INTRODUCTION
Liberians living in the rural parts of the county have the opportunity today to change the old ways development business used to go on in the county. For more than one hundred and fifty years, people living outside of Monrovia were left out of the decision-making processes about the development of their communities or counties. People in the rural parts are the true owners of the natural resources (minerals, forest product, iron ore, etc.) from their communities. It is these natural resources that central government take away through big big companies (extracted) and see, but the people in the rural part of the country never took part in the decisions about what, as community, they should benefit from and what the companies that are taking their resources should do for them. In the past all decisions about developments in rural Liberia, and all monies collected from the big big companies for the natural resources were made and kept by the central government in Monrovia. Rural Communities were only getting what the people in Monrovia say they should get or the kind of development the people in Monrovia think is good for them.
Since the coming into power of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in 2006, the Government of Liberia decided to change that and get the rural people involve in the decision-making process of their community/county development and companies working in their areas. All of this is to make sure that the rural people can directly benefit from the natural resources (minerals, forest product, iron ore, etc.) taken away from their communities.
So in order to do this, the Government of Liberia in 2007 passed a law and setup a program called the County Development Fund (CDF) and the Social Development Fund (SDF). Under this program the government agreed to always put some monies in the big money paper of the country called “National Budget” for each county in the country to do development work in their county. This will be done every year and this money is called “County Development Fund (CDF).” Also the government agreed that all big big companies working in a county and taking away some of the county natural resources, like gold, forest product, iron ore or using the people land to plant oil palm, etc. should give that county some money for development work every year. That money is called “Social Development Fund (SDF).”
The same law that the government make for this to happen also says that it is the citizens or people living in a county that should meet and decide on how
4 Understanding CDF and SDF
and what project (s) the monies should be spent on. The citizens are support to meet in the county and make those decisions. The idea behind this was for plenty development to take place in each county quick quick.
Since that law came into being in 2007 the Government of Liberia has been giving that money to every county in Liberia, but we still cannot see the development work going on the way we expected in the counties. People have been giving plenty different reasons for the lack of more development. Some say some big big people from the county in the government are “eating” the money that is sent to the counties for development, others are saying the rural people who support to make the decision as to how the money should be used are not involve in the decision making process, while others are saying the rural people themselves do not even know more about the CDF and the SDF or what to do so that their counties leaders will not “eat” their money which is for the development of their county.
One sure way to solve the problems around the CDF and the SDF is to give the rural people more information about the CDF and the SDF so that they understand their roles and responsibilities in the decision-making processes that leads to the use of CDF and SDF and it is them (rural people) that support to make the decision as to how the CDF and SDF should be used.
As a way of helping, the Foundation for Community Initiatives (FCI), a non- government group that like working with women and young people and Society for Environmental Conservation (SEC) has decided to produce this small book called “Citizens’ Guide to Understanding the CDF and SDF” to explain in simple English the whole story behind the CDF and the SDF and encourage the citizens and people living in each and every county that the CDF and SDF is for the development of their county and not for any community, county or government officials to take and eat. If they the citizens decide on a particular project to be carryout with the CDF and SDF, they should see to it that the project is carryout the way they want it and within the time they agreed on. If for any reason(s) the project is not carried out they should ask their leaders to make report before they can make any other decision on another project.
The Citizens’ Guide to the County Development Fund and Social Development Fund is a simple way to tell the ordinary citizens about the money government is giving to the different counties, every year to help with their development.
For more information, click on link below
Or contact Society for Environmental Conservation Liberia
Mr. Henry Smith
Email: info@secliberia.org
Tel: +231 886 938 813
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