Scott Family Fellow Conor Hartman Featured in the Media

Conor Hartman, a Scott Family Fellow working in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was featured in this article from America.gov, on Feb. 21, 2008.American Volunteer Helps Liberians Realize a Better LifeDevelopment specialist Conor Hartman praises the country’s leadershipMonrovia, Liberia -- “Liberia is the kind of country I wanted to come to as an American to be of assistance,” development specialist Conor D. Hartman says.Hartman, a Scott Family Liberia Fellow, is in the country for one year to make a difference as a special adviser to the Liberian Ministry of Internal Affairs. He has been in Liberia for seven months and has worked elsewhere in Africa, including southern Sudan.Hartman told America.gov he thinks Americans “have an obligation to help move the Liberians from a long civil war situation into an era of stability, economic growth and development. If you look at countries around the world that are emerging from conflict, Liberia is the most promising of all, in no small part because you have the best leadership team and most qualified president, with a very capable Cabinet.”Harvard-educated President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award given by the United States, on November 5, 2007. Her government, Hartman said, “is committed to making [Liberia] a better country for young Liberians and Liberians who are unborn.”“With that kind of leadership,” he said, “in a very short period of time they turned this from a very serious war and conflict situation to one where you have tremendous growth and investment happening.”Since the end of the country’s civil war, the United States has helped Liberia revitalize its economy, strengthen good governance and the rule of law and deliver basic services, and has provided more than $750 million in direct support. The United States also funds one-quarter of the costs of the U.N. peacekeeping operation in Liberia.Hartman, who is seeking to help Liberians who are less affluent than he is, said the country is achieving a high rate of economic growth under the Sirleaf government. Real gross domestic product growth rates were 2.6 percent in 2004, 5.3 percent in 2005, 7.8 in 2006 and 9.5 percent in 2007, he said. The statistics he quotes come directly from the Liberian government’s Draft Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.With the election of the Sirleaf government, Hartman said, the former banker has “turned this from a very serious, war conflict situation to one where the environment favors tremendous growth and investment”From 1989 to 1996, one of Africa’s bloodiest civil wars took place in Liberia, claiming the lives of more than 200,000 Liberians and displacing 1 million others into refugee camps in neighboring countries. The country endured many more years of uncertainty until November 23, 2005, when the Liberian Election Commission announced that Sirleaf had been elected the country’s president and the first freely elected woman president in Africa.Significant growth in cement manufacturing and services has helped fuel those high economic growth rates, he said. A retooling of contracts in the country’s extractive industries -- such as rubber, hardwood, iron ore and diamonds -- is expected to bring even higher levels of economic growth to the country, according to the draft poverty report, as those sectors become more integrated into the country’s economy.Commenting on the important links between the United States and Liberia, Hartman called those ties “very strong.” The country was founded by former American slaves in the 1800s, and during the war years in the 1990s many Liberians left for the United States, he said.The Liberian government system was modeled on the American system, with three separate branches of government, and economic systems are based on the American model of free enterprise, Hartman added. For that reason, he said, “of all the places where America is investing money today, this is the one where I think we have the best chance of making a big difference and turning the situation around.”Key attributes of the Sirleaf government, Hartman said, include good governance, transparency, accountability and a commitment to peace -- “all of the basic principles needed to bring in critical investment."Liberia, “land of the free,” was founded by free African Americans and freed slaves from the United States. An initial group of 86 immigrants, who came to be called Americo-Liberians, established a settlement in Christopolis (now Monrovia, named after U.S. President James Monroe) on February 6, 1820.Thousands of freed American slaves and free African Americans arrived during the following years, leading to the formation of more settlements and culminating in a declaration of independence of the Republic of Liberia on July 26, 1847.