When I began working in Liberia right after the Accra settlement ended Liberia’s civil war in 2003, I could not help worrying about whether the peace would last. Burnt-out cars lined the streets of Monrovia, bullet holes scarred many of its buildings and the wary U.N. peacekeepers manning checkpoints behind sandbags and barbed wire reinforced the sense that violence could flare up again at any time.

Now, 12 years later, the roads are lit by streetlights rather than smoky fires in oil drums, the checkpoints have been dismantled, and I would like to believe that the country has put civil war firmly in the past.

That said, Liberia’s development needs are enormous. For the majority of Liberia’s 4.3 million people, daily life was a struggle even before last year’s deadly Ebola outbreak that so far has taken the lives of 3,900 Liberians. More than half the population lives below the poverty line.

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