Prospects and opportunities for achieving the MDGs in post-conflict countries: a case study of Sierra Leone and Liberia

In this paper we examine the strategies being employed by post-conflict countries in Africa to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. We argue that to attain these goals, these countries will need to alter the way they undertake development planning. Rather than design strategies to achieve best outcomes with limited resources, reaching the MDGs will require that governments identify what resources are needed in order to meet the agreed ambitious objectives. In post conflict circumstances, as evident in Liberia and Sierra Leone (the two countries we examine), three particular challenges to achieving the goals stand out: a history of economic reversals, extremely weak institutional capacity, and popular distrust of government. We argue that rather than treat these features as a limiting factor on development, they should be integrated within development strategies, by including them among the needs to be met as part of an MDG strategy and by adopting strategies that draw on considerably more ambitious models of consultation, information dissemination and transparency than are presently being employed.