Liberia, with its population of some three and a half million people, is located on the west cost of Africa bordered by Sierra Leone on its west, Guinea to the north, the Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to its south. There are few countries in Africa which epitomise the failure of an independent state more than the Republic of Liberia. It is as though everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and, once again, it is the people who are denied a meaningful existence or future due to the greed and authoritarianism of its rulers, all the more ironic as Liberia was founded by former American and Caribbean slaves seeking a new free way of life.

By August 2003 Taylor had been forced to step down and leave the country with the United Nations launching a major peacekeeping mission, however tensions between various grouping led to ongoing outbreaks of violence. In 2006 Taylor appeared before a UN backed court in Sierra Leone faced with charges of crimes against humanity and his trial continues in the International Criminal Court to this day. Today Liberia reflects on a fourteen year long civil war in which 250,000 lives were lost out of its small population of 3.5 million, its infrastructure destroyed, 83.7% of its population living below the recognised poverty threshold and 111 out of every 1000 children dying before their fifth birthday. Life expectancy overall is just 45 years and employment is just 15% of the population.