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Ebola, Liberia, and the “Cult of Bankable Projects”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2015

Shefa Siegel
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Extract

The first thing you notice is the darkness. Monrovia, Liberia's capital, is an hour from the airstrip, and other than the occasional dimly lit chop-hut serving rice and fish, the way into the city is obscure. One is almost tempted to idealize this perfect darkness and its accompanying quiet as pristine elemental beauty, rather than what it really is: the wreckage of a disaster whose depths, as Ryszard Kapuściński writes, “condemned some to death and transformed others into monsters.”

Type
Essay
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , Spring 2015 , pp. 3 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2015 

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References

NOTES

1 Kapuściński, Ryszard, The Shadow of the Sun (New York: Vintage International, 2001)Google Scholar, p. 255.

2 Farmer, Paul, “Diary,” London Review of Books 36, no. 20 (2014), pp. 38–39 Google Scholar, www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n20/paul-farmer/diary.

3 Ellis, Stephen, The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War (New York: NYU Press, 2006)Google Scholar, p.173.

4 Ibid., p. 90.

5 Van Bockstael, Steven, “The Persistence of Informality: Perspectives on the Future of Artisanal Mining in Liberia,” Futures 62, Part A (2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 See, for example, the UNICEF SitRep#28 on Ebola in Liberia, dated June 25, 2014, crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2014/06/ebola-in-liberia-unicef-sitrep-28-june-25.html.

7 Polman, Linda, The Crisis Caravan: What's Wrong with Humanitarian Aid? (New York: Picador, 2011)Google Scholar.

8 Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy, p.146.

9 Greene, Graham, Journey Without Maps (London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1936)Google Scholar.

10 Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy, p. 132.

11 United States Agency for International Development (PRADD Project, Liberia), “A Review of the Legal, Regulatory and Policy Framework Governing Artisanal Diamond Mining in Liberia,” November 2011, p. 2.

12 Republic of Liberia Office of Precious Minerals, Annual Report, 2013.

13 Republic of Liberia, “Agenda For Transformation: Steps Toward Liberia Rising 2030,” p. 13, mof.gov.lr/doc/AfT%20document-%20April%2015,%202013.pdf.

14 Greene, Journey Without Maps, p. 230.

15 Doerte Doemeland and James Trevino, “Which World Bank Reports Are Widely Read?,” Policy Research Working Paper, no. WPS 6851 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group, 2014), documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/05/19456376/world-bank-reports-widely-read-world-bank-reports-widely-read.

16 Schlesinger, Stephen C., Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations (Cambridge, Mass.: Westview Press, 2003)Google Scholar, p. 122.

17 Hazzard, Shirley, Defeat of an Ideal: A Study of the Self-Destruction of the United Nations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973)Google Scholar, p.190; Hazzard is citing Pearson's May 26, 1970 article in the New York Times.

18 Keenleyside, Hugh, International Aid: A Summary, With Special Reference to the Programmes of the United Nations (New York: James H. Heineman, 1966)Google Scholar, p. 305; Keenleyside is referring to Cleveland's November 14, 1964 address to the AFL-CIO.

19 Levi, Primo, The Periodic Table (New York: Knopf, 1995)Google Scholar, p. 182.

20 Kennedy, Paul, The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations (New York: Random House, 2006)Google Scholar, pp. 5–10.

21 Keenleyside, International Aid: A Summary, p. 97; Keenleyside is referring to the 1928 book by C. Howard-Ellis, Origin, Structure and Working of the League of Nations.

22 Stephen C. Schlesinger, Act of Creation, p. 241.

23 Keenleyside, Hugh L., Memoirs of Hugh L. Keenleyside, Volume 2: On the Bridge of Time (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1982)Google Scholar, p. 358.

24 See www.bartleby.com/124/pres53.html

25 Keenleyside, Memoirs of Hugh L. Keenleyside, Volume 2, pp. 353–59.

26 Keenleyside, International Aid: A Summary, p. 207.

27 Ibid., pp. 162–64.

28 Keenleyside, Memoirs of Hugh L. Keenleyside, Volume 2, p. 476.

29 Hazzard, Defeat of an Ideal, p.190; Hazzard is citing Sir Robert Jackson, who in 1969 wrote A Study of the Capacity of the UN Development System (UN document DP/5; Geneva: United Nations, 1969), a report Hazzard called “the most thoughtful document ever to come out of the UN.”

30 Keenleyside, International Aid: A Summary, p. 163.

31 Ibid., p. 219.

32 Hazzard, Defeat of an Ideal, p.132.

33 Ibid., p.129

34 See http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/world/africa/new-concerns-over-response-to-ebolacrisis.html?action=click&contentCollection=Africa&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=article.

35 Van Bockstael, “The Persistence of Informality.”