Ngos studied in liberia

Characteristics of the humanitarian movement in Liberia

Between 1989 and 1997, and after Samuel Doe’s dictatorship fell in 1990, Liberia experienced a civil war opposing mainly Charles Taylor’s NPFL (National Patriotic Front of Liberia) and the two Mandingue and Krahn factions of the ULIMO (United Liberation Movement for Democracy), the former led by Alhadji Kromah, the latter by Roosevelt Johnson. A regional peace keeping force from the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) was also to reach Monrovia: composed mainly of Nigerian troops, the ECOMOG (ECOWAS Monitoring Group) first confined to the capital, then deployed along the coast up to Buchanan after 1992. While the hinterland was still being devastated and emptied of its population by the warlords, a temporary government without real authority was being installed under president Amos Sawyer’s leadership in Monrovia.

In 1997, a relative lull made it possible to organize elections that brought Charles Taylor to power. However, the situation was to be very volatile as Charles Taylor gave support to the RUF (Revolutionary United Front), fighting in neighbouring Sierra Leone, and beat off his Liberian opponents who, in 1999, with former members from the ULIMO, gathered on the Guinean border to start another guerrilla movement, the LURD (Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy).

Hostilities in the 1989-1997 period drove at least half the population of Liberia to exile, either in refugee camps in neighbouring countries, or among the diaspora in the West, mainly in the United States. The other half tried above all to find a shelter in the capital, whose population more than doubled. All things considered, the assistance brought to Liberia was quite important for such a small country which is normally easily independent, as far as food is concerned. But the local resources (rubber, iron, wood, precious stones) were more than sufficient to back the combatants. Therefore, assistance has not played such structuring a role as in Somalia or Ethiopia.

The humanitarian manna, on the other hand, provoked many local vocations. Before the war, Liberia only had a dozen NGOs, in the modern meaning of the term, if we do not consider Churches or tribal unions, which were already playing a role, not to mention the LNRCS (Liberian National Red Cross Society), dating back to 1919. In the 1980’s, “secular” NGOs were opposed to Samuel Doe’s dictatorship, and, as such, they were very politically active, asking for a democratic change, as the NARDA (New African Research and Development Association), created in 1987, and gathering various movements from the civil society.
Of course, war did harm such social fabric. Some NGOs managed to survive; others took over but most of them remained in Monrovia under the protection of the ECOMOG. It is only after the 1997 elections that the humanitarian actors were able to leave the capital more easily, and to get involved in the hinterland. Liberia then counted some 300 nation-wide NGOs, and, in July 2002, a conference in Ouagadougou, chaired by Amos Sawyer and boycotted by Charles Taylor’s government gave an opportunity to bring together the LURD’s fighters and the organized actors of the civil society: charities, welfare associations, barristers, the press, student movements, exiled opponents, religious leaders. Nevertheless the situation kept getting worse, and in 2003 the rebels were at the gates of the capital.
Data collected by Aid Watch on the main humanitarian Liberian NGOs will be put on line after field work is completed; the modalities of that mission are still pending.