Liberian Lessons: Enhancing Somalia's Debt Relief Process

The Somalia NGO Consortium’s (SNC) Debt Cancellation Advocacy Working Group has commissioned a briefing paper titled Liberia Lessons: Enhancing Somalia’s Debt Relief Process to examine similarities and differences between Somalia and Liberia in their engagement in the debt relief process. The briefing paper:

• Provides a brief introduction to the historical context of each country and how the external debts of Liberia and Somalia evolved overtime;

• Briefly examines Liberia’s economic performance and its current external debt situation post-HIPC.

• Lays out Liberia and Somalia’s engagement in the debt relief process.

• Presents the four key success factors – progress towards a durable cessation of violence and socio-political stability,
Supported by: human and institutional capacity, political leadership and the support of a champion - that facilitated the acceleration of Liberia’s debt relief process and compares how Somalia fares in those factors;

• Ends by drawing some conclusions from both countries’ debt relief experiences and provides lessons learned from the Liberian case in both the pre- and post-Decision Point1 and post-Completion Point2 periods.