How much progress has been made with security sector reform (SSR) in Liberia? This Strategic Studies Institute paper examines SSR in Liberia and argues that while the United Nations (UN) and the United States (US) have made a start with police and military reform, they have not done nearly enough. The UN, US, as well as other significant donor partners, need to stay the course with Liberia. SSR is a long-term process, not an ephemeral happening.
After 14 years of civil war in which human rights were widely and seriously abused by all sides, there is a clear and urgent need to comprehensively reform Liberia’s entire security sector. Responsibility (including financial support) for the reconstitution of Liberia’s security sector is shared among the US Government, which is leading the reform of the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL), the Liberian government (Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Justice), and the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), which is implementing police reform.
Both the UN and the US have made a promising start with police and military reform, but they have not done nearly enough towards accomplishing the SSR goals laid out in UN Security Council Resolution 1509 and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement for Liberia:
- Since 2004, UN Police officers (UNPOL) have assisted the Liberian National Police (LNP) in trying to maintain law and order, at the same time as they were mandated to restructure, retrain, and re-equip the police service. However, UNMIL had no money to fulfil its mandate to rebuild the police from scratch.
- The LNP remains ineffective, largely because of critical shortages of essential police equipment. Donors have provided assistance to the LNP in dribs and drabs, and invariably very late.
- Progress with military reform has also been relatively slow. Liberia still has no operational army. Weak and erratic funding from the US Department of State is the main cause of the slow pace of the AFL’s development.
Ultimately, the US Government should move beyond the current short-termism of the SSR program; it should transform it into an approach that embodies a sustained injection of technical and financial support and includes the integration of active duty US military advisers into the AFL, as well as closer coordination with and support to UNMIL and the LNP:
- The UN should ensure that future benchmarks for the drawdown of UNMIL police officers and military forces are determined by qualitative criteria, not based on numbers trained.
- The UN and the US Government, in close consultation with each other, should robustly advise and support the Government of Liberia with the process of drafting and adopting a comprehensive national security strategy and policy—as a matter of utmost priority within the wider governance reform agenda.
- It is also essential that the US Congress provides sufficient funding to the SSR program to keep the building up of the AFL, UN planning for the drawdown of UNMIL, and ultimately the peacebuilding process in Liberia all on track.
