MONROVIA (Reuters) &#8211; Former soccer star George Weah has won Liberia’s presidential run-off election and will succeed incumbent Ellen Johnson Sirleaf next month, the country’s first democratic transition in over 70 years.
With 98.1 percent of the vote counted, Weah led with 61.5 percent to Vice President Joseph Boakai’s 38.5 percent, National Elections Commission Chairman Jerome Korkoyah told reporters in the capital Monrovia on Thursday.
At his party headquarters outside Monrovia, tears streamed down Weah’s face as he greeted supporters from a balcony. Below, hundreds of young people sang and danced to a live performance of Hipco, Liberian hip hop music popular with the country’s impoverished youth.
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<div id="adtechAdContent_main_538746092">“Success for George Weah is victory for the whole country,” a 47-year-old engineer named Randall Zarkpah said as he walked home with his young son through streets ringing with honking car horns and loud cheers as dusk fell.</div>
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“When you feel sick for some time and you receive proper medication &#8211; that is how I feel now. He will be good for our country. He is King George!”
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Weah grew up in Clara Town slum in Monrovia and went on to become the only African to win FIFA World Player of the Year, starring for AC Milan, Paris St Germain and Chelsea.
His popularity at home fuelled a previous run for president, in 2005. He won the first round then but lost the second round to Johnson Sirleaf, whom he will now succeed.
His rags-to-riches story helped him tap into dissatisfaction with Johnson Sirleaf’s 12-year tenure. She drew a line under years of civil war but drew criticism for failing to root out corruption or persistent poverty.
“My fellow Liberians, I deeply feel the emotion of all the nation,” Weah wrote on Twitter after the results were announced. “I measure the importance and the responsibility of the immense task which I embrace today. Change is on.”
Weah’s critics, however, say he has offered few concrete policy proposals. His choice of running mate has also raised eyebrows: Jewel Howard-Taylor, the ex-wife of Charles Taylor, a former president of Liberia who is serving 50 years in a British prison for war crimes in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
“I think Weah is not fit for the work. He will see it,” said Anthony Mason, 34, who had huddled around radios at the headquarters of Boakai’s Unity Party for the results.
Weah looked set to sweep 14 of Liberia’s 15 counties in the run-off. Turnout in Tuesday’s vote stood at 56 percent, the election commission said.
Earlier on Thursday, Boakai said he doubted that the vote was “free, fair and transparent”, without elaborating. He did not say whether he might challenge the eventual result.
The second round was delayed by more than a month after the third-place finisher in October’s first round, backed by Boakai, alleged fraud. The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the challenge.
The U.S.-based Carter Center and National Democratic Institute said on Thursday there were notable improvements in the handling of the run-off, echoing positive assessments from other international observers.
Founded by freed U.S. slaves in 1847, Liberia is Africa’s oldest modern republic. But the last democratic transfer of power occurred in 1944, a military coup took place in 1980 and a 14-year civil war ended only in 2003.
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Additional reporting by Alphonso Toweh and James Giahyue; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Larry King
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From rags to riches: Ex-soccer star “King George” Weah wins Liberia’s presidency contest

Former soccer star George Weah’s camp said on Wednesday he was set to win Liberia’s presidential election run-off against Vice President Joseph Boakai but Boakai’s camp said the contest was still too close to call ahead of the first official results.
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Liberians voted on Tuesday in a run-off for a successor to outgoing President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, meant to usher in the first democratic transfer of power in more than seven decades.
Liberian election officials began collating the votes from Liberia’s 15 counties on Wednesday but a possible announcement of preliminary results in the afternoon did not materialise. They were now expected on Thursday, with final results due some time later.
Unofficial partial results announced on local radio stations all showed Weah in the lead. Weah, the only African ever to be named FIFA World Player of the Year, lost to Johnson Sirleaf in a 2005 election as a political novice. He has served in Liberia’s senate since 2015.
A senior Weah adviser, Morluba Morlu, told Reuters he expected Weah to win with about 70 percent of the vote based on precinct-level vote tallies he said were trickling in from across the country after Tuesday’s vote.
“It is clear. We are only waiting for the (election commission) to announce the results and declare him president,” Morlu said. “We are calling on &#8230; Boakai to concede defeat and congratulate George Weah.”
Boakai spokesman Robert Kpadeh, however, predicted a close race.
“The numbers give us a good feeling,” he told Reuters. “From now to tomorrow morning, we should have bigger numbers from our strongholds. We are still optimistic that the numbers can favour us.”
Liberia, Africa’s oldest modern republic, was founded by freed U.S. slaves in 1847, but its last democratic transfer of power occurred in 1944. After a violent military coup in 1980 it experienced instability and civil war that ended only in 2003.
In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the “orderly poll” and its peaceful conduct.
Johnson Sirleaf’s 12-year rule cemented peace and won her the Nobel Peace Prize, but many Liberians have criticised her for not doing enough to root out endemic poverty and corruption and are eager for fresh leadership.
Weah has positioned himself an outsider who will deliver tangible benefits to the country’s young population.
Turnout on Tuesday appeared much lower than the first round in October but people in the capital Monrovia expressed relief that the vote had gone smoothly, after several candidates said the first round was marred by fraud.
The Supreme Court ultimately dismissed a legal challenge brought by the third-place finisher and backed by Boakai. The proceedings delayed the second round by more than a month.
“It’s free and fair and transparent,” said Kamhdiggs Kemah, 48, of Tuesday’s vote. “We saw the whole process, so I am very happy with it. And I know my next leader will be George Weah.”
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Additional reporting by Sanni Kazeem Seun; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Alison Williams and Peter Graff
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Liberia presidential camps offer duelling predictions before first results

Liberian election officials began tallying votes on Wednesday from Tuesday’s presidential election, as Liberians awaited results that should usher in the country’s first democratic transfer of power in over seven decades.
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Election magistrates, in a soccer stadium outside the capital Monrovia, began compiling vote totals from the country’s 15 counties after Tuesday’s run-off between between former soccer star George Weah and Vice President Joseph Boakai.
Weah’s camp said its own tallies based on results from individual polling stations showed him winning with about 70 percent of the vote. Unofficial partial results announced on local radio stations also showed Weah in the lead.
The election commission said people should wait for official counts. A news conference which had been expected to announce early results on Wednesday morning was postponed until the afternoon, with final results due on Thursday.
Turnout for Tuesday’s poll seemed low but people in Monrovia expressed relief that the vote had gone smoothly, after a first round in October that several candidates said was marred by fraud.
The Supreme Court ultimately dismissed a legal challenge brought by the third-place finisher and backed by Boakai but the proceedings delayed the second round by over a month.
“The election was free, fair and transparent,” said Kelly Johnson, a 29-year-old trader. “No one was forced to do anything. We went there freely and we voted freely.”
Weah and Boakai are vying to succeed outgoing President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, whose 12-year rule cemented peace in the West African country after civil war ended in 2003.
Many Liberians have criticised Johnson Sirleaf for not doing enough to root out endemic poverty and corruption and are eager for fresh leadership.
Weah, who in 1995 became the first non-European to win European soccer’s player of the year award, is widely considered the favourite, having taken 38.4 percent of the vote to Boakai’s 28.8 percent in the first round.
“It is clear. We are only waiting for the (election commission) to announce the results and declare him president,” Morluba Morlu, Weah’s deputy campaign manager for operations, told Reuters.
“We are calling on&#8230; Boakai to concede defeat and congratulate George Weah,” he said.
Officials from Boakai’s ruling Unity Party were not immediately available for comment but at the party headquarters, supporters were more circumspect.
“We are listening to the result that the radio is giving. At least we are satisfied with Lofa County results,” said Jerry Mulbah, referring to Boakai’s home county in northern Liberia, where unofficial results showed him in the lead.
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Additional reporting by Sanni Kazeem Seun; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Andrew Roche
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Liberians await presidential election results as vote count begins

Liberia’s electoral commission said on Monday that claims of fraud brought by a presidential candidate in last month’s election did not have sufficient evidence, delivering a preliminary conclusion of an investigation.
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“According to the hearing officer, the Liberty Party did not have sufficient evidence to prove their case. It was denied,” commission spokesman Prince Dunbar said by telephone.
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Reporting by Alphonso Toweh; Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by John Stonestreet
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Liberia electoral commission says fraud claims lack evidence

Erica Lawson |Western University
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was the first woman to lead an African country. Her two terms in office ended with elections last month since, like the United States, presidents in Liberia are barred from serving more than two terms.
<div id="attachment_290610" style="width: 1723px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-290610" class="wp-image-290610 size-full" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/GettyImages-858054578.jpg" alt="" width="1713" height="1140" />Nobel peace laureate Leymah Gbowee (R), head of the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET), greets members of the group in Monrovia on October 5, 2017. Dressed in identical printed skirts, 100 Liberian women knelt in prayer after another long day in three weeks of fasting, asking once again that Liberia be spared of violence. Ahead of elections on October 10, 2017, women of all ages are gathering from dawn to sunset on a roadside close to the party headquarters of several presidential candidates, in an echo of protests that eventually helped bring an end to Liberia&#8217;s back-to-back 1989-2003 civil wars. AFP PHOTO / Zoom DOSSO (Photo credit should read ZOOM DOSSO/AFP/Getty Images)</div>
Affectionately known as “Ma Ellen,” Sirleaf took office at the end of a 14-year civil war in which an estimated 200,000 Liberians were killed.
Sickened and fatigued by war, thousands of Liberian women, through mass action, brought about an end to the conflict in 2003.
These same women took great risks to elect Sirleaf on her promise to sustain peace and make gender equality central to her administration’s agenda. Some women hid their sons’ voter ID cards to prevent them from voting for Sirleaf’s opponent; others tricked the young men into exchanging their cards for beer; still others managed market stalls while their female owners went to register to vote and watched babies so that mothers could vote on Election Day.
These women, many of whom belong to the Women in Peace Building Network (WIPNET), are identifiable by their white T-shirts with blue WIPNET insignia. They are a powerful, widely respected group for what they have accomplished and continue to fight for.
When Sirleaf came to power in 2005, the world was electrified. On Inauguration Day in January 2006, proud Liberians, world leaders and dignitaries watched as she took the oath of office.
Sirleaf singled out the women in the peace movement, thanking them for their courage, and committed to supporting their agenda. The Sirleaf administration kept some of its promises but with notable challenges. Liberia has tough rape laws, but weak enforcement mechanisms, and in 2016, Parliament signed into a law a new domestic violence bill but removed a ban on female genital mutilation.
At the end of Sirleaf’s two terms in office, peace has held, but the results of progress on gender equality are mixed.
<h2>Women and peace huts</h2>
Today, some of the powerful grassroots women who brought Sirleaf to power are at the forefront of running what are known as peace huts. Spread across the country, the purposes of these huts are to put women in charge of mediating domestic abuse and other disputes before they escalate, to empower women through entrepreneurial opportunities and to educate them about their rights.
By and large, Liberian women and girls are well aware of their rights, and especially those enshrined in the UN Security Council Resolution 1325.
Adopted in 2000, the resolution recognizes that women bear the brunt and horrors of war, and calls for women’s full participation in conflict prevention, resolution and peace-building. Peace huts in Liberia are instrumental in teaching women — including those not formally educated — about these rights.
Peace huts work for gender equality, peace and human rights. But they do much more. The Ebola crisis of 2014 led to the deaths of an estimated 11,315 people and strained already fragile health-care systems. Women who ran peace huts in some of the communities stepped in to help the sick and dying, and some of them died in the process.
<h2>Gains and losses</h2>
There is general agreement among most Liberians that the Sirleaf administration stabilized the country and attracted investment. But there are those who also feel that, notwithstanding a staunch patriarchal culture, women have actually lost ground, especially in politics.
Of the 1,026 approved candidates in the election cycle, only 163 were women, and, in a field of 20 candidates, only one woman, Macdella Cooper, ran for president, and she lost badly.
Tackling corruption, infrastructure, youth unemployment and reconciliation by promoting national unity and advancing a peace agenda topped ballot issues in the elections.
Noticeably absent was a targeted focus on addressing violence against women and girls.
Yet the UN Women’s Global Database on Violence Against Women report that 39 per cent of Liberian women between 15-49 years old experience physical and/or sexual violence at the hands of intimate partners at least once in their lifetime.
Women who run peace huts spend much of their time supporting victims of gender-based violence. Where they are available, women work with the police to arrest the alleged perpetrators. But justice for victims is often hampered by a weak legal system.
Nonetheless, Liberian women rightly view themselves as the guardians of a hard-won peace connected to the fight for gender justice. They view peace as foundational to prosperity that can take root only if there is an end to gender-based violence and respect for rights.
<h2>An uncertain but hopeful future</h2>
The elections on Oct. 10 did not yield clear results. The frontrunners, Sen. George Weah and Vice-President Joseph Boaki, were scheduled for a run-off election on Nov. 7. However, the Liberian Supreme Court recently suspended the second round of voting pending an investigation into allegations of “fraud and irregularities.”
It is, therefore, too early to tell if gender equality will top the new administration’s agenda, but there’s room for guarded optimism.
Large groups of activist women in Liberia are prepared to continue to fight for equality and are unafraid to do so. Wearing their WIPNET T-shirts, women have come out in force in recent years to press the government to change or implement laws, usually with the support of an engaged public.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86670/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />The new administration would do well to work with women in the peace huts and in civil society to achieve success. Without a strong voice for gender equality, it’s unlikely that the new Liberian government will realize its political goals.
This article was originally published on The Conversation.

How women bring about peace and change in Liberia

Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on Tuesday said democracy in the West African country was being threatened, a day after the Supreme Court put a presidential runoff on hold over fraud allegations.
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Former footballer George Weah was initially set to face Vice-President Joseph Boakai on Tuesday to determine who will replace the term-limited Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
A successful vote would be Liberia’s first democratic transfer of power in more than seven decades. But on Monday, the Supreme Court ordered the elections commission to fully examine allegations levelled by Charles Brumskine, who finished third in last month’s first round poll.
The ruling could push back the run-off date by weeks or even result in the first round being re-run.
“Democracy is only as strong as its weakest link and at these moments, our democracy is under assault. Our country’s reputation is under assault, our economy is under stress,” Johnson Sirleaf said in a radio address.
The National Elections Commission (NEC) has said the first round of voting was largely fair, and international observers said they saw no major problems with the poll.
However Brumskine’s complaint cites gross irregularities and accuses NEC officials of fraud, an allegation the body denies.
A growing chorus of parties have voiced support for Brumskine’s case, including Boakai’s ruling Unity Party, which last week accused Johnson Sirleaf, one of its own members, of trying to influence the vote. She rejected the accusation.
“Allegations, hate speech, inciteful language has been defining what should be a proud moment in our history,” she said on Tuesday. “We politicians must do better &#8230; Historians will look back at this time and judge us by how we conduct ourselves at this critical moment in time.”
Boakai, Brumskine and two other first-round candidates &#8211; Alexander Cummings and Benoni Urey &#8211; held a meeting in the capital Monrovia on Tuesday.
While they called upon their supporters to remain calm and pledged to respect the law, they also vowed to fight to ensure the credibility of the vote.
“We thought this would be peaceful, transparent, and meet the standard that it would bring dignity to our country,” Boakai said afterward. “Unfortunately the process was peaceful but not transparent, not credible and didn’t represent the will of the Liberian people.”
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Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by James Dalgleish
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Liberia’s president says ‘our democracy is under assault’

One of Liberia’s leading political parties called for a halt in announcing the result of Tuesday’s presidential election, citing irregularities in the vote.
The Liberty Party, whose candidate Charles Brumskine was considered a front-runner to take over from Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, said it would consider taking legal action if the National Elections Commission (NEC) did not act on its demands.
The NEC was originally expected to release preliminary results on Thursday.
“The Liberty Party is deeply troubled by the discovery of numerous incidents of irregularities and fraud that occurred during the elections,” Liberty Party national chairman Benjamin Sanvee said in a statement.
“We are calling on NEC to immediately halt further announcements of election results. If NEC does not cooperate with our request, we will take the appropriate legal action,” he said.
He did not give specific evidence of voter fraud and it was unclear what kind of activity could have altered Tuesday’s vote.
An NEC spokesman told Reuters that it was unaware of the Liberty Party’s complaint and did not say whether the commission believed illegal acts occurred.
On election day, materials including ballot boxes arrived late in some locations and some people struggled to find their names on voter rolls, witnesses said, but there was so far no evidence that this was linked to illicit activity.
Any irregularities would taint the results of an election expected to mark the first democratic transfer of power in over seven decades in a country haunted by a civil war that ended nearly 15 years ago.
Liberia, Africa’s oldest modern republic, was founded by freed U.S. slaves in 1847 but its last democratic power transfer dates back to 1943.
Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president, won a surprise victory in 2005 following a post-war transition. She was re-elected in 2011 but is barred from seeking another term.
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Reporting By Alphonso Toweh; writing by Edward McAllister; editing by Jonathan Oatis
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One of Liberia’s main parties calls for halt to election results

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For the first time since 1944, Liberia is set to hold its first general election today that will see a democratically elected leader hand over power to another elected leader.

Liberia goes to polls to choose Ellen Johnson Sirleaf successor

After a dozen years of recovery under Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping bring peace after civil war turned her country into a wasteland, Liberians are hopeful about their first democratic power transfer for 73 years.
Twenty candidates are standing to replace Johnson Sirleaf in a first round on Tuesday. With nobody likely to win a majority outright, the top two are expected to face each other in a run-off in around a month. While the election campaign has been rambunctious, it has been mainly peaceful so far, and most expectations are that it will come off without bloodshed.
Johnson Sirleaf, 78, has many accomplishments to boast since she became Africa’s first modern female head of state.
The economy is four times the size it was when she took office in 2005. The gangs of drug addled youths who raped and mutilated their way across the nation during a civil war that ended in 2003 are a vivid but receding memory.
Charles Taylor, the warlord who ruled in Liberia’s darkest days, is now in a British jail, serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity, including terrorism, pillage, rape, murder and sexual slavery &#8212; the first former head of state convicted by an international tribunal since Nuremburg.
Yet the country is still one of the world’s poorest. It survived another existential crisis three years ago with an outbreak of the Ebola virus that overwhelmed its health services. Residents complain of corruption from officials and poor public services, and say that while they are thankful for the peace that Johnson Sirleaf brought, they are excited about the prospect of change.
“For me, the only thing about this administration is peace. I gave her a plus in that,” said Timothy Sambulah, a taxi driver in the capital Monrovia. But, he said: “She has not been able to fight corruption. She failed to deal with people who took money to build their big houses.”
<h3>FRONT-RUNNERS INCLUDE WEAH</h3>
Among the front-runners seen as likely to win a place in the run-off are Vice President Joseph Nyuma Boakai, representing the ruling Unity Party, and football star George Weah, who lost to Johnson Sirleaf in 2005. Weah has served in the senate since 2014 for the opposition Congress for Democratic Change.
Candidates have held enthusiastic rallies attended by thousands of supporters wearing T-shirts, drenched by downpours in a carnival atmosphere.
Many have promised a break from the past. One poster carried around by opponents read: “Another six years of this&#8230;” with a photograph of a distressed woman seated in a damp home with walls made of corrugated iron.
“There will be no business as usual. We are going to end the era of selective justice so people are given equal protection under the law,” Charles Walker Brumskine, a lawyer running as the candidate of the Liberty Party, third biggest in Congress, told Reuters.
But one diplomat said it would be difficult to accelerate development just as millions of dollars in aid money pledged during the Ebola outbreak is drying up.
Liberia, Africa’s oldest republic, was founded by freed U.S. slaves in the 19th century.
Its recovery since the war has been remarkable. GDP for the country of 4.6 million reached $2.1 billion last year up from just $550 million the year Sirleaf Johnson took office.
A former finance minister in the 1970s who fled after a coup and worked for the World Bank and Citibank during her exile, she restored a measure of professionalism to a government that had been seized by a military junta in 1980 and collapsed under the predation of the warlords.
Outside her home country, Johnson Sirleaf has served as an ambassador for peace in an unstable region, donning colorful headscarves on diplomatic missions such as one last year to persuade Gambia’s ruler Yahya Jammeh to step down.
Still, many Liberians say she failed to stamp out graft and nepotism that have held the country back.
Her son Robert Sirleaf was a senior advisor and ran state oil firm NOCAL, which collapsed after his tenure as crude prices slumped in 2015. Her other son, Charles, was among 45 government officials suspended in 2012 for failing to declare their assets to anti-corruption authorities. She declared her own assets this year.
Last year a grand jury indicted government officials, including the speaker of parliament on charges including bribery.
“High level corruption has been a slap in the face for Liberians, most of whom live in abject poverty,” said Liberian political analyst Robtel Neajai Pailey who also criticized what she described as “hero worship” of Johnson Sirleaf.
(This version of the story corrects the gender of the pronoun in final paragraph to she from he, referring to expert)
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Additional reporting by Emma Farge; Writing and additional reporting by Edward McAllister; Editing by Peter Graff
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As Johnson Sirleaf exits, Liberians thankful for peace, excited about change

Transport Infrastructure Driving Boost in Africa’s Cross Border Trade 
Africa could soon be the largest free-trade area in the world. This is if the African Union’s Continental Free Trade Area (CTFA) stays on track to be operational by the end of this year. Once up and running, the continent-wide free trade zone could lead to a 52 percent ($35 billion) increase in intra-African trade within the next 5 years, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).
The UNECA’s Stephen Karingi, who heads their Regional Integration and Trade Division, says “boosting intra-African trade is the most effective way to speed up Africa’s economic transformation.” Speaking at the recent Africa Session of the Aid for Trade Global Review 2017, Karingi added that “trade contributes towards industrialization and structural transformation.”
Increasing intra-African trade – which reportedly stands at 13 percent – will require the removal of certain barriers in order to improve connectivity, including improvement of custom procedures, reduction of transit and other trade costs, and, importantly, development of reliable transport infrastructure. Here’s a look at some of the inroads that have already been made in the expansion of Africa’s rail, road, and port networks to connect the fragmented African market:
The Ethiopia-Djibouti Rail Link 
This year saw the launch of the first fully electric cross-border railway in Africa. Linking Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa with Djibouti City – a stretch of more than 750 kilometres – the new line will incredibly cut travel time between the two countries. Running at 120km per hour, the rail journey, which lasts about three to four days by road, now only takes 12 hours. Each freight train reportedly transports the same cargo as 200 trucks, with the cost reduced by a third.
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The line, which cost $4.2 billion, is a significant step towards elevating the poor levels of trade between African countries. Ethiopia plans to construct another 5,000 km-long network of rail by 2020, linking to Kenya, Sudan and South Sudan.
The Trans-African Highway 
Envisaged more than 40 years ago by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the Trans-African Highway is an ongoing network of highways intended to connect all corners of Africa from north to south, east and west. The ambitious plan, first proposed in 1971, is aimed at boosting internal trade on the continent by building nine roads linking major cities across Africa. Those networks would collectively measure nearly 60,000km.
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While progress has been slow, the completion of this project will mark a new day for intra-African trade. One of the nine planned roads is already complete – the 4,400km Trans-Sahelian Highway which runs through seven countries, connecting Dakar, Senegal to Ndjamena, Chad. While more than half of the network has been paved, maintenance remains an issue. Conflicts in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Angola have led to both the destruction of some highways and hampering of construction.
Doraleh Multipurpose Port 
Djibouti recently opened its new 690-hectare Doraleh Multipurpose Port after two years of construction. The $590 million project, one of the most advanced ports on the continent in terms of facilities, can handle almost nine million tonnes of cargo per year.
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Despite its small size, Djibouti is one of the important trading hubs on the continent, thanks to its convenient geographic location of connecting Africa to Asia and Europe by sea. Ports in the tiny East African country of less than a million people receive the bulk of cargo from Asia, followed by Europe, and then Africa.
West Africa Regional Rail Integration 
A group of West African countries and mines have poured significant investment into an ongoing extensive rail project which will boost trade in the region. When completed, the track will be 3,000 km long and connect Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo. The network will add newly built tracks to existing ones which will be upgraded. This project will greatly benefit landlocked countries like Niger, which face constant transport problems. The country largely relies on its neighbours’ seaports and road infrastructure to carry its imports and exports.
The West African Regional Rail Integration project is a response to the need for better infrastructure and reliable transport to move minerals from one West African country to another, and from the mines to major ports.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-280974" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/west_africa_regional_jMJnM.jpg" alt="" width="732" height="400" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/west_africa_regional_jMJnM.jpg 732w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/west_africa_regional_jMJnM-300x164.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/west_africa_regional_jMJnM-730x400.jpg 730w" sizes="(max-width: 732px) 100vw, 732px" />
Bagamoyo Port 
With its Port of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania is among the major trading hubs in Africa. Now the East African country is aiming to take things up a notch with the development of Bagamoyo Port, which is set to cost $11 billion.
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While the new Tanzanian government has paused construction to focus on revamping other ports, Bagamoyo is set to be the biggest port in East Africa when completed. It will handle 20 million containers a year, more than double the capacity of the Port of Dar es Salaam. If everything goes as planned, Bagamoyo will boost Tanzania’s reputation as a trading centre for its landlocked neighbours such as Zambia, Rwanda, Malawi, Burundi, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The East African Rail Masterplan 
Billed as Kenya’s largest infrastructure project since independence, the first section of the $13.8 billion railway officially opened in June 2017, connecting the capital Nairobi with the port city of Mombasa. The train will shorten travel time between the two cities from 12 hours to four, with freight trains set to carry 25 million tonnes a year.
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The East African Masterplan will eventually extend to Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Ethiopia – a move that will further strengthen trade relations between the East African neighbours.
This article was supplied to CNBC Africa by Standard Bank.

Africa could soon be the largest free-trade area in the world

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Liberia entrepreneur Dr Benoni Urey recently received the presidential nomination of the All Liberian Party to contest in the country&#8217;s presidential elections.

Expectations for the 2017 Liberia elections

MONROVIA (Reuters) &#8211; Medical samples from four of the victims of a disease in Liberia that initially baffled scientists have tested positive for a type of meningitis, the minister of health said on Monday.
So far a total of 31 cases of the so-called mystery illness have been reported, including 13 deaths in an outbreak linked to the attendance of a religious leader&#8217;s funeral.
While the symptoms are different from Ebola, the sudden deaths nevertheless stirred anxiety about an outbreak of the tropical illness which was often spread through burial rituals in the West African epidemic that ended less than a year ago.
Seven specimens from the deceased tested positive for Neisseria meningitis, a particularly contagious type of bacteria, Dr. Bernice Dahn told reporters on Monday.
&#8220;Based on these initial results from the CDC Atlanta (U.S. Center for Disease Control), we believe that we are dealing with a probable outbreak of meningitis in Sinoe, which spread to Montserrado and Grand Bassa counties,&#8221; she added, while calling for calm.
She said the government was investigating options for mass vaccinations against the illness, characterised by swelling of the membranes in the brain and spinal cord. Further laboratory analysis is under way.
(Reporting by James Harding Giahuye; writing by Emma Farge; editing by Mark Heinrich)
&nbsp;

Mystery illness in Liberia appears to be meningitis

Deforestation remains a persistent environmental challenge in Africa. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that between 2010 to 2015 alone, the continent experienced a net loss of around 17 million hectares of forests. To put this in perspective, this is equivalent to more than 1.3 times the total land size of England. It is also a major driver of carbon emissions.
A narrative has developed that suggests there is a trade-off between sustainable land use and local economic growth, and particularly in low-income countries, it is clear which one will prevail. However the current debate is dominated by anecdotes rather than compelling, broad-based evidence. The challenge in conducting this analysis is that in many of these forest-frontier regions, economic data is often absent or not particularly robust. In addition, there are issues with the lack of a sufficiently long time series to understand impact or a control group to measure progress against.
A recent study conducted to explore the available evidence and identify innovative approaches for reconciling competing social, economic and environmental objectives challenges the view that a trade-off between local prosperity and environmental outcomes is inevitable. In fact, in a number of African countries, a range of sustainable land use initiatives have deployed (ranging from smallholder yield improve to land degradation prevention) that have boosted local incomes while protecting the environment. The real question is whether these can be scaled up to a meaningful level? There is no point in having an oasis of green in a desert of deforestation. This is where jurisdictional programs hold great potential. Jurisdictional programs are sustainable development programs that take place at a scale that matches the administrative boundaries of sub-national or national governments (Exhibit 1).
Exhibit 1
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-122439" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Exhibit1.jpg" alt="" width="1365" height="1024" />
Liberia is one such example. The West African country is at a critical juncture in its economic and environmental development. Deforestation has been increasing and the total tree cover loss between 2001-2014 was over 711,000 hectares. The country has also earmarked over 930,000 hectares of land for palm oil cultivation.  Managed poorly, the environmental consequences could be detrimental to one of the continent’s biodiversity hotspots. In response, Liberia has developed a national-level jurisdictional program, which aims to reduce deforestation, create verified deforestation-free commodity producing areas, and also support local prosperity.
EXHIBIT 2
 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-122440" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Exhibit2.jpg" alt="" width="1365" height="1024" />
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Liberia’s jurisdictional program is still in its infancy, but holds great promise (Exhibit 2). The study has identified several challenges in Liberia that will need overcoming, which are similar to other jurisdictions examined .
<ol>
<li>Aligning incentives: while jurisdictional governments have committed to sustainable development pledges, communication, consensus building, and resilience to stay the course can be challenging. In Liberia, a particular challenge is encouraging local communities to participate in conservation efforts.</li>
<li>Developing operational frameworks: that can clearly translate sustainable land use goals into practice.</li>
<li>Implementation: particularly in regards to land use planning and resolving conflicting land right claims.</li>
</ol>
Despite these challenges there are programmes that are being implementing, showcasing different approaches and strength of multistakeholder partnerships.
<ul>
<li>Liberia Forest Sector Project. The World Bank implemented this programme in April 2016. It aims to support the government’s efforts to manage and improve the forest sector and protects nearly 1.5 million hectares of the country’s remaining natural forest.<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">[i]</a> Initiatives from the programme include:
<ul>
<li>Forest investment project. The project aims to strengthen regulatory and institutional systems to improve the management of forest landscapes and complete the process of legal reform and enforcement. It will also enhance the landscape management of protected areas and community managed forests. Other components of the project include the operationalization of a measurement and reporting system for forests and emissions reductions, reference level development, and an information system for safeguards.</li>
<li>Rubber production through private-sector partnership. This project provides financing to smallholder farmers to replant and renovate ageing rubber plantations and adopt sustainable agronomic practices (see the “Environmental Benefits” section of this chapter).</li>
<li>Payments for verified emissions. This project provides financial payments for successful implementation of activities that lead to measured, reported and verified emissions reductions.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Africa Palm Oil Initiative in Liberia. The APOI brings together TFA 2020 partners and collaborators within governments, companies, civil society, and indigenous and local communities to prioritize sustainable palm oil development in Africa. The goal of APOI is to develop and support the implementation of a set of regional principles for responsible palm oil development that accounts for the ambitious development plans of countries in Africa. This approach aims to balance forest conservation, community development and commercial interests while supporting the protection of high forest cover landscapes. Specific to Liberia, APOI has conducted national workshops on Liberia’s to develop actions plan for sustainable palm oil production and is working on an implementation framework to guide the expansion of sustainable palm oil cultivation in the country.</li>
<li>Smallholder productivity and forest protection programme. NICFI and the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) are supporting a programme to achieve forest conservation in commercially productive landscapes in Liberia. The programme aims to reduce deforestation and forest degradation, increase prosperity and create verified deforestation-free commodity producing landscapes. Partners in the programme include the Government of Liberia, ArcelorMittal (mining), Sime Darby (oil palm and rubber), GVL (oil palm), local communities and civil society. The initiative, which began in March 2016, also endeavours to pioneer an investment model where investments in agricultural intensification are tied to forest conservation goals. Core activities of the programme include developing land use plans consistent with commercial and conservation goals; signing protection agreements that commit participants to sustainably produced commodities; enabling investments in outgrowers (which are financially risky); and enforcing forest conservation policies.<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">[ii]</a></li>
</ul>
The success of these efforts depends greatly on the multistakholder approach. Liberia, and other African countries, are on the road to act as leading examples of how environmental preservation and economic prosperity can go hand in hand.
<a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">[i]</a> Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), “The Liberia Forest Program”, 2015.
<a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">[ii]</a> IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative, Green Growth: Achieving forest conservation in commercially productive landscapes in Indonesia, Liberia and Brazil, 2015.
This article was supplied to CNBC Africa by WEF as part of our collaboration.

Op-ed: Over 5 years Africa has lost forests the size of England, this is how to create a trade-off

<blockquote>“In Liberia, a woman’s place is in the market, the church, the kitchen, or the bed. But not for one little girl,” Helene Cooper writes.</blockquote>
Cooper writes this as her first sentence in <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Madame-President/Helene-Cooper/9781451697353">her biography</a> of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was born in 1938. She writes this to help readers outside the country understand how extraordinary it is that a Liberian woman became part of the governing inner circle. She had a successful career in the world of international finance, and then was sworn in as president of a country emerging from a civil war.
So much has changed in almost 80 years, and yet so much has remained the same. “Today,” teacher Boakai Kamara shared with me, “many children have to stay home to help their parents to farm, prepare for market, and things like that. They need help in the house so the children have to be there to help them. This makes me sad.” Mr. Kamara has a vision for what will change the lives of Liberian children, and the future of his country. It is simple and complex. So fundamental and yet elusive. It is education. “It is the best thing for Mama Liberia. Without education, we are nothing. It will build this country back if everybody got it.” 
Pragmatic solutions
How then to ensure that everybody in Liberia does have access to a free public school that enlightens and empowers?
As a teacher in one of Liberia’s public schools, Mr Kamara knows first-hand the scale of the problem Mama Liberia is facing. More than 50% of children start school 3-6 years late. The Minister of Education has estimated that teacher absenteeism is more than 60%. Even if you are one of the very few who complete secondary school – only 20% of children enrolled in primary complete secondary – there is little you will have learned. It is not just that you might not have mastered biology or algebra. Only 35% of adult women who attended secondary school can read a single sentence. The problem is staggering. It is such a large challenge it might be easy to just give up. To think of a solution that quickly gets everybody the education they need appears to be impossible.
Thankfully, <a href="http://www.emansion.gov.lr/2content.php?sub=121&amp;related=19&amp;third=121&amp;pg=sp">President Sirleaf</a> is a woman who has never given up and knows how to find pragmatic solutions and bring partners together. In January 2016, President Sirleaf announced a new education programme which would see school management organizations brought into partnership with the government to turn-around failing public schools. In the US, these are called turn-around charter schools. In the UK, these are called academies. In Liberia, they are called partnership schools.
FOR MORE WEF AFRICA CONTENT READ:
<a href="http://cnbc.africa/category/insights/world-economic-forum/wef-africa-2017/">WEF AFRICA 2017</a>
With just nine months until the next school year was due to start, there was little time, but a lot of excitement. <a href="http://www.bridgepartnershipschools.com/partnership-schools-for-liberia/">Partnership Schools for Liberia</a> was born, and eight organizations with experience from across Africa stepped up to the challenge to help Liberia achieve its mission and create powerful public schools.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vELjzJXgzqk">Bridge International Academies</a>, the social enterprise I co-founded with my husband in Kenya, was the first organization to be asked to partner with the government. Bridge now supports more than 230 school staff across 25 public schools in Liberia, serving nearly 9,000 children. We’ve raised donations to cover all the costs of our programming, bringing almost $4m in new philanthropy to benefit children to date. Almost 30,000 textbooks have been distributed and 16,000 teacher computers put into daily use. Teacher attendance has gone from an estimated 40% to more than 90% in less than one school year. “Because of Bridge,” Alfred Massaquoi, Vice Principal of the Bridge PSL public school in Julijuah said, “students are walking for two hours plus just to attend school.”
As we built a new team of changemakers and school leaders in Liberia, all of us at Bridge knew we were part of something very special and very difficult. We knew we’d need a lot of courage, and persistence. As would the government we are serving. Partnership Schools for Liberia is part of a wider, extensive national education revolution led by <a href="https://qz.com/876708/why-liberia-is-working-with-bridge-international-brac-and-rising-academies-by-education-minister-george-werner/">Minister George Werner</a>. In addition to the partnership schools’ work in eight counties in 2016-2017, Minister Werner has led work across all 15 counties to remove those chronically absent “ghost” teachers from the payroll, and to ensure that teachers themselves can read.
Fighting the status quo
Unfortunately, there are always people and organizations who find systemic change hard, since their interests are aligned with preserving the status quo – even when that status quo is a failed education system that is crippling a nation.
The National Teachers’ Association of Liberia (NTAL) called for Minister Werner’s resignation in September, and called for a strike which was widely covered in the international media, even though only a handful of teachers left their classrooms to picket the Ministry. The head of NTAL was not happy when the Ministry of Education announced his name as one of the thousands of “ghost” teachers who had been collecting salaries and abandoning classrooms. County Education officials have received death threats from people wanting to stop the cleaning up of payroll and testing if a teacher is literate. Partnership Schools for Liberia, which from the work of all eight partners has brought at least $5m in new philanthropy to benefit public schools and made Early Childhood Education free for the first time in Liberia, has suffered from an international misinformation campaign by those that are advocates of the status quo. It seeks to equate exactly the type of partnership the Sustainable Development Goals call for between government and the private sector, to ensure that every child has access to quality education, as an initiative that violates Liberia’s obligations, ethically, morally and legally.
Thankfully, within Liberia, teachers, parents, and most importantly children, are seeing the benefits of partnership, and are celebrating renewed and strengthened public schools. Christina Kollie, who attends the Bridge PSL public school in Upper Careysburg, told me, “If I was not in school, I would be home cooking to help mama. When I in school, it make me feel proud and I know if I stay I can be a big person in the community.” The time has come for not just one or a few girls to have access to a transformational school that enables them to imagine and build new worlds. It is time that every girl and boy in Liberia can read with true comprehension when leaving primary school, can use mathematics to solve problems, and can speak up with confidence.
With Partnership Schools for Liberia supporting Christina’s teachers and encouraging her dreams, I know that Christina will be able to learn in a powerful public school and become a ‘big person’ in her community. Perhaps just as big a person as the little girl born in 1938 who launched the programme that has seeded the education revolution of this generation.
World Economic Forum on Africa &#8211; Achieving Inclusive Growth is currently taking place in Durban, South Africa, watch CNBC Africa for full coverage. 
&nbsp;

There’s an education revolution taking place in Liberia. How can we make sure it benefits everyone?

South Africa has a high unemployment rate and sluggish economic growth. It’s high time to consider what our academic institutions can do to reduce unemployment and to help the poor.
I believe it is high time to consider what our academic institutions can do to reduce unemployment and to help the poor &#8211; by taking what they do best (education) and applying it to one of the most effective mechanisms for economic growth and empowerment (entrepreneurship).
In academic literature, entrepreneurship has been widely acknowledged as an important mechanism for economic growth and employment creation. Various studies have shown that entrepreneurship is one of the most effective means for alleviating poverty in developing and transitional countries, and that increasing the quality and number of entrepreneurs creates employment and supports innovation and the economic empowerment of individuals.
The time has now come for educational institutions in South Africa to play their part in developing entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship education needs a significant upgrade in terms of its scope and scale. And entrepreneurship skills and the motivation to start a business should be brought to all students at universities, not only those registered specifically for entrepreneurship degrees. The goal is to increase startup rates by enhancing students&#8217; entrepreneurial skills and motivation.
This requires a radical mindset change for students &#8211; but also, critically, for educationalists and politicians. It is the leadership of universities who need to initiate this change.
What role can universities in South Africa play in improving the entrepreneurial mindset and motivation of students and boosting startups?
First of all, it is important to acknowledge the distinction between entrepreneurship education and business management. While business management courses are about leadership, administration, sales and marketing, entrepreneurship courses deal more with innovation, personal initiative, achievement orientation and risk taking.
There is empirical evidence that entrepreneurship courses in South Africa are not necessarily achieving the goals mentioned above. The most successful courses are those that provide a thorough practical orientation to entrepreneurship education, focusing on learning by doing &#8211; whereby students are not only learning about entrepreneurship but also how to become entrepreneurial.
My colleagues and I already demonstrated (to a statistically significant extent) more than 10 years ago, in possibly the first controlled study on the African continent, that it is possible to change the entrepreneurial mindset of (UWC) students, who at the time had to open and run a business in small groups. The control group, which didn&#8217;t participate in this hands-on approach but participated in normal business courses, didn&#8217;t change their mindset at all. Successful students in the hands-on group also wanted to continue with their businesses after the end of the course &#8211; and many did so.
In recent large-scale research initiatives in African countries like Uganda, Kenya, Liberia, Tanzania and Rwanda, where hundreds of students participated in (on average) 30 hours of practical entrepreneurial training, students improved their entrepreneurial mindset significantly in comparison to a control group that had taken a standard business related course.
The focus of the training was an action-based intervention to enhance the entrepreneurial mindset and to support the creation of a small company. The training also aimed at supporting the personal initiative of participants (being self-starting, proactive and persistent), as well as goal setting, entrepreneurial environmental knowledge generation, action planning/execution and self-efficacy. This is evidence-based best practice in entrepreneurship education in Africa.
One year after the training the results showed a massive increase in startups by the entrepreneurial training group. 18 months after the training, each student who participated had on average created 2.82 jobs &#8211; a clear indication that even a relatively short intervention can not only change the mindset of students but also boost startups and create employment.
It is also helpful to look at successful Asian countries like Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, and examine how they have structured entrepreneurship education. In many of these universities, entrepreneurship education is not only part of their vision and mission statements, but part of the real student experience: they even have compulsory basic entrepreneurship courses for all university students. Based on my experience at the University of Ciputra in Indonesia, for example, no student can graduate if he or she has not started a business.
There are many ways universities can help to reduce unemployment &#8211; and one of the most effective ways is through entrepreneurship education.
*Prof Dr Chris Friedrich, is Extraordinary Professor at the School of Business and Finance, University of the Western Cape (UWC), and is linked to the University of Applied Sciences, Giessen, Germany. His work deals with evidence-based best practices of entrepreneurship education at universities, and how to improve entrepreneurial performance.

Op-Ed: What Africa’s universities can do to reduce unemployment

A Catholic Relief Services (CRS) survey of more than 1,500 Liberians reveals deep-seated fears of renewed violence as the country prepares for historic presidential elections in October. 
The <a href="http://www.crs.org/our-work-overseas/research-publications/state-peace-reconciliation-and-conflict-liberia" target="_blank">nationally representative study</a>, conducted from March to May 2016 in each of Liberia’s 15 counties, applied both quantitative and qualitative methods. It’s one of the first studies to reveal how Liberians perceive the state of peace, reconciliation, and conflict since the country&#8217;s devastating 14-year civil war that ended in 2003.
“Liberians are telling the world that the causes of the long civil wars are still there and they have genuine fears of their country returning to violence,” said Jennifer Overton, Regional Director for CRS in West Africa. “We now have some very specific key indicators for potential risks of conflict. But we have to address them now.”
Among the key findings, the study found that the wounds inflicted by the wars have not fully healed. Respondents cited three key factors that could lead to renewed violence: systemic corruption in the public sector, disputes over land ownership and high rates of youth unemployment.
“This <a href="http://www.crs.org/our-work-overseas/research-publications/state-peace-reconciliation-and-conflict-liberia" target="_blank">report</a> is an inventory of issues that require urgent and serious attention,” said Pilate Johnson, Acting Director for the ‎Catholic Justice and Peace Commission in Liberia.
“We all have a responsibility to act,” he said. “Both the Liberian government and the international community cannot afford to be complacent about peace in Liberia. This study makes that very clear.”
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia’s incumbent president and Africa’s first elected female head of state, is stepping down from the presidency of the country founded by freed slaves from the United States in 1847.  Her departure would mark the first peaceful democratic transfer of power since the 1970s. But it comes as the UN’s peacekeeping force, UNMIL, will have significantly pulled out from Liberia, increasing the possibility of a return to fighting.
<h2>KEY FINDINGS:</h2>
 
<ul>
<li>Fragile peace: Respondents were evenly split on whether Liberia is at risk of once again descending into large-scale violent conflict (50.6% for “high to very high risk” and 43.7% for “no to low risk”).</li>
<li>Reconciliation: More than 80% of respondents felt that people who suffered grave injury during the war did not receive justice through the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Half of respondents (49.7%) believed that post-war reconciliation failed to achieve its objectives.</li>
<li>Key actors: Political leaders (71.8%) and unemployed youth (58.2%) topped the list of those who could instigate violence.</li>
<li>Flashpoints: Nimba, Grand Gedeh, and Montserrado were cited as the counties most likely to spark conflict, due to both historical and current factors. Inhabitants of Rivercess (79.3%), Nimba (74.9%); Grand Kru (74.4%); and Grand Cape Mount (74.2%) assessed the risk as highest, while respondents in River Gee were the most optimistic.</li>
</ul>
CRS and the Catholic Church, which have been active in Liberia’s post-war healing and reconciliation processes, will use these findings to guide its continued work toward inclusive development and sustainable peace.
In the time leading up to November 2017 elections, new programs will be promoting voter education and registration, and supporting vulnerable groups such as women and youth to participate in electoral and political processes.
Simultaneously, CRS and the Church will be sharing the findings of this study at county and district levels in Liberia through faith-based networks and will engage with other interested civil society partners and government to share the results more broadly.
“For peace to thrive, we also need to build a better future for young people in Liberia,” said Overton. “They need to heal and advance their livelihoods through job training, education, and leadership development.”
A summary of the study can be downloaded here.
Please contact <a href="http://www.crs.org/media-contacts/tom-price" target="_blank">Tom Price</a> for experts who can provide commentary on <a href="http://www.crs.org/our-work-overseas/research-publications/state-peace-reconciliation-and-conflict-liberia" target="_blank">the study</a>.
Click <a href="http://www.crs.org/media-center/current-issues/liberia-fragile-peace" target="_blank">here to read</a> more information on the current situation in Liberia.
###
Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. The agency alleviates suffering and provides assistance to people in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding. For more information, please visit <a href="http://crs.org/">crs.org</a> or <a href="http://www.crsespanol.org/">crsespanol.org</a> and follow CRS on social media: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CatholicReliefServices">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/CatholicRelief">@CatholicRelief</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/CRSnews">@CRSnews</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/catholicrelief">YouTube</a>, <a href="https://instagram.com/catholicreliefservices/">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/catholicrelief/">Pinterest</a>.﻿

Study reveals deep concerns for peace in Liberia ahead of elections

Liberia&#8217;s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will lead a mission to Gambia on Tuesday to mediate in a crisis brought on by long-ruling President Yahya Jammeh&#8217;s refusal to step down, president-elect Adama Barrow said.
Jammeh had quickly conceded defeat to Barrow after a presidential election on Dec. 1. But in an about-face on Friday that drew international condemnation, he denounced the results.
He plans to contest the result at the Supreme Court, raising the prospect that a shock opposition victory that was poised to end 22 years of autocratic rule will be overturned.
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Barrow told Reuters on Monday that Johnson Sirleaf, a Nobel peace laureate and current chair of the West African regional organisation ECOWAS, would head a delegation representing the bloc as well as the United Nations and the African Union.
Neither the Liberian president&#8217;s office nor Gambian officials could be reached for comment.
The mission will meet with both Jammeh and the president-elect and include regional heads of state, Barrow said, though he declined to name which ones.
&#8220;With the statement from Jammeh (challenging the poll results) which shocked the world, he made a mistake, and they have to advise him,&#8221; Barrow told Reuters at a hotel in the capital Banjul.
Asked what he expected the delegation&#8217;s visit to accomplish, Barrow said he wanted to see an &#8220;expedited transitional period&#8221; that would lead to Jammeh handing over power.
&#8220;We are not talking about a military option. We want to safeguard our democracy and we want peace,&#8221; he said, but added that he was concerned for his own security.
&#8220;I have no official security. As president-elect, I should not be exposed in the way I am today,&#8221; he said.
Jammeh seized power in a coup in 1994 when he was an army lieutenant and has ruled ever since, wining four elections that were criticised by rights monitors and surviving several coup attempts. International human rights groups accuse him of widespread violations and repression.
He declared Gambia an Islamic Republic last year.
A statement from the opposition coalition read to reporters in Barrow&#8217;s presence on Monday called for Jammeh to step down immediately.
Before his surprise change of mind, he had pledged to hand over power to Barrow in January following the transitional period dictated by Gambian law.
However, Gambia has no sitting Supreme Court. In order to hear Jammeh&#8217;s complaint, legal experts believe at least four judges must be hired.
&#8220;We do not recognise that the outgoing president has the constitutional authority in the last days of his presidency, to appoint any Supreme Court judges in the Gambia for the purpose of receiving his petition,&#8221; opposition figure Mai Fatty said.﻿

Liberia

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Mystery illness in Liberia appears to be meningitis

Op-ed: Over 5 years Africa has lost forests the size of England, this is how to create a trade-off

There’s an education revolution taking place in Liberia. How can we make sure it benefits everyone?

Op-Ed: What Africa’s universities can do to reduce unemployment

Study reveals deep concerns for peace in Liberia ahead of elections

Liberia's Johnson Sirleaf to lead mediation mission to Gambia

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Liberia

From rags to riches: Ex-soccer star “King George” Weah wins Liberia’s presidency contest

Liberia presidential camps offer duelling predictions before first results

Liberians await presidential election results as vote count begins

Liberia electoral commission says fraud claims lack evidence

How women bring about peace and change in Liberia

Liberia’s president says ‘our democracy is under assault’

One of Liberia’s main parties calls for halt to election results

Liberia goes to polls to choose Ellen Johnson Sirleaf successor

As Johnson Sirleaf exits, Liberians thankful for peace, excited about change

Africa could soon be the largest free-trade area in the world

Expectations for the 2017 Liberia elections

Mystery illness in Liberia appears to be meningitis

Op-ed: Over 5 years Africa has lost forests the size of England, this is how to create a trade-off

There’s an education revolution taking place in Liberia. How can we make sure it benefits everyone?

Op-Ed: What Africa’s universities can do to reduce unemployment

Study reveals deep concerns for peace in Liberia ahead of elections

Liberia's Johnson Sirleaf to lead mediation mission to Gambia

News Tips

Advertise With Us

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