A Liberian birthday

My favorite thing about Liberia is the kids. You can see kids everywhere you go. Playing in the street, working, taking care of their younger siblings, etc. Some of them have a hard look in their eyes, as if they had to grow up faster and between the cooking, cleaning and working they forgot how to be kids.

All the kids I’ve seen react the same when they see me or the other interns: surprised, curious, and reluctant but the encounter always ends with a smile after I wave to them.

My birthday was on Monday, and it definitely was a different one. I was away from my family and my friends. In a country that I have not finished to figure out yet.  I also wanted to celebrate in a different way. I wanted to make my birthday not just about me and that is why I’ve decided to have a “More Than Me” birthday.

On Sunday we went down to West Point with a bag full of toys. We gathered the kids in the neighborhood. All the girls from the “More than Me “Foundation, and also some boys who live in West Point.

Less than an hour after we arrived we were surrounded by more than 100 kids between the ages of one and 14.  We were sitting on the side while Mackintosh, the Liberian coordinator for the foundation organized the kids. They formed a line and were asked to spell a word. If they did it correctly everyone would clap and the kid would come to us to get a toy. In the over 100 toys we gave away that day there were many particular stories.

There was the girl that kept trading her toy every 20 minutes just to see what else was in the bag.  This other girl, who chose a boy’s toy to give it to her brother.  There was Rose, the five year old in the picture below, who was one of the first to get her doll and was playing with it as if the rest of the world has vanished.

There was the boy who came for a toy five times saying that he did not get one the first time or this other boy who I though was a baby under three years old but was actually able to spell apple.

Every kid reacted in a different way when getting a toy. Some of them would smile and say thank you, others would not even look at us. Other would open their eyes and mouth out of excitement and other would ask if they can trade a toy for something like shampoo or a tooth brush, reminding me how in Liberia some kids have to stop being kids much earlier.

My favorite part of the day was at the end. After almost three hours we were running out of toys and the kids went crazy. They came to us asking for the toy they wanted, wanting to trade the one they got or not wanting to accept the toy we were offering because they wanted something else we ran out of.

In the middle of that chaos a little girl sat down next to me and pulled my arm. I looked at her impatient expecting her to complain about her toy or wanting another one, but she just smiled and said: I just wanted to say Thank you! Those words and her smile were my favorite part of the day, the week and maybe the whole summer.

The clinic

 I’ve been sick the last few days. I have not been feeling well and had to skip work for several days.

I was feeling so bad that I had to go to the clinic. Other expats advised me not to go to a hospital because I would need to wait too long. The clinics have less people because they are more expensive.

I went to one of the best clinics, recommended both by locals and expats.  First I had to wait for one hour just for registration. The consultation was US$5 dollars. After that I was supposed to see the doctor but a nurse told me I would need to wait for 4 or 5 hours and if I wanted I could come back in the afternoon, when the clinic was less crowded because you were supposed to pay an emergency fee. The emergency fee was US$7 dollars.

I came back in the afternoon where there were no other patients indeed, mostly because they don’t want to pay the extra fee but also because most of them go in the morning to be able to go to work after the consultation.

The doctor said I had an infection but she could not determine the exact type because they don’t do that kind of test so I should be treated with a medication that could help “most” of the types. The doctor prescribed antibiotics but she also told me that I needed to be careful because many antibiotics in Liberia are expired or altered.

Luckily I brought those antibiotics with me from the US and did not have to worry about “fake” medicine. But I started to think about people who do.

Would you imagine the frustration of waiting for 4 or 5 hours at the clinic feeling ill and afterwards buying a medicine that is not going to work because is adulterated? or even worse having the doctor telling you that he is going to guess what kind of infection you have, because they don’t have the equipment to do further tests?  That morning I saw kids and seniors, burning in fever or clearly in a lot of pain waiting long hours to see the doctor and I did not even want to start imagining how long they would have to wait in a public hospital.

That day I felt as hopeless as many Liberians may feel when their country is not able to provide them with the basic services they need to have a good quality of life. That day I understood how lucky I am for being born in a country with more opportunities, and how unfair it is that a random fact, such as where you are born, determines your access to opportunities for the rest of your life.

The quest for private investment

Currently the National Investment Commission (NIC) is working on a change management process to restructure the organization.  146 people work at NIC, but the estimated required number of employees according to the new organizational chart is 50.  What do the other 100 do?

The government knows that the NIC is operating with more people than they need, but in this case its priority is not efficiency, is to create jobs. In a country like Liberia where unemployment rates are very high, the government started to use civil service as a safety net. This is why it is not rare to see people sitting around the NIC building with no clear job descriptions.

This issue makes political factors very important in the change management process. In the MPAID program we learned how a policy needs to address three components: 1) technically correct, 2) administrative feasible, 3) have political support. No matter how well designed NIC’s new organization is on paper, it will probably not be able to address component number 3 and therefore the ultimate solution would have to sacrifice a little bit of component number 1. The government is aware of this fact and the solution they seemed to have found is to keep these “vulnerable” workers but at the same time make sure to employ the 50 people they need to function.

The whole process is still in early stages.  The organizational chart still needs to be approved and the term of reference of the employees still needs to be determined.  However, the main challenge is going to appear after the “desk work” is done. Once they need to go out and recruit real people to do the jobs. Unfortunately most of the people NIC needs to fulfill its mandate are not currently part of the staff and finding them is not an easy task.

A few months ago they were looking for a head of certain department. They hired international consultants and spent nearly 4 months in the recruitment process. At the end the process was declared vacant. They could not find any candidates with the appropriate qualifications.

This turns into a vicious circle; without the adequate human resources NIC will not be effective in attracting investment into Liberia and without investment the creation of new jobs is almost impossible.  With no investment there will be fewer opportunities for Liberians, fewer incentives to go to school or to come back to their country for those educated abroad.

NIC is just an example of the problematic in countries in which private sector development is still incipient. Liberia seems to understand that; and that is why they are focusing their efforts in promoting private investment and developing public private partnerships. However, as long as the state capacities are low, the labor force unskilled and the infrastructure poor, the quest for private investment will remain a very slow process.