The Culture and Economy of Liberia

Liberia

Table of Contents

1……. Cover Page

2……. Table of Contents

3……. Introduction Page

4……. Government

5……. Customs/Culture

6…… Economy

7……. Closing

8……. Bibliography

9....... Back Cover

Introduction

Liberian people do not live the same way we do here. One American dollar is equal to 85.50 Liberian dollars (Ostermiller, 2014). One of their biggest challenges is finding a consistent source of drinking water (Boyd, 2006). The majority of homes do not have running water or electricity (Ostermiller, 2014). 111 out of every 1000 children die before their 5th birthday (Sponsorship, 2010).

There was a 7 year old civil war from 1989-1996 (Schools, 2003). It was one of the bloodiest wars in all African history (Schools, 2003). More than 200,000 people died and it sent 1,000,000 people into refugees and neighboring countries (Schools, 2003). Many children were also fighting with Charles Taylor’s band of rebels (Schools, 2003).

The name Liberia comes from the English word Liberty (Moran, 2014). The name refers to as a colony of free blacks who migrated to Africa from the U.S. in the early 19th century (Moran, 2014).

The flag of Liberia is a replica of the American flag. The difference is that the Liberian flag has a single lone star that represents that Liberia was the only Independent republic in Africa during the Colonial Period (Moran, 2014).

Liberia is located at 6.3636° N, 9.4659° (Kit, 2013). Its neighboring countries are Guinea, Cote d’lvoire, and Sierra Leone (Mundi, 2013). Liberia is located in the West Coast of Africa (Moran, 2014).Half of Liberia is covered by Primary Tropical Rainforest (Moran, 2014). The rain forests contain valuable hardwoods (Moran, 2014).

The captital of Liberia, Monrovia, was named after James Monroe (Moran, 2014). It is located near landing of American settlers (Moran, 2014).

Government

Their constitution of 1875 was patterned on the American constitution (Moran, 2014). It provided a separation among judicial, executive, and legislative branches (Moran, 2014). The legislature has an upper house based on equal representation of 13 counties (Moran, 2014). Each county has 2 senators each and a lower house based on population (Moran, 2014).

The current president in Liberia is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. She is the 24th president of Liberia and she was the first elected female Head of State in Africa (Executive , 2013). President Sirleaf has been president since 2006 after winning her presidential election (Executive , 2013).

Liberia is a Republic. They have been a republic since. Liberia was the first Republic in Africa and it was modeled after the United States (Research, 2005).