Engagement in Liberia

2008 - 2009

Emory University Institute for Developing Nations

Over the past eighteen months Liberia's efforts to build a viable state and society have captured the intellectual interests and personal commitments of a number of Emory faculty and graduate students.

Working with Emory's Institute for Developing Nations, faculty from across the university and graduate students have developed partnerships with Liberian academics, policy-makers and development practitioners to address issues related to gender-based violence and institutional capacity building.

When the Institute for Developing Nations was co-founded by Emory University and The Carter Center in 2006, we embraced a weighty purpose - to harness the strengths of Emory faculty to better understand poverty in all its dimensions, and to leverage the University's networks to produce research that will improve the health and wellbeing of people living in poverty.

Since that time we have pursued the principle that academic research can play a greater role in finding lasting solutions to the problems of the developing world. By engaging Emory faculty and students in cross-disciplinary research partnerships with in-country scholars, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), policymakers, and communities, IDN is re-imagining international development theory, practice, and study.

We are living in a time of rapid political, economic, and social transformation across the world, and the need for innovative thinking and smart solutions in the fight against global poverty has reached a new level of urgency. As a key player in Emory's engagement with the issues facing the developing world, the IDN's mission is to promote research that will improve the lives of those living in poverty, to strengthen local research capacity in developing countries, to develop scholarship on poverty and development, and to re-imagine and advocate new development practices and policies.

Projects in 2008-2009:

• Working Group on Gender-Based Violence in Liberia: The Working Group was carried out in collaboration with The Carter Center's 'rule of law' initiative in Liberia. It brought together Emory faculty and graduate students with staff from The Carter Center and Liberian policy makers, scholars and practitioners to understand better the multiple factors that influence GBV in Liberia and to identify and support research to inform practices and policies related to GBV. In March 2008 the Working Group on GBV met in Liberia. The Working Group offered short-term program recommendations to The Carter Center and served as the basis for developing collaborative research and capacity building relationships.

• International Workshop on "Gender-Based Violence and Rule of Law" in Liberia: A June Workshop on Gender-based Violence and Rule of Law in Liberia was held at The Carter Center and Emory. The purpose of this Workshop was to share research about gender-based violence in Liberia, to develop ideas that were generated by the Working Group in March, and to identify ways forward in terms of practices and policies on gender-based violence, as well as research that could inform both. Sessions were organized around the themes of "Causes of Gender-Based Violence," "Current Efforts to Address Gender-Based Violence," and "Ways Forward." Workshop participants included members of the Working Group, key partners from Liberia, and a wide range of experts on GBV. The Workshop identified key areas of program support that need to be strengthened immediately, as well as research areas that can inform more effective practices and policies related to GBV in Liberia.

• Research Workshop: "Building Liberian-based Capacity: Advocating Partnerships for Recovery" The Workshop, co-organized by Dr. Bruce Knauft, Emory Professor of Anthropology, and George Wah Williams, Executive Director of Liberia Democracy Watch, was held in Monrovia in June 2008. Participants addressed the challenges, impediments, and best practice opportunities for professional development of Liberians in relation to international aid programs in the country. The goal of the Workshop was to develop a research plan that would propose specific ways to empirically investigate, evaluate, and analyze key challenges and opportunities for Liberian professionalization in development initiatives during the national recovery period.

• Research Workshop: "Access to Justice and the Legal Profession in Liberia": The goal of this September, 2008workshop, organized by Professor Paul Zwier and Alex Barney of Emory's School of Law was to develop a multidisciplinary research project that would examine the role of attorneys and judges in relation to gender-based violence cases. Representatives from the University of Liberia, the Arthur Grimes School of Law, the American Bar Association, the Women's NGO Secretariat of Liberia (WONGOSOL), the Association of Female Lawyers of Liberia (AFELL), Mother Pattern College of Social Work, the UNMIL Gender Unit, the National Council of Traditional Leaders and the West Point Women's Association collaborated to design a research project on access to justice in gender-based violence cases. In addition, participants discussed strategies for increasing the impact attorneys might have in the rule-of-law reform process. Professor Zwier also conducted advocacy training on gender-based violence for Liberian prosecutors and defense attorneys. This research Workshop has resulted in two proposals: one to develop a center for advocacy and alternative dispute resolution training in Monrovia, and one for a research project on gender-based violence cases, civil law and customary law.

• Research Workshop: "Women, Gender and Justice in Post-Conflict Societies": This March 2009 Workshop was organized by Professor Pamela Scully in the Women's Studies Department at Emory. The purpose of the workshop was to establish the groundwork for a comparative research project on gender-based violence and gender justice. Academics and practitioners of international human rights law and women's rights working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, and Liberia have increasingly identified gender-based violence and the difficulties of securing women's human rights as one of the main challenges facing post-conflict societies.

• Project Proposal: "Developing Curriculum to Strengthen Gender-based NGOs/CBOs/FBOs and the University of Liberia": Faculty from Emory University and the University of Liberia together with WONGOSOL seek to develop a 4-5 course curriculum to strengthen the capacity of local NGOs working on gender issues. If funded, planning and curriculum development would take place from September 2009 - May 2010.

• Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Emory University and the University of Liberia: IDN is currently negotiating an MOU that focuses on collaboration around the above described "Access to Justice" and "Developing Curriculum" projects.