. Most argued that the war was messy and the participants had mixed motivations. The findings confirm that, while grievances play a significant role in providing the fuel for West African civil wars, the greed of both national and international players serves to prolong them. Though Sierra Leone and Liberia experienced opportunistic wars, the Ivory Coast is torn apart over the definition of citizenship. Ghana has survived due to leadership which facilitated economic growth, curbed corruption and prioritised provision of basic services.

Limitations – This is not the place to detail the multitude of coups, wars and treaty negotiations that make up the troubled history of the region (see Adebajo, A. (2002). Building peace in West Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Parallel timelines for each country would demonstrate many interactions across the region, such as the spread of subaltern coups, but at the cost of presenting a long and confusing history. It is enough to stress that these colonially defined countries are linked across borders that are porous to ideas, rebels, refugees and diamonds alike.

The paper examines financial resilience responses/capacities of governments from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ghana in relation to COVID-19. It highlights the governments’ fiscal, budgetary and actions as either anticipatory or coping mechanisms towards the pandemic.

Multiple case studies and secondary data were used, including official government documentation/records, expert views, policy publications by supranational organisations and international financial institutions and media reports. Textual analysis was conducted to evaluate the case countries’ resilience.

The paper highlights how governmental budgetary initiatives, including repurposing the manufacturing sector, can sustain businesses, aid social interventions and reduce vulnerability during health crises. In addition, the paper highlights that external borrowing continues to be indispensable in the financial and budgetary initiatives of the case countries. The paper finds that lessons learnt from the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in West Africa within the last decade have shaped the anticipatory resilience capacities of the case countries against COVID-19.

The paper uses the notion of resilience, the dimensions of the resilience framework and the resource-based view (RBV) theory to unearth resilience patterns. This sort of combined approach is new to financial resilience studies.

Studies on textile upcycling in Africa are rare, particularly in Liberia, where extensive upcycling designs are appreciated throughout the country. This study aims to contribute to the upcycling literature from the perspective of Liberia’s fashion upcyclers by assessing their coping strategies and understanding the challenges confronting fashion upcycling in Monrovia’s four largest markets.

A fuzzy analytical hierarchy process and data envelopment analysis (DEA) models were used to assess labor input, delivery and flexibility, technological and innovation capability, financial capability, pricing of finished products, customer service and quality outputs of upcycled fashions. The fuzzy inference system model assessed upcyclers’ loaning eligibility.

The results highlight that Liberia’s fashion upcycling is expanding with varying innovative designs. The quality of upcycled fashions was deemed most important in the proposed AHP model. However, many upcycling businesses lack sufficient capital to make long-term investments. With the necessary investment, the innovation of these upcyclers could be a new line of fashion brands with great potential. In addition, using a fair judgment in assessing the little loaning funds available is paramount to enhancing their growth.

Only 34 decision-making units were assessed. Future research could expand this scope using other models with more practical loaning strategies.

This study presents a wealth of managerial and policy implications. The proposed hybrid model is adequate for developing managerial decisions for fashion upcyclers. The proposed framework can manage ambiguity, inaccuracy and the complexity of making decisions based on numerous criteria, making it applicable in unearthing robust strategies for enhancing the fashion upcycling sectors and other industries in developing countries. In addition, the proposed fuzzy Mamdani system could also be extended to other sectors, such as agriculture, for a more transparent allocation of resources.

The current paper aims to address the management dynamics of civil society organisations (CSOs) in volatile contexts. Along with analysing CSOs’ management dynamics at a general level, it also offers specific insights into their management strategies in response to COVID-19 pandemic.

This study uses a qualitative research design, where in-depth case studies are undertaken with four CSOs operating in post-conflict volatile Sub-Saharan African economies of Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Findings revealed that multiple stakeholder management plays an important role in social value creation by CSOs. The findings further state that, in volatile contexts, CSOs appear to have more legitimacy than state functionaries due to their capabilities in dealing with political pressures and conflict sensitivities. The findings also revealed that case CSOs operating in Liberia and Sierra Leone were quick to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic by adjusting their working routines accordingly by switching to online working where possible and repurposing their management strategies. This repurposing of management strategies focussed on minimising economic disruptions caused by COVID-19 and continuing to create social value by helping youth and farmers particularly.

This paper contributes to the extant literature by being one of the first studies, highlighting the specificities of CSO management in volatile (especially Sub-Saharan African post-conflict) contexts and contributes to the literature streams on multiple stakeholder management and social value creation. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current paper is also one the first study to address the management strategies of case CSOs in response to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of the telecommunications policy process in immediate post‐conflict countries and how that process differs from traditional settings.

The authors consider the case of Liberia, a country that recently emerged from a protracted civil war. The authors focus on the Liberian Telecommunications Act of 2007 and the processes through which this act came about by applying a modified research framework. This framework identifies several factors in the literature that are posited to influence the policymaking process in developing countries. The authors also include other factors based on previous studies in post‐conflict countries. The aim is to test the usefulness of this framework using the 2007 act. The authors apply it through the use of interviews with key actors in the government, industry, and international agencies. This was supplemented by secondary data from published reports and other sources.

From the framework the authors identify the main factors influencing the telecoms policy making process in Liberia such as a weak and nascent institutional environment, intra‐governmental competition, limited human and technical resources, the supportive (especially initially) role of the international actors such as the World Bank, and the dominance of elite groups in decision‐making. The authors then make suggestions on overcoming some of existing challenges to the sector.

This paper looks at the intersection of research in telecommunications policy, policy processes and post‐conflict countries, an area in which there is currently very little work. The results indicate that several dimensions of the framework are germane to the post‐conflict case and that some of these observations are also relevant to the future development of telecommunications in these countries.