Monrovia — Crunching across shell-encrusted gravel toward a ruined, beachfront mansion not far from downtown Monrovia, the capitol of Liberia, Allen Brown II looks like a happy man. Never mind that he has spent all day and much of the previous night coping with the crises that plague a small businessman in a post-conflict country.
Someone has been tapping into the electricity supply at one of his small hotels - one where journalists and new government appointees are staying, as well as potential investors in Liberia's emerging market. The result is a load the generator can't handle, so the lights and the air conditioners keep going off.
The computers in the rooms and the adjoining Internet cafe flicker off and on, and the V-Sat providing broadband access needs re-setting after the relentless power surges. Some of the guests, heading for a meeting with Liberia's new president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, have to leave without showering, because, without electricity, there's no pump to get the water - supplied by the facility's own wells - above ground level.
Down the street, many of the workers at a new housing development that Brown's company is building stand idly, waiting for a promised delivery of cement, which is in short supply in a nation being rebuilt. His cell phone rings constantly with other problems to solve.
Climbing a set of crumbling, cement stairs, which are missing their handrails, he sighs briefly. The property is leased from the estate of a former president of Liberia and hasn't been used for more than a decade, except by militias and squatters. It would be easier, Brown admits, to build from scratch, but there is an undeniable grandeur to the structure, which will provide community facilities for the residential development.
When he steps onto a parapet with a breathtaking view of the Atlantic, Brown smiles again, swirling his arm in a sweeping arc, as though evoking a vision of the finished project. Imagining what it will become is a little like envisioning Liberia's future. There is not much to work with, except hope and determination, but neither is in short supply, and the optimism everywhere is contagious.
Since fleeing Liberia after Charles Taylor invaded with a rebel army in 1990, Alan Brown has dreamed of returning to help rebuild the country.
He spent a dozen years developing businesses in the United States and west Africa, before finally coming home when then-President Taylor left for exile in Nigeria, and a transitional government took over. Analyzing the local market, and predicting that a growing stream of post-war visitors would need accommodation, Brown decided to invest his savings in building hotels and housing.
Nearly three years later, that forecast may appear to have been self-evident. At the time, however, the risks were more apparent than the rewards. The country was devastated and insolvent. There was no electricity or running water or telecommunications. A quarter of a million people were killed. Most of the rest of the country's three million people were displaced, either internally or across borders. Uncounted numbers were raped and mutilated.
A culture of corruption had become entrenched in government and business. The fragile peace was maintained only with the presence of 15,000 United Nations soldiers.
Still, Brown began to build, cajoling friends and family and business acquaintances to help. He managed to persuade both private investors and banks to provide additional funding.
The bet paid off. His four hotels in Monrovia are proving popular with aid agency staff, returning exiles, civilians connected with the UN peacekeeping mission and members of the administration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was inaugurated in January 2006.
Brown's first housing development - 12 villas and 35 apartments on another seaside plot near downtown - were rented to a security company as soon as they became available. Other residential and commercial projects are underway, and Brown's company now provides jobs for nearly 175 permanent employees, in addition to those working for contractors to whom he sublets some of the construction.
The government's new Investment Commission head, Richard Tolbert, says this is the time for international investors to get in on the ground floor and benefit from Liberia's growth. "The upside is far, far in excess of the downside," he said in an interview.
If new investors can get in at the ground floor now, Brown is asked, would it be fair to say that he came in at the basement level? "When I came back and started to invest and build," he admits, "my view of a prosperous Liberia wasn't shared by many people. Quite frankly, it was an isolated view. But I believed that we as a people could come together. I believed that we would get the right leadership. I came to understand that the bulk of our people really and truly want education and want opportunities and are willing to take advantage of those opportunities, if given to them. I've come to understand that."
There's always the financial aspect, he says, noting that he always believed there was a profit to be made in Liberia. "But I can say that if I wasn't Liberian, it would not be likely that I would have invested in Liberia. So I guess my wanting to make a difference for my people, that was certainly a motivating factor in coming back here."
But what about the lack of infrastructure, the shortage of skilled workers, the lingering trauma of war that afflicts so many? Of course there are tremendous challenges, Brown acknowledges. "But all of that stuff can be transformed," he says, "if there's economic growth. I think that's the key."
Pushed to explain why - sentiment aside - he sunk his resources into Liberian development before the course of events was clear, Brown considers for a minute. "I guess it's outright love of country," he says finally, a little hesitantly. "But I guess, also, I've got a Jesuit education, a Jesuit Catholic education. So I guess that plays into the mix as well."
After finishing high school in Liberia when he was 17, Brown went to Philadelphia in the United States to attend St. Joseph's University. He stayed to work for three years after graduating in 1983, before returning to Liberia. When the war forced him to flee, he tried to stay closer to home, working for and developing companies in the region. There was never, he says, any doubt that he would come home when he could.
But if he concedes that commitment to Liberia, as much as business interests, brought him home, he insists that he is expanding his horizons, exploring other business opportunities, because it makes financial sense.
He has confidence in the future, he says. He is particularly interested in agro-industries, seeing potential for large-scale production, both for domestic consumption and for export. Agricultural development, he believes, can transform rural areas, increasing food security, as well as providing income for on a large scale. "I wouldn't invest in anything that wouldn't be able to touch a lot of people and improve their lives," he says. "I really wouldn't. I think that it's imperative for those of us who make investments to have this social element to what we're doing."
There it is again - that "what's good for development is good for business" attitude that is so commonly heard in Liberia today. It is difficult to find an investor or an entrepreneur who doesn't talk about fulfilling human needs as readily as about making money.
Altruism aside, however, Brown thinks investors will be pleased with their returns. "Government under the leadership of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will give Liberia an environment for economic growth," he says. He has been a long-time supporter of the new president's political ambitions, and he is confident in her ability to deliver a business-friendly climate that also promotes development. "We will see fiscal discipline in government," he says, "and we think that government will be responsive to the needs of their citizens - all citizens."
Brown doesn't downplay the challenges, certainly not today, to a reporter who is staying at the hotel whose electricity is being siphoned off to neighbors. There's "a lack of education, inadequate health facilities, a dysfunctional social security system. You can name a zillion things."
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The single biggest problem, he says, is young workers who have no acquaintance with what it takes to do a job. "Obviously, this is a country that's had 14 years of war and there's a lost generation here. We had a total breakdown of our structures - social, economic, political. So it's very difficult doing simple tasks, because they just aren't prepared or equipped."
At the same time, he says, "Our unemployment rate is over 85%. In many cases, people who have the competence for a highly skilled job will be underemployed just to have a job to feed their families." That means, he points out, that investors do have a pool of talent to draw upon, and with more Liberian exiles returning home every week, that pool is growing.
By the end of the day, the generator at Brown's beleaguered hotel has been replaced, the cables have been deeply buried and fenced, and hotel services restored. The Internet works. Hot showers are back, and staff come around to the rooms, collecting the candles they had lit in rooms and corridors and the buckets they had filled with water boiled on a charcoal fire and lugged upstairs.
Brown, doing the rounds late in the evening, is relieved. Tomorrow will be another set of problems to solve, but whatever happens, he says, he is optimistic.
Liberians want peace, he says, and they are ready to work to consolidate it. For investors like himself, the rewards are multiple. "This is the beginning of an extraordinary period of growth in this country - much needed growth," he says, smiling brilliantly despite obvious exhaustion. "We in the private sector want to contribute, play our part, build a middle class that will provide for sustained growth and long-term stability. What more can you ask for?"
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