Governance

     Many things are familiar when you are in a foreign county, even one as poor as Liberia.  People are friendly, they (generally) follow the rules of the road, restaurants can serve good food (at least in Monrovia).  These are things that you see which look pretty normal, but there are always structures, beliefs and asumptions that underlie what can see.  In the US, we pretty much know what to expect  of the underlying  assumptions when we see something, but that is something that you can't assume in the develping world.  Take for instance governance relationships.  

     Liberia is a country only a dozen years removed from a decade plus of civil war.  The warlords called the shots and had their ways of establishing relationships.  These were usually patronage systems of mutual obligation (you provide me with resources and I'll provide you protection etc).  Something also to remember is that as a warlord, you don't get your power because you have 'soldiers' and guns.  Causation often was the other way around.  You get 'soldiers' and guns because you have power.  The power base came first through money, tribal position, personal charisma and things like that.  The warlord then deploys that power (with or without guns and 'soldiers') to further his position or pay back obligations that he incurred.  This dynamic persists even after the end of the civil war.

     The civil war ended due to external pressure and the collapse of the country's economy.  No side really won or lost.  The leaders of the factions (except Charles Taylor) still wheedled power, just not through military means.  The elites came to the conclusion that they were better served by competing using other methods besides warfare.  Thus the frequent 'ballots not bullets' signs scattered throughout the country.  You still find warlords in key government positions, the same family power brokers are in place in Monrovia and you sometimes need to work with the warlords even during times of Ebola.  

     This can be a bit tricky as the relationships that they are used to are very much person centric and not rule centric.  That places us in interesting positions when we are and have to respond to rule centered structures.  A warlord may request financial 'consideration' and expect you to provide it because that is how people do business in Liberia.  If you don't provide 'consideration' (and we didn't) then you must be their enemy.  It also flows from a (Liberian) perception of zero sum games where if you aren't for someone, you must be against them.  This would leave us in the middle of a conflict between our morals standards, USAID rules and the need for cooperation from Liberians in positions of authority.  It gets even trickier with things like consulting fees, equipment distribution and inflated costs for resonable expendatures.  We didn't buy influence, but I can see how easy it is for some organizations to go down that path.

     Well, we have managed to provide our services and to take care of people despite these challenges.  These phenomina aren't unique to Liberia, they were just exacerbated and magnified by the recent civil wars.  From all the reports, things are getting better.  But it was still a learning experience for me.