Interviews with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Well we inherited a devastated country, dysfunctional institutions, destroyed infrastructure. A debt overhang, debt-distressed country. Trauma. But we also had a population that was tired of war. And wanted to be normal again.

And so we put a team together. The priorities were just everything was a priority. But we started out with– we had a very short-term agenda, 180 days. Let´s determine what we can achieve in those days. Restore lights in a very limited way, as much as we could. Restore some water, start to build the roads and the schools.

And any– and a lot of the people at home joined by some of those who had left the country who came back and joined the team. And everybody just worked so hard. And, you know, in the five years that we´ve been there we´ve made tremendous progress because people wanted to have a better life.

And so the bustle you see, there´s this, the poverty is still there. Okay. Very intense. We haven´t restored all the basic services. But you see people on the street just going about making a livelihood, whether they´re doing petty trading, or some of the farmers are trying to grow and become self sufficient in food again.

And so I think it was just– it just captivated everybody that, hey, you know, we can do it. We can renew ourselves. We can–we have a future. And the hope in that future, the promise of the future, I think, was a driving force in everybody.

Yes, there are a lot of– still a lot of– disappointments and dissent because the one thing about raised expectations, and when you have a team that has the kind of support that we´ve been able to mobilize a strong international support– people think that their lives are going change immediately, and there´s going be a magic wand. And then today you´re poor, and tomorrow, you know– and it doesn´t happen that quickly. It takes a while, the capacity issues, to just do it with all the good will and intention. Just the ability to make it happen takes longer than we think. But I think we´ve come a long way. And that the future´s bright.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the president of Liberia. She was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.

Sirleaf served as minister of finance in Liberia until the 1980 coup d’état by Samuel Doe. She left the country and served in senior positions with the World Bank and later Citibank.

Sirleaf returned to Liberia in 1985 and was arrested and imprisoned by the Doe government. After her release, she went into exile in the United States where she remained throughout a brutal Liberian civil war between the Doe government and a rebel group headed by warlord Charles Taylor. Following a peace agreement ending the war, Sirleaf returned home to run unsuccessfully against Taylor for the presidency. Taylor’s election has been attributed in part to a fear by the Liberian public that he would restart the war if he lost.

Following a second Liberian civil war, Taylor was exiled in 2003. Sirleaf again sought the presidency and was elected in 2005, the first woman democratically elected to serve as a head of state in Africa.

In 2008, Sirleaf published her memoir, “This Child Will Be Great.”