22 April 2009
Clinton Praises Liberia’s Sirleaf for Debt Reduction Actions
Talks at State Department include African development issues
Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, after a meeting with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, praised the African nation for its recent debt-reduction program and pledged further U.S. development assistance.
Clinton and Sirleaf met with reporters following their April 21 talks at the State Department. Clinton congratulated Sirleaf and her government on its recent successful negotiations to eliminate approximately $1.2 billion in outstanding private-sector debt. “The United States is proud to have contributed to this effort through the World Bank’s Debt Reduction Facility,” Clinton said.
“Since 2007,” she continued, “the United States has given more than $211 million to clear Liberia’s arrears to the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank, and we have canceled more than $390 million in bilateral debt claims.”
Clinton pledged “to go beyond the terms” of debt relief arrangement negotiated by Liberia and “cancel 100 percent of Liberia’s remaining debts to us by the time Liberia reaches its completion point under the Heavily Indebted Poor Country Initiative.”
“We are proud to have played a key role in the debt elimination, which as the [Liberian] president just told me, will enable the children of Liberia not to be carrying a debt on their backs they had absolutely nothing to do in creating. We continue to offer strong support for the transformation of Liberia, and in the last three years, we’ve committed over $1 billion in bilateral assistance to the country,” Clinton said.
“Our comprehensive assistance program includes helping Liberians reinvigorate their economy, encouraging private sector growth, improving the delivery of basic services such as health and education, rebuilding vital infrastructure, enhancing governance, extending the rule of law, using natural resources in a sustainable manner, and ensuring peace and security,” she said.
The U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Clinton said, is working with Liberia to develop a Threshold Program that eventually will lead to Liberia’s eligibility for additional aid that is focused on poverty reduction, sustained economic growth and improved governance.
MCC’s Threshold Program is designed to assist countries that are on the “threshold” of eligibility for much larger Millennium Challenge Account Compacts. Threshold program assistance is used to help countries address the specific policy weaknesses indicated by their scores on 17 policy indicators in three categories: ruling justly, investing in people and encouraging economic freedom.
Clinton called it “a great honor and personal privilege” to welcome Sirleaf to the State Department. “I’m grateful for both her leadership and her friendship, and I’m particularly grateful for how she has never lost sight of her primary mission — to enable the people of her country to live their lives in peace and security, to have a chance to develop to the best of their abilities and raise their children to have even brighter futures. She has also continued to care about women and girls, which means a great deal to me.”
Sirleaf praised Clinton for fighting for the rights of women and the education of girls — two factors that play a key role in the African development process.
Sirleaf described current conditions in her country. “Liberia is recovering from 14 years of conflict, a period before that in which there was neglect and little effort made to use our country’s resources for the development of the people. … When we took over, we faced a collapsed economy, destroyed infrastructure, many young people who only knew war and want.
“But we’re glad today that we have the opportunity to rebuild,” she told reporters. “We formulated our poverty-reduction strategy, attempting to get our security sector reformed and functioning once again, rebuilding our economy. We always say Liberia is not a poor country; it’s just a country that’s been poorly managed. And so with our natural resources, we can open the economy — mineral, forestry, fishery, agriculture. We can then put our people back to work.”
Sirleaf said her government is working hard to fix its infrastructure problems.
She thanked the United States for its continued support. The bipartisan support for aid to Liberia, she said, has enabled Liberia “to say we’re well on the road from being a failed state, as characterized a couple of years ago, to what we hope will be a transformation into a post-conflict success story.”
“We know that we have to have primary responsibility for our development, that we have to be accountable to our people in the proper use of our resources, that you have to get a return on the investment that you make in our peace, in our development, and that we have to get the results that we all seek,” the Harvard-educated economist and former banker told her audience.
