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USAID/OTI Liberia Field Report
July 2005
Program Description
The Liberia Transition Initiative (LTI) advances prospects for an inclusive, peaceful, political transition in Liberia in the context of the 2003 Comprehensive Peace Accord. By increasing public understanding of key political transition issues, and promoting participatory community reintegration and peaceful resolution of conflict, LTI is helping to build the momentum for peace in Liberia through:
- Running the Youth Education for Life Skills (YES) program, a community-focused reintegration activity with the goal of enhancing peace through non-formal education. YES helps youths, one of the largest and most war-affected populations of Liberia, become productive members of their communities.
- Linking the YES program with small grants through a participatory process that reinforces community cohesion, assists in reconstruction and rural development, and facilitates youth leadership development.
- Awarding small grants to national organizations in the fields of justice, media, conflict management, good governance, and human rights.
- Giving technical assistance to the Ministry of Education and USAID/Liberia's Accelerated Learning Program.
Creative Associates International Inc. implements the LTI program of small grants and technical assistance, while Mercy Corps and a consortium of World Vision, Action Aid, and Search for Common Ground implement the YES program.
Country Situation
Elections – Campaigning for the Oct. 11 general and presidential elections officially begins on Aug. 15. The National Elections Commission (NEC) chairwoman announced that more than 700 nominations had been received from political parties and independent candidates by the Aug. 6 deadline. At present, the nominations include 27 for president, 26 for vice-president, 206 for 30 Senate seats, and 521 for the 64-seat House of Representatives. Fourteen percent of the candidates are female. The NEC will issue Notices of Acceptance/Rejection to all candidates after the Scrutiny Committee has reviewed applications and verified nomination documentation. In the run-up to the elections, the Liberian government has banned all public demonstrations, and UN peacekeepers have stepped up security.
Fiscal accountability – On Aug. 3, Liberia's international partners submitted the final draft of the Governance and Economic Management Assistance Program (GEMAP) to Chairman Gyude Bryant of the National Transitional Government of Liberia. The international partners developed this plan in close consultation with financial experts at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. They believe that the GEMAP provides a comprehensive framework to ensure sound economic governance in Liberia. The GEMAP has the following five objectives: ensuring that revenues due to Liberia are received and accounted for in their entirety; ensuring that revenues are spent only in accordance with the approved budget; ensuring that expenditures are received by the intended recipients; ensuring that contracts and concessions are granted in a transparent manner based on competitive bidding, and ensuring that the government has the capacity to attack corruption.
USAID/OTI Highlights
A. Narrative Summary
As a short-term remedy for the lack of formal education and vocational training among war-affected youths, the Youth Education for Life Skills (YES) program's basic-skills interventions have focused on building up participants' personal social competence. As youths learn self-awareness, hygiene, environmental care, leadership, decision-making, literacy, and how to search for employment, they are better positioned to make critical decisions that affect them, their families and their communities. Foundational life skills include the ability to make decisions about what further education or training to pursue, what forms of work to enter into, and how to participate in local political processes. All implementing partners experienced logistical challenges in the YES rollout. However, by the end of July, YES training began in 301 communities in 10 of the 15 counties of Liberia.
In support of the Accelerated Learning Program and the Ministry of Education, the Liberia Transition Initiative printed and distributed 15,000 report cards for students who finished their studies in July.
B. Grant Activity Summary
In collaboration with YES implementing partners and community members offering participatory feedback, the Liberia Transition Initiative issued 12 Community Impact grants in YES communities to enhance the reintegration process and add value to the YES learning process. Linking grants to YES communities that have agreed to work together to prioritize their development needs is a core activity of LTI. YES grants in July were to undertake a skills training program in animal husbandry, poultry production, and baking and food production. A local nongovernmental organization, Integrated Rural Development, will deliver the hands-on training using a participatory approach developed in Benin. This approach emphasizes the use of local resources and materials for the projects. Each community will receive materials for the training and then three months of support in the use of the techniques introduced.
| Civil Society Org. Support |
|
$ 281,080 |
|
17 |
| Community Impact Activities |
$87,466 |
$ 1,382,313 |
12 |
76 |
| Conflict Management |
|
$ 699,686 |
|
28 |
| Election Process |
|
$ 170,405 |
|
7 |
| Justice/Human Right |
|
$ 412,332 |
|
18 |
| Media |
$ 5,000 |
$ 351,003
| 1 |
13 |
| Good Governance |
|
$ 1,013,536
| |
36 |
| Youth Training / Reintegration |
|
$ 231,390
| |
8 |
| Total |
$92,466 |
$4,541,745
| 13 |
203 |
C. Indicator of Success
An integral part of the Youth Education for Life Skills program is the use of community radio to disseminate YES messages throughout Liberia. Mercy Corps, a YES implementing partner, is working with the managers and producers of community radio stations to help develop sensitization messages and programs related to the content of the YES curriculum. Through this hands-on, experiential training, the capacity of radio stations to produce quality educational programming already has started to increase, and the impact of YES will reach some of the most isolated areas of Liberia.
D. Program Appraisal
Communities have reacted very positively to YES. Implementing partners report that Community Development Committee chairmen and other community members have actively supported the recruitment of learning facilitators and participants, and in most cases have been finding adequate spaces for YES training to take place. In general, the only objection to YES from communities has been its youth focus. Many older and younger community members, outside of the YES target age of 18 to 30, are attending sessions as observers. This has not yet posed any problems, and this extended audience may actually be a way to enhance relationships between community members of different generations.
The current YES curriculum is a great improvement over the one used in the pilot phase. Implementing partners report that the curriculum is simple, has clear explanations, and seems to be easy to use. Especially popular is the literacy component. Participants who have only attended five or six literacy sessions start to comment on the increased self-confidence they experience by learning to write their name.
NEXT STEPS/IMMEDIATE PRIORITIES
Liberia Transition Initiative plans to:
- Conduct the second phase of Training of Trainers for 58 YES Master Trainers.
- Initiate a massive youth-led outreach for a voter education program that will engage 2,500 youth volunteers to disseminate voter-education information and help prevent election-related violence. The youth volunteers will target over 20,000 at-risk youths in urban areas.
For further information, please contact:
In Washington: John Gattorn, Program Manager, 202-712-4168, jgattorn@usaid.gov
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