|
Establish
national development plan for Liberia: A model
expected to rapidly develop Liberia
Wednesday,
June 06, 2007
By
Rufus N. Darkortey
The
development of Liberia is the primary goal of
the Liberian citizenry and elected officials
alike. Liberians have a strong desire to see
their country modernized and developed with
better road networks, a productive healthcare
delivery system, a sound educational system,
and the implementation of all other modern
infrastructure developments that are
typically found in developed nations.
Unfortunately, after over a century of existence, Liberia still remains both
statistically and physically classified as one
of the least developed countries in the world.
This article presents a model that is intended
to rapidly develop Liberia by providing a
national development plan that can create
sustainable development for years to come. The
model will allow Liberian decision-makers to
establish a national development plan and pass
it into law, which will serve as a roadmap
that current and future governments will use
to develop the country.
This article proposes
a plan that will provide a minimal benchmark
that each elected administrations must meet
prior to the cessation of their respective
administration, to ensure that Liberia’s
development is both continuous and congruent
throughout the country.
On the contrary, this plan is not
intended to strip current and future
administrations of their autonomy or ability
to make developmental decisions. However, it
is designed to keep the administration on course
and alleviate the past tendency of having no
national development standards in Liberia.
Liberia
must establish a national development plan that
successive governments will
be compelled to implement during its tenure. The plan must
clearly state the developmental objectives of
the country by defining when, what, where, and
how the plan must be implemented to avoid
ambiguities and inconsistencies during its
implementation.
Every
Liberian desires to see the development of
Liberia through the construction of intra and inter-city paved superhighways, that will connect
the various regions of the country and make
the transportation of people, goods and
services more efficient; the building of
first-rate universities and other institutions
of higher learning, to increase the literacy
rate and marketability of the Liberian
workforce; the establishment of state of the
art hospitals, clinics and out-patient
facilities; to ensure a productive healthcare
delivery system; and a host of other necessary
social, economic, and political
infrastructures that are comparable to,
perhaps, those that exist in the United States
of America and other developed nations. These
aspirations have always been articulated by
sitting governments, who have either failed to
deliver on their promises to develop the
country or have inadequately implemented their
development policies.
Liberia’s
road networks are deplorable or nonexistent;
its healthcare delivery system is very weak
due to the inadequacy of current
infrastructure and human capital; and the
country’s economy is weak to the extent that
17 out of 20 Liberians are unemployed and
chronically impoverished. As it stands, it is
yet to be seen when the various remote cities
and towns outside of Monrovia will experience
significant development and gain economic
vitality. Therefore, considering the theory of
adaptive expectation, which predicts future
outcomes based on past results, the country is
not expected to be significantly developed
within the next 200 years due to the following
problems:
Liberia
does not currently have a national development
plan that serves as a benchmark against which
all other development policies must be based
and measured. To ensure consistent national
development, the country must make projections
of the kinds of development (e.g., road,
schools, and hospitals) that must take place
within the country given a specified time
frame (e.g., Road Completion Project
2007-2014); the specific locations at which
such development must occur (e.g., Bong
County); and how such plan must be
implemented, considering budgetary and other
constraints.
Because
a national development plan has never existed
in Liberia, the development of the country is
characterized by debilitating inconsistencies.
These inconsistencies are inherent in the fact
that each government is given exclusive power
to decide the developmental direction of the
country. As a result of such unrestricted
power, Liberian governments have unilaterally
decided, for example, which highway should be
constructed, when such construction should
occur and how the construction should occur.
As a result, these governments have not
felt morally obligated or been legally
compelled to develop the country by continuing
development projects that commenced during
previous administrations; nor have they
fostered development that have a
significant impact on the entire country.
Therefore, Liberia has been
experiencing a high level of disorganization
in the implementation of its developmental
goals, as well as the discontinuation and
abandonment of developmental projects by
successive administrations.
Physical
evidence gathered from across the country
suggests that the current development
practices of Liberia do not have the capacity
to develop the country. The evidence is based
on a chronological sampling of the last five
(5) elected governments of Liberia, and an
analysis of their national development plans
specific to the following areas:
a) the national developmental policy of
each administration; b) the construction of
the highway connecting Monrovia and Maryland
county; c) the construction of universities
within each of the 15 counties of the country;
and d) the development of the segment of the
county of origin of the sampled presidents.
This article is in no way ignoring the
achievements of these administrations.
On the contrary, the objective is to
analyze whether each administration’s
national development policy has contributed to
the sustainable development of Liberia in the
areas specified. The analysis of the evidence
will help Liberians to understand the
importance of formulating a national
development plan that will ensure the
continuous and congruent development of the
entire country.
President
William V.S. Tubman was best known for his
national development plan of an economic
“Open Door Policy”, which increased
foreign investments and economic growth in
Liberia.
However, during his 27-year era,
President Tubman failed to connect the road
network between Monrovia and Maryland County,
and many of the existing roads remained
unpaved. In regards to university construction, while President Tubman
successfully expanded the University of
Liberia from Liberia College [1],
there were no other universities constructed
in other parts of the country. It is also
worth noting that President Tubman often
developed sections of Maryland County, where
he resided, but neglected other parts of the
county and the country as a whole.
During
the 9-year tenure of President William R.
Tolbert, Jr., he initiated developmental
policies including, “Total Involvement for
Higher Heights”, “Rally Time”, and
“From Mat to Mattresses.” These policies
were intended to create what he called “a
wholesome functioning society” and to win
the “War against Ignorance, Disease and
Poverty [1].”
While many of President Tolbert’s
policies arguably curtailed some of the
rampant socio-economic inequities that plagued
Liberian citizens, there was a notable
disconnect in his handling of national
infrastructure development.
For example, the road network between
Monrovia-Harper Highway remained unpaved.
Furthermore, the University of Liberia still
remained the only public university operating
within the entire country.
And like his predecessor, President
Tolbert developed parts of Bensonville/Bentol,
where he resided, and left many parts of the
country undeveloped.
President
Samuel K. Doe’s administration of 10 years
brought about the “Green Revolution”
national development policy [1].
The “Green Revolution” was enacted
to make Liberia a self-sufficient nation.
Additionally, President Doe commenced
the construction of vital government
ministries and crafted plans for the
construction of the highway between Ganta and
Harper, a segment of the road network between
Monrovia and Maryland County.
However, the road network between
Monrovia and Maryland County was left unpaved.
With regards to university
construction, he expanded the University of
Liberia by constructing the Fendell Campus
near Monrovia, but the remainder of the
country still did not have universities.
Lastly, President Doe developed segments of
Grand Gedeh County, where he originated, and
failed to develop most of the other counties
within the country.
During
his 8 year tenure, President Charles G. Taylor
enacted the development policies of “Vision
2024” and “7 Pillars of Development,”
which were intended to develop the country
entirely by the year 2024.
While President Taylor repaved the New
Kru Town road network, the Monrovia-Maryland
road network was left unpaved.
Furthermore, there were no universities
constructed during his tenure.
Again, like his predecessors, one of
his most well-known construction projects was
the building of a mansion in Oldest Congo Town
and other similar structures in Gbarnga, Bong
County that were constructed solely for his
personal use to the exclusion of the other
counties of the country.
President
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s government is still
less than 2 years old.
As such, it is difficult to assess her
administration as was done with the other
sampled governments.
Moreover, her national development plan
could not be determined by this article.
However, the Monrovia -Maryland road
network still remains unpaved.
Additionally, to date, there have been
no reports of new university construction
projects in Liberia.
Lastly, it is still unknown whether
President Johnson-Sirleaf will continue in the
legacy of the previous four administrations by
developing segments of her county of origin to
the exclusion of other parts of the country.
The
physical evidence suggests that: a) 100
percent of all sampled governments
discontinued or abandoned the developmental
plans of previous administrations (e.g.,
President Taylor abandoned President Doe’s
“Green Revolution,” for his “Vision
2024” policy, etc.);
b) 100 percent of the governments
abandoned the road construction between
Monrovia and Maryland County; c) 100 percent
of the governments failed to construct
universities within the other 15 counties of
Liberia. An interesting finding of this
statistics is that assuming that past and
present administrations endeavored to build at
least one university within each county, only
6.7 percent of that goal has been achieved in
approximately 200 years of existence of the
country. As a result, students residing within
93.3 percent of all counties have not had
access to a university education within those
counties; d) 100 percent of the sampled
Presidents, excluding President Sirleaf, have
developed segments of their county of origin
to the exclusion of the other counties.
President Sirleaf was not included within this
statistics given that there is no information
on whether she has developed a segment of Bomi
County where she originates.
Interestingly,
this trend of sitting presidents to exhibit
the tendency to develop their counties of
origin to the exclusion of the other counties
reveals that under the current system of
national development, the only counties that
will be guaranteed some form of development
will be those counties that produce a
president. In light of the trend, under the
current status quo, it is highly probable that
other counties of Liberia will have to wait at
least 6 years to have a chance at development.
Therefore,
the above findings clearly suggest that the
national development practices of Liberia, to
date, cannot develop the country. These
unilateral national development practices must
be replaced by a comprehensive national
development plan that will compel all
governments to meet the mandatory
developmental goals of the country during
their tenure to ensure the rapid and
systematic growth and development of Liberia.
Many
countries have implemented national
development plans with great success. The
United States of America offers one of the
best examples. This section uses the United
States National System of Interstate Highways
as a case study that can be used as a model
for the construction of a comprehensive
national development plan for Liberia, which,
when implemented will contribute to the rapid
development of the country.
Impressed
with the German Autobahns (superhighways
system) of the 1930’s, Dwight D. Eisenhower
began planning the creation of what is known
today as the "The United States
Interstate System."
The purpose of the road network was to
provide direct military access to all parts of
the country during emergencies.
In 1938, The Federal-Aid Highway Act
was passed to study the feasibility of
constructing a superhighway system.
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 was
passed to legislate how the highway system
would be constructed. The law specifically
stated that the Interstate System should
include up to 40,000 miles and must be
connected by “routes, direct as practical,
the principal metropolitan areas, cities, and
industrial centers, to serve the National
Defense, and to connect at suitable points,
routes of continental importance in the
Dominion of Canada and the Republic of
Mexico" [2].
After
addressing the questions of what, when and
where the highways should be constructed, the
American government provided answers to how
the highways were to be constructed.
Subsequently, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of
1952 was passed to authorize the first $25
million to carrying out the project.
In 1954 [2],
legislators authorized an additional $175
million to annually fund the project between
1956 and 1957.
Following
the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt,
Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected President of
the United States. Like his predecessor, he
continued to support and provide funding to
the highways construction plan throughout his
administration as specified by law in the
Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The
enforcement and continuation of the Highway
Act of 1938 from one administration to the
next was the catalyst that ensured the
development and completion of the highway
system [2].
The
key finding of this case study is that in less
than 64 years, the U.S. Federal Highways
Construction Plan achieved what Liberia still
hopes to achieve. The United States, covering
the area of 3,717,813 sq mi [3], which is
approximately 86.5 times larger than Liberia,
has been able to connect the entire country
with intra and interstate super highway
systems, a feat that Liberia (43,000 sq mi)
has not been able to achieve in 200 years.
Based
upon the success of this case study, we can
reasonably conclude that given the requisite
legal backing and adequate national funding, a
comprehensive national development plan will
successfully develop Liberia.
Three key
approaches are used to describe the model for
national development in Liberia: 1) The
Benchmark Approach; 2) The Fractional
Approach; and 3) The Legal Approach.
The key
assumption of the benchmark approach is that
Liberia will be rapidly developed, if and only
if decision makers of the country establish a
national development plan that clearly states
the developmental goals and direction of the
country. Such plan must clearly define the
kinds of developmental projects that are
adequate and necessary for the successful
development of the country; where such project
must be constructed; when they must be
constructed; and how the construction must be
carried out. This approach can be expressed
using a simple mathematical equation of the
form:
ND = RD + NRD
(1)
Where:
ND
is National Development.
National
Development (ND) represents the sum of all
required development (RD) plus non-required
development (NRD).
RD
is Required Development.
RD represents the
total minimal amount of national developmental
projects that all governments are required by
law to complete. This is the component of the
national development plan that will always
occur irrespective of the administration that
is in power. Therefore, RD must be determined
so that, under all administrations, every
segment of the country is guaranteed needed
development until the developmental needs of
the segments are achieved. To ensure the
successful implementation of RD, no
administration will be allowed to deviate from
the national developmental benchmarks that are
set and enacted into law by the country. That
is, this component is fixed across all
administrations and can only be changed by
amendments to the law and/or to accommodate
events of extraneous and uncontrollable
circumstances, including severe budgetary
constraints, natural disasters, and other such
emergency situations.
NRD
is Non-Required Development.
NRD represents
the total amount of developmental projects
that a sitting government can complete in
excess of RD, the amount of national
development that is required by law. NRD is
solely controlled by a sitting government and
no administration can legally be held liable
for the failure to complete its unilateral
national development plan for the country. That
is, each sitting government will still
continue to exercise the power to decide when,
what, where, and how it wants to develop the
country as it deems necessary.
For close to 200
years, Liberia’s developmental policies have
been based upon the exclusive practice of NRD.
Unfortunately, NRD does not guarantee that all
segments of the country will be developed
during the tenure of a sitting government.
While NRD may provide innovative methods of
developing a country, NRD has been physically
observed to be discriminatory, segregated,
and non-inclusive. According to physical
evidence gathered from various countries, NRD
usually favors the developmental needs of
people and segments of a country that are
closely connected to the sitting government.
Thus other groups without such connections to
a sitting administration are continuously
deprived of their development needs. For
example, under the apartheid system of
governance in South Africa, national
development favored the white elitist class
over the struggling blacks [7]. In the case of Liberia,
during the tenure of the True Whig Party and
Americo-Liberian rule, development usually
favored the Americo-Liberians over indigenous
Liberians, a situation which plunged most
indigenous Liberians into chronic poverty and
illiteracy. Furthermore, during President
Doe’s administration, development favored
members of his ethnic group to the
disadvantage of others. Therefore, a national
development practice that is totally based on
the principles of NRD will not significantly
develop this country within the next 200 years
due to its inconsistencies, exclusiveness, and
other inherent deficiencies.
The major
strength of the benchmark approach is that it
effectively minimizes the degree to which any
sitting government can deviate from the
legislated national developmental goals.
Additionally, this approach guarantees that
the country’s incomplete required
developmental goals will transcend any sitting
government, thus ensuring that development is
a continuous process that must not cease to
exist when a sitting government ceases to
exist.
The fractional
approach relies on the following assumptions:
a) A fraction of
the country’s annual budget must be
committed to the completion of national
developmental projects:
Mathematically,
this assumption can be express in the form
ND = K*[NB]
(2)
Where:
ND
maintains its definition as described in
equation (1).
NB
is National Budget.
NB represents the
national budget of the country. This variable
is a key indicator of the country’s capacity
to sponsor all of its needs, including
developmental goals. The size of the budget
will determine the amount of development that
will take place within the country on an
annually basis.
K
is a Fraction of the National Budget (NB).
K represents a
fraction of the national budget that a sitting
government must spend to complete its required
portion of the national development plan. The
national budget is a random variable which
takes on different values every year. As a
result, when the budget falls, a sitting
government may use it as an incentive to
suspend some counts of the national
development plan, while a rise in the budget
may serve as motivation to increase spending
on national development. However, the
unpredictability of the budget creates
randomness in decision making regarding the
allocation of funds to the national
development plan. As a result, the plan
becomes characterized by inconsistencies that
have the propensity to undermine its
implementation. Therefore, to mitigate such
randomness, decision makers must carefully
calculate K and pass it into law to ensure
that its implementation will adequately foster
national development on a consistent basis,
even when the national budget remains small or
unpredictable.
The rationale for
the fractional approach is that it is
practically impossible for any sitting
government to complete the country’s desired
developmental needs during its 6 years tenure
due to budgetary constraints.
Hypothetically, a government that plans
to construct 2 highways, 1 university, and 1
major hospital within each of the 15 counties
of the country during its 6 years tenure will,
almost 100 percent of the time, fail to
achieve such goal due to budgetary and time
constraints.
The total cost of
developing a country could easily amount to
billions of dollars. For example, it cost the
United States 7.5 billion dollars to construct
the I-90 highway, which is about 3,020.54
miles long and covers 13 states [2].
Due to the lack of data, the necessary
estimates that determine a comparable cost of
developing similar infrastructure in Liberia
will not be generated. However, the point is
that no government has the financial capacity
to massively and simultaneously develop a
country such as Liberia during its 6 years
tenure due to budgetary and time constraints.
According to budgetary and cost data gathered,
the 2006 national budget of Liberia was 93
million dollars [5];
the highest budget Liberia ever ran was 600
million dollars in 1979 [6]; and the average
cost of constructing I-90 across 13 states of
the United States is 577 million dollars.
Comparing the 2006 national budget of Liberia
to the average cost of constructing I-90
suggests that with a budget of 93 million
dollars, which is 558 million dollars within 6
years, a sitting government will not be able
to completely develop all of the hypothetical
developmental projects of the country. As a
result, if a succeeding government abandons
these projects and takes on other unrelated
projects, the country’s meager resources
will be mismanaged and misused, thus
undermining the development of the country.
This is characteristic of the current
developmental practices which have failed to
develop the country.
The United States
utilized the fractional approach to complete
the construction of its interstate highway
systems. For example, as stated, it cost the
U. S. 7.5 billion dollars to construct I-90 [2].
The average budget of the United States over
the past 13 years is 1.95 trillion dollars
[4], which
can be used as proxy data to reasonably
estimate the average U. S. budget between 1944
and 1996 when most of the highways were
completed. Assuming that the average U. S.
budget between 1944 and 1996 was just half of
the 13 years average, it can be reasonably
estimated that the average U. S. budget during
the construction period was 975 billion
dollars [2].
Expressing this amount as an unadjusted
fraction of the total amount spent on the
construction of I-90, it can reasonably be
argued that the U.S. spent 0.77 percent of its
national budget on the construction of highway
during the period. Substituting 0.77 percent
for K and 975 billion dollars for NB in
equation (2) above, we get:
ND = K*[NB]
ND = 0.77% *[975
billion dollars]
Assuming that
Liberia adopts this fractional approach during
the tenure of President Sirleaf and equates K
to 40 percent, and the country’s budget
remains at its 2006 value of $93 millions for
the next 6 years, one can reasonably estimate
the total projected national development
budget that the Sirleaf administration will
spend on national development. Substituting
the value of K and NB in equation (2), we get:
ND = K*[NB]
ND = 40% *[558
million dollars]
ND = 0.4*558
ND =
$223,200,000.00.
This is the
amount of money the Sirleaf administration
will be legally compelled to allocate to
national development during its 6 years
tenure, if the proposed national development
plan was enacted into law. Otherwise, under
the current developmental practices of
Liberia, the country may never experience this
amount of development during her 6 years
tenure, if the president unilaterally
withholds such funding without any
consequences.
As simplistic
this approach may seem, its systematic
implementation is a powerful tool that can
speedily develop Liberia since it ensures the
continuous and incremental development of the
country under all administrations.
b) Each sitting
government must complete a fraction of the
nation’s developmental projects. :
The fractional
approach is mathematically express in the
form:
ND = Z*[RD]
(3)
Where:
ND and RD maintain their definitions as
described in equation (1).
Z is a Fraction
of Required Development (RD).
Z represents the
percent of the total national developmental
projects that each sitting government is
required by law to complete. Since it has been
established that the development of Liberia
cannot be achieved by a single administration
during its 6 years tenure, Z will ensure that
each government will be compelled to complete
a fraction of all the country’s required
developmental needs during its tenure.
The rationale for
the fractional approach has already been
justified in section (a) of the fractional
approach concept. However, to further clarify
the approach, let’s consider the
hypothetical construction of the highway
between Monrovia and Maryland County. If the
cost of constructing the highway is 100
million dollars, which is 7 million dollars
more than the 2006 budget of the country, the
sitting government may abandon the project due
to its high cost during its 6 years tenure. If
two successive governments also abandon the
project, the project will be delayed for a
total of 18 years, which is an example of how
most of the highways in Liberia have been left
undeveloped over the past 200 years.
The fractional
approach framework provides a speedy and
systematic solution to constructing the
referenced highway within 18 years. Under this
approach, decision makers will set, taking
budgetary considerations into account, the
fraction of the highway that must be completed
by a sitting government prior to the
expiration of its tenure. If the fraction is
set at 35 percent, then Z = 35 percent.
Assuming that the highway covers 100 miles,
then RD = 100 miles. Substituting these values
into equation (3), we get:
ND = Z * [RD]
ND = 35% * 100
ND = 35 miles.
Therefore, since
each government is required by law to
construct 35 percent or 35 miles of the 100
miles highway during its 6 year tenure, the
highway will be completed by three consecutive
governments within the same 18 years in which
the identical highway was expected to be
abandoned in the absence of a workable
national development plan for the country.
The major
strength of this approach is that it
successfully distributes national development
across successive administrations, instead of
the current practice that places all of the
pressure of national development on a sitting
government, thus leading to the abandonment of
needed development of the country.
The key
assumption of the legal approach is that after
a national development plan of the country is
established, it must be passed into law to
ensure its systematic and continuous
implementation by all administrations. Under
this approach, each government will be legally
compelled to complete their required portion
of the developmental projects of the country.
The legal
approach is mathematically express in the
form:
ND = L*[RD]
(4)
Where:
ND and RD maintain their definitions as
described in equation (1).
L
is The Legal Enforcement Coefficient of
Required Development (RD).
L represents the
degree to which the law governing the
implementation of the national development
plan is enforced. The value of L ranges from
zero (0) to one (1), with 1 being the
strongest and 0 being the weakest enforcement
coefficient. According to this model, the
country will implement all of its required
developmental goals if and only if the legal
enforcement coefficient is equal to 1. For
example, let’s consider three (3)
hypothetical scenarios, where L = {0, 0.5, 1}
and RD = 100 developmental projects.
Substituting these values into equation 4,
above, we get:
Scenario
1
Scenario 2
Scenario 3
ND
= L*[RD]
ND = L*[RD]
ND = L*[RD]
ND
= 0 * 100
ND = 0.5* 100
ND = 1* 100
ND
= 0
ND = 50
ND = 100
These estimates
suggest that there will be no development in
the country if the law governing the
implementation of the national development
plan is not enforced.
The rationale for
this approach is to give each government the
compulsory incentive to develop the country.
It has been observed that one of the key
explanations for underdevelopment in
undeveloped countries is the lack of
accountability of decision makers to the
people they lead. Most leaders of poor
countries squander or mismanage the resource
of their countries without been held
accountable by law. As a result, these leaders
are embellished with excessive power that
gives them the capacity to determine when,
where, what, and how the development of the
people and their country must be allocated.
Therefore, vital developments are
denied some citizens of the country and their
regions, thus leading to chronic poverty,
illiteracy, unemployment, and disease.
The lack of legal
control during the implementation of national
development has given most governments
unhindered power to mismanage the
developmental goals of the country. To remedy
the manipulation and exploitation of the
developmental needs of the country by any
government, the legal approach will compel
each government to implement all developmental
projects where, how, and when they must be
implemented.
Despite
the strong desire of Liberians to see their
country modernized and developed with better
road networks, a productive healthcare
delivery system, and the implementation of all
other modern infrastructure that are typically
found in developed nations, Liberia still
remains both statistically and physically
classified as one of the least developed
countries in the world, after over a century
of existence. Liberia’s national
developmental goals are inherently deficient
because they are vulnerable to manipulation
and exploitation by an unproductive practice
of development that gives too much power to a
sitting government to unilaterally decide
when, where, how, and the kinds of
developments that must occur in the country.
As a result, the country is yet to be
significantly developed.
This
article presents a model that will allow
decision makers of Liberia to establish a
comprehensive national development plan and
pass it into law so that the country will
experience rapid, continuous, and congruent
development. This model uses three approaches,
including, benchmark, fractional, and legal
approaches to describe how significant and
sustainable development can be rapidly and
systematically achieved in Liberia. The
benchmark approach specifies that the country
must clearly define the kinds of development
(e.g., road, schools, and hospitals) that must
take place within the country given a
specified time frame (e.g., Road Completion
Project 2007-2014); the specific locations at
which such development must occur (e.g., Bong
County); and how such plan must be
implemented, considering budgetary and other
constraints.
This approach aims to minimize
the degree to which any sitting government can
deviate from legislated national developmental
goals and guarantees development project will
be sustained throughout the country from one
administration to the next. Citing a case
study of the U.S. National System of
Interstate Highways, the fractional approach
defines the percent of the national budget
that must be set aside by each administration;
and also stipulates the fraction of the
national development plan that each
administration must complete prior to the
expiration of their tenure.
This approach
ensures the consistent allocation of resources
to national development; and successfully
distributes national developmental projects
across successive administrations. Finally,
the legal approach ensures the enforceability
of the established national development plan.
Without a legal approach, there is no way to
legally hold sitting governments accountable
for the non-implementation of the national
development plan.
Each of these approaches are essential
to a strong national development plan for
Liberia, that when established and passed it
into law will cause Liberia to experience the
kind of development that is typical of other
developed nations.
Rufus
N. Darkortey, an economist, works for a major
bank in Cleveland, Ohio. He can be contacted at
darkort@aol.com
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