My country Liberia is about to play host to global leaders and thinkers, including the United Kingdom Prime Minister and the Queen of Jordan, as they discuss what priority issues to include once the current Millennium Development Goals (MDG) expire in 2015. I could not think of a better place for this to happen.
Liberia has many lessons to teach on how to ensure past development mistakes are not repeated. The most important of these is the need to tackle corruption head on. We need with a new Millennium Development Goal that specifically calls for greater governance with a way to measure progress - such as access to information targets and open government commitments, a transparent way to follow the money - as well as obligations that specify and measure the enforcement of anti-corruption in each of the goals to fight poverty, hunger, maternal mortality, education and sustainability.
Liberia, which means "land of liberty", was founded by freed and former slaves thirsting for a better future. Yet more than a century of existence has been characterised by conflicts, entrenched public sector corruption and civil wars that destroyed this dream leaving us poor and angry. Our last civil war was in its final throes when the United Nations set the initial MDGs to tackle extreme poverty, hunger, health, equality and environmental sustainability.
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