Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of the press and good afternoon to UNMIL Radio listeners. We welcome you to this special press conference at UNMIL headquarters in Monrovia where we have with us Mr. Edmond Mulet, the Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations and Mr. Moustapha Soumaré Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General.

 

Mr. Mulet is the head of the Technical Assessment Team which arrived here in Liberia on February 20 to carry out the Technical Assessment Mission as directed by the Security Council earlier on in 2011.

Thank you very much. Good day ladies and gentlemen.

 

It is a pleasure to be here with you today and I welcome the opportunity to meet with members of the press and with listeners of UNMIL Radio as I speak about the Technical Assessment Mission (TAM) that I was leading for the past two weeks in Liberia. And of course I will be very pleased in the end to take some questions from you.

 

As you know the Security Council last year in September requested that the Secretary-General deploy an inter-disciplinary United Nations Technical Assessment Mission to Liberia to assess the security situation and to propose recommendations for the reconfiguration of UNMIL and possible further drawdown.

 

I have been here as I said for the last two weeks and other members of the TAM. In total we were 23 representing different parts of the United Nations; funds, programmes, agencies, the Secretariat etc.  So this has been a comprehensive assessment of the situation in the country. We have been engaging with a range of stakeholders, in the Government, with the Oppositions, the tree branches of Government, private sector, civil society, within and outside the Government, inside Monrovia and in some counties and also with the international community and important stakeholders in Liberia to ensure that all the members of the technical assessment team received a well-rounded perspective of the situation in this country.

 

I would also like to mention the openness and generosity with which we were welcomed in Liberia. This was truly remarkable and greatly enabled our work and I would like to extend my appreciation to all our interlocutors, all the people we met during the last two weeks.

 

As part of this assessment in line with the terms of reference we received, the mission is conducting a thorough review of the progress made towards UNMIL’s strategic objective of achieving a steady state of security in Liberia and national security institutions that are operational independent of a peacekeeping mission. We have been in full consultation with the Government, and we will continue to do that. Base on those consultations we will be formulating recommendations towards the strategy for the gradual handing over of security responsibilities from UNMIL to national authorities.

 

However, this does not mean that UNMIL is leaving Liberia; it means that UNMIL is focusing on a gradual and responsible transition process, and the United Nations will continue to be involved in building the capacity of Liberians security agencies to make sure they continue to prepare themselves to take over security responsibilities more in the future. We will continue to the Government and other Liberian stakeholders in addressing other critical challenges. In that sense, we are seeking to reconfigure UNMIL. As we know countries are always in transition, always moving, there is always an evolution and the mission has to adapt to that evolution and to improve the way we work in that county. This is a new chapter after the second democratic peaceful elections in the country; after the civil war, an important bench mark. So this is a new chapter in the life of Liberia so we have to be better aligned with the current situation in the country.

 

I just had the honor and opportunity of meeting with the President, Her Excellency Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf and members of her Cabinet. We briefed her on the preliminary findings and recommendations of the Technical Assessment Mission. We discussed the remarkable progress that Liberia has made since the end of the civil. But also we assessed the challenges and opportunities that remain in front of you. So our dialogue with the Government and other stakeholders will continue in the spirit of partnership and working hand in hand. Collaborating and being there for you in many aspects.

 

We will be preparing a report on its findings and recommendations and this report will presented to the Secretary-General and to the Security Council for its consideration, and all this will be published at the end of April. It will be publicly available then. We still have to do some consultations back in New York at the technical level with members of the Security Council and Troop Contributing countries, with police contributing countries. So our work is not finished yet.

 

This is what we have been doing these last two weeks. This comes after another technical assessment we did in Cote d’Ivoire. So this is tied up to regional issue of security and stability. If you take a still picture of Liberia today, you will see that the challenges and risks are there.

 

Some of the indicators regarding human development and economic development, opportunities and job creation that is really of concern. But if you compare the picture of Liberia today to two years ago, if you compare the picture of Liberia today to the one of five or ten years ago, we can all certainly agree that there has been a very positive constructive evolution. So we have to be reminding ourselves where you are coming from and most importantly, where you are heading to. And we are confident that the United Nations and the International Community that the will, the determination of the Liberia to move forward in a constructive way is there and have ahead of you the potential to have a brilliant future and I can assure that UNMIL and the United Nations will be there with you in that path towards full recovery and full development.

 

Again, I would like to thank all of you for the warm welcome we have received here in Liberian and the United Nations looks forward to our continued collaboration together.

 

 

The issue of the drawdown has been addressed in the opening remarks and Mr. Mulet has responded to your question that it will be a gradual process and they are not speaking of it at this point. Mr. Mulet and his team are formulating recommendations which will be taken to the Secretary General and Security Council.

 

            On the timeline this is something the next TAM or TAMS will be assessing. As I said        the final end of UNMIL is not in sight yet. This current reconfiguration will probably          take two, three, four years… we don’t know yet. This is something that is still          ongoing at this stage and then in the future we will have other reconfiguration and that         will take more time. So we are not talking about…certainly not months, not few years             but several years ahead of us. Everything however depends on your own speed and           your own capacities in order to assume these responsibilities. This is also related to     the overall economic situation because the Government has to assign in its budget    additional funds in order to provide assistance and necessary support to the concern      institutions in Liberia. Even though, the Government has been increasing its budget           and collecting more taxes because of the stability and the economic growth in the         country there is still a long way to go. This is all tied up to the issue of rule of law and governance and stability in the country. This is a virtual circle security, economic      development, job creation, the state having more capacity in order to expand its     presence all over the country and this will not happen overnight. This is going to take    years to come as capacity building has to do with education and training. I cannot       define the timeline in the future but I can say this reconfiguration will take between  two to four years and after that we will see the next stage depending on the situation        on the ground.