Liberia, 2014

I bring the Assembly

greetings from Her Excellency Mrs. Ellen

Johnson-Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia,

who should have been here today to address the

Assembly but chose to remain on the front lines in

Liberia to lead our fight against the deadly Ebola virus

disease.

Liberia congratulates the President of the Assembly

on his assumption of his high office and acknowledges

the astute statesmanship and wisdom that he brings to

that important assignment, which inspire confidence

for a successful sixty-ninth session of the Assembly. We

assure him of Liberia’s full cooperation and support.

We pay a special tribute to Secretary-General Ban

Ki-moon for his able and visionary stewardship of the

affairs of this global institution.

With just one year until the expiration date of the

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the theme

of this sixty-ninth general debate, “Delivering on and

implementing a transformative post-2015 development

agenda”, could not have been more appropriate. Liberia

was put on the pedestal of global honour when President

Johnson-Sirleaf was selected as one of three co-chairs

of the High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-

2015 Development Agenda, formed by the Secretary-

General in 2012 to advise him on the contours of an

ambitious but realistic post-2015 global development

agenda and to define the critical steps required to

reinvigorate and sustain global partnership. The Panel’s

report, A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and

Transform Economies through Sustainable Development,

contained a clarion call to leave no one behind, which

has been embraced as a motivating theme by many.

At the continental level, our President chairs a

10-member high-level committee of African Heads

of State, under whose leadership a African Common

Position has been developed and endorsed by the

membership of the African Union (AU). That Position

is based on six pillars that represent Africa’s vision

of the prerequisites for eradicating poverty on the

continent and for ensuring its future and development.

We are encouraged that the concepts and strategies

defined under each of the pillars have been significantly

incorporated into the proposed 17 sustainable

development goals. That makes us optimistic that the

substance of our pillars will form an integral part of

the post-2015 development agenda. As we await the

Secretary-General’s synthesizing report, I can assure

the Assembly of Liberia’s continued active participation

in the negotiations that lie ahead.

As we survey the regional and international

political landscape, we are increasingly concerned

about the spread of extremist ideologies and terrorist

activities around the world, especially in Africa.

Whether we are speaking of Al-Shabaab in Somalia

and Kenya, Al-Qaida in the Maghreb or Boko Haram

in Nigeria, the African continent has not been spared

the deadly and destructive consequences of extremism.

Additionally, over the past year, while peace processes

were being consolidated in many African countries, we

have been sad witnesses to the eruption or exacerbation

of conflicts on the continent, notably in South Sudan

and the Central African Republic. We laud the efforts

of the AU and the United Nations to resolve those

conflicts, and join in the call for sustained international

action to bring about a more secure and peaceful world.

Liberia commends the Secretary-General for his

convening, last week, of the high-level Climate Summit,

which elicited concrete commitments from the global

community on reducing greenhouse emissions and other

measures aimed at achieving sustainable development.

As a small country and one that is still endowed with

43 per cent of the remaining Guinea forests, we are proud

that we too have concluded partnership agreements and

made concrete commitments aimed at supporting the

goals of sustainable, climate-sensitive development.

Small countries like Liberia contribute less to

greenhouse emissions but suffer disproportionately

from the adverse impact of climate change. To right that

anomaly and in the united spirit of saving our one world,

all countries, big and small, should make proportionate

commitments to saving our planet and take concrete

action to make such commitments a reality.

A year ago, when President Johnson-Sirleaf

addressed the Assembly (see A/68/PV.6), it was with

a more positive message from a President reporting

significant achievements and lofty aspirations for the

future. President Johnson-Sirleaf, full of gratitude,

informed the world that Liberia had just celebrated

10 years of peace in August 2013, and that, despite some

challenges, was still registering remarkable progress on

the path of socioeconomic development. The country

had transitioned from an emphasis on stabilization to

a focus on transformation within the framework of

a long-term development agenda, Vision 2030. The

President also informed the Assembly that the countries

of the Mano River Basin Union — Liberia, Guinea,

Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone — were at peace and

were pursuing regional integration through initiatives

that would facilitate connectivity within their power

and transport systems, thereby enhancing the cross-

border trade in which our market women are mostly

engaged. She even reported on how a small contingent

of Liberian peacekeepers, who are still in Mali

today, had contributed to the laudable United Nations

peacekeeping efforts there, creating an environment

conducive to stability and democratic transition in that

country.

One year later, as I address the Assembly, I am the

purveyor of a different kind of story, and a sad one. Over

the past six months, a dark cloud has been hanging over

the Liberian landscape, such that instead of reporting

economic growth, we are constrained to report economic

decline. The implementation of virtually all the pillars

of our Agenda for Transformation has been placed on

hold, and gains are perhaps already being reversed.

Instead of devoting attention to regional integration

through the facilitation of power and transport projects,

we are talking about regional cooperation in dealing

with a deadly enemy. The market women who traded

goods and services across borders a year ago are now

constrained to remain within those borders and suffer

the consequences of economic inactivity.

The deadly enemy that has visited so much harm

and misery on my country and our neighbours is the

Ebola virus disease, which began wreaking havoc in

Liberia in March. Since the outbreak, the Government of

Liberia has taken a host of measures. We have declared

a state of emergency and suspended schools, and,

with the constructive involvement of all stakeholders,

including pastors, imams, chiefs, elders, young people,

Government officials and opposition politicians, we

have stepped up awareness and prevention campaigns

to address the rigid denial and deeply rooted traditional

and cultural practices that create fertile ground for the

spread of the disease. We have also committed and will

continue to commit significant portions of our own

paltry resources to the fight.

In spite of such efforts, which have been buttressed by

those of our partners, Ebola has confounded all of us and

has sprinted faster than our collective efforts, snuffing

out the life candle of more than 1,800 of our compatriots,

with a total of nearly 3,500 infected. Cumulatively,

women, as the majority among our health workforce and

the main caregivers in our deeply traditional society,

have been disproportionately affected. Sadly, as Ebola

widens its deadly circumference, it is creating a trail of

traumatized orphans across the country, which includes

a 10-year-old child from Barkedu, Lofa county, who

is the last person standing from a family of 12. Our

already limited pool of health workers has been further

reduced, because 89 of them have fallen victim to the

virus, out of a total of 182 infected.

The resulting panic that has arisen in health workers

who see their colleagues die from Ebola has precipitated

the closure of many health facilities across the country.

As we and our many international partners struggle to

douse the wildfire caused by Ebola, we are left with

inadequate resources, time and personnel to attend to

routine illnesses such as malaria, typhoid fever and

measles, thereby causing many more, tangential deaths.

An increasing number of pregnant women are dying in

the process of bringing forth life. In short, our public

health system, which totally collapsed during our

years of conflict and was being gradually rebuilt, has

collapsed again under the weight of the deadly virus.

Ebola is not just a health crisis; it is a total crisis. It is

an economic crisis, a social crisis and a potential political

and security crisis. Indeed, its deleterious impact has

been very wide and very deep. On the economic front,

it has occasioned a 3.4 per cent downward slide in

economic growth in Liberia, and some experts have

predicted that, if not contained quickly, it could cause a

12 per cent decline in our economy in 2015. As a result

of the slowdown in economic activities, our revenue

generation capacity has been seriously undermined,

thereby constricting our ability to provide basic social

services and to continue to fund key development

projects. The suspension of flights as well as the travel

and other restrictions and sanctions imposed on Liberia

and other affected countries despite expert advice to

the contrary from the World Health Organization and

others, have not only undermined the humanitarian

efforts aimed at quickly containing the disease, but

have also aggravated the adverse economic effects of

the Ebola crisis.

As destructive as the Liberian civil conflict was, at

least our people knew the warring factions and the front

lines. With Ebola, the enemy is more insidious, and

there are no clear-cut front lines, because someone’s

child, someone’s husband or someone’s workmate

could actually be the enemy and in the front line at the

same time. That difficult feature of the disease, coupled

with a host of other challenges, has occasioned its rapid

spread. We are heartened that, as a result of separate

and joint appeals of the heads of State of Liberia, Sierra

Leone and Guinea to the Secretary-General and leaders

of friendly countries and institutions, the international

community is showing a better appreciation of the

unprecedented scope and magnitude of the Ebola

outbreak in our countries. There is a chorus of leaders

advocating and committing to support more robust,

scaled up and urgent assistance to the affected countries.

Thanks to the Secretary-General and other

world leaders, the past few weeks have witnessed a

host of positive developments that constitute a major

heightening of focus and scaling up of the international

response. Those developments include the following.

First, we welcome the announcement by President

Barak Obama of the United States of his Government’s

decision to scale up assistance to the region, including

the deployment of 3,000 military and medical personnel

to help us with the fight.

Secondly, the Security Council meeting held on

18 September 2014 (see S/PV.7268), under the leadership

and Council presidency of the United States, adopted

resolution 2177 (2014), which recognizes the Ebola

crisis as a threat to international peace and security,

necessitating a strong and concerted international

response through firm commitments of support. The

resolution also called on Member States to lift travel

and other restrictions imposed on affected countries.

Thirdly, the Secretary-General announced on

18 September his intention to establish the United

Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, which

was formally endorsed by Assembly resolution 69/1,

submitted by the President and adopted on 19 September.

Fourthly, we have seen the start of the deployment

by the African Union of contingents of medical and

relevant personnel drawn from across Africa to Liberia

and other worst-affected countries.

Fifthly, the high-level meeting on response to the

Ebola virus disease outbreak, convened at Headquarters

by the Secretary-General on 25 September, witnessed

announcements of substantial commitments of

assistance by many countries.

Those concrete demonstrations of solidarity have

taken many forms, and we are deeply grateful for all

of them. They should, however, not lead us towards

complacency, because we definitely have not yet

achieved the 20-fold increase in response recommended

by the experts to contain the disease. Additionally,

while we struggle with the first war, which involves

actually disrupting the transmission of Ebola, we must

begin to prepare for the second war of tackling the

long-term socioeconomic impacts of the Ebola crisis,

including building and creating the capacity for a new

health system that can robustly deal with any future

health challenge, and raising the resources needed to

address a legion of socioeconomic, political, security

and other challenges made more acute by the presence

of Ebola.

We are also cognizant of the positive contributions

of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL),

which has helped us enjoy 10 years of peace. The

presence of UNMIL in Liberia, especially at a time when

we were experiencing isolation, has helped to reassure

our people and create a security climate conducive to

tackling some of the multifaceted challenges of the

Ebola crisis. Therefore, the continued engagement

of UNMIL in Liberia will be critical to enabling

Liberia’s transition from the Ebola crisis to resume the

implementation of strategies for the achievement of our

long-term development agenda.

Ebola is a difficult enemy that has frustrated and

bypassed our collective efforts in the past, causing some

experts to project that, in a worst case scenario, about

1.4 million precious lives could be lost in our countries

by January 2015. In spite of the gloom of today — and

as Liberians ponder the question: “Will I, my wife, my

husband, my child, my friend or my workmate be one of

those to populate the 1.4 million doomsday statistics?”—

we should not sink into defeatism. Instead, President

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and the resilient Liberian people

feel that Ebola has presented us with a one-option,

multiple-choice test, and that option is to fight back.

And we are fighting back.

As President Johnson-Sirleaf aptly put it in her

17 September update to the people of Liberia on the

Ebola crisis:

“I believe in the Liberian people. I believe that

we are stronger than the greatest threat with which

we are currently faced. And 1 believe we will

prevail. The war did not defeat us, a completely

destroyed economy — the greatest collapse since

World War II — did not defeat us. Ebola will not

defeat us”.

We know that the road ahead may be long, curvy

and hilly. But with bigger, bolder, timely and sustained

efforts on our part, buttressed by the international

community, we are sure that dawn will soon break on

this long, dark night occasioned by the Ebola virus.