Military

4 February 2004 – Donor governments and international financial institutions are set to gather tomorrow at United Nations Headquarters in New York for a conference on Liberia aimed at addressing almost $500 million worth of reconstruction needs following the West African country's devastating 14-year-long civil war.

Participants in the two-day International Conference on the Reconstruction of Liberia will include UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Secretary of State Colin Powell of the United States, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin of France, Chairman Gyude Bryant of the National Transitional Government of Liberia, and the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Liberia, Jacques Paul Klein.

Senior officials from the European Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will also join representatives from the UN and its family of agencies, funds and programmes at the Conference.

The first day will be devoted to technical discussions, while the second session will hear statements, reports and presentations by senior officials, as well as pledges of contributions to Liberia's reconstruction.

A team comprising representatives from the UN, World Bank, IMF, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the Liberian transitional government has been working for the past two months to prepare a report for the Conference on the country's needs, which range from $400 million to $500 million over the next two years, in addition to a $170 million humanitarian appeal made in November, according to UN officials.