Ellen off to US, Ethiopia

The Executive Mansion says President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has departed Liberia for a week-long official visit to the United States and Ethiopia to return Wednesday, July 15.  A release dated July 7 says she heads a high-level Liberian delegation to the US for official visit at the invitation of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. 

In the US, she will join her colleagues from worse Ebola hit countries, including Guinean President, Dr. Alpha Condé and Sierra Leonean President, Dr. Ernest BaiKoroma to attend an International Ebola Recovery Conference at the UN Headquarters in New York.

Liberia’s Defense Minister Mr. Brownie J. Samukai, Jr. chairs the Cabinet in consultation with Vice President Joseph N. Boakai, Sr. while President Sirleaf is away. The Conference will focus international attention on the need for targeted investments to support Ebola recovery priorities over a 24-month period, the Executive Mansion says.

Such investments, the Mansion adds, will consider the broader risk landscape that includes health, governance and peace building within the three countries and the Mano River sub-region.

The Conference will also offer an opportunity to discuss detailed country-based and regional anti-Ebola strategies, and provide a platform to secure pledges of international support that can complement African Union-led efforts and help fill technical and resource gaps.

The one-day, high-level conference on Friday, July 10, as well as a technical consultation on Thursday, July 9, aims to present national Ebola recovery strategy documents for Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, as well as a regional Ebola recovery strategy document from the Mano River Union.

The outcomes include increased international support to the affected countries and region, with concrete financial commitments to support national and regional recovery strategies within a 24-month time frame.

The Conference is being held in partnership with the African Union, the African Development Bank, the European Union and the World Bank. Following that, President Sirleaf will attend the third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia that runs from July 13 to 16. 

She will join high-level political representatives, including Heads of State and Government, Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation, as well as relevant institutional stakeholders, non-governmental organizations and business sector entities at the Finance Conference in Ethiopia.

The Conference will result in an intergovernmental negotiated and agreed outcome, which should constitute an important contribution to and support the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda.

Set out in U.N. General Assembly resolutions 68/204 and 68/279, the Conference will focus on assessing the progress made in the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus and the Doha Declaration.

It is expected to identify obstacles and constraints encountered in the achievement of the goals and objectives agreed therein, as well as actions and initiatives to overcome these constraints.
Recent multilateral efforts to promote international development cooperation – the current evolving development cooperation landscape and the interrelationship of all sources of development finance are expected to be addressed.

Additionally, the synergies between financing objectives across the three dimensions of sustainable development and the need to support the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015 will be address. The Conference will look at reinvigorating and strengthening the financing for development follow-up process.