Refugees and the challenges of integration in the Mano River Union

Since 1990, sustained conflict in the Mano River region has spread across borders and engulfed the sub-region in a severe political, economic and humanitarian crisis. Civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the early 1990's led to the exodus of more than one million refugees to countries within and outside the region. In addition to refugees, sporadic fighting internally displaced an estimated one to two million people throughout the sub-region. Although the tragic triplets: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea formed the Mano River Union in 1973 with the main objective of fostering a customs and economic union between the member states, the conflict of the past decade severely strained political and economic relations between members of the Union. The desire for economic growth and peaceful co-existence led the leaders of the MRU to embrace regional integration as a central element of their development strategy but this noble objective seem to have been realized more in breach. This book is therefore a conscious attempt at proffering sustainable measures on how to achieve the objective of sub regional integration in the face of obvious challenges.