West Africa seeks $5-6 billion aid, debts canceled: Sierra Leone's Koroma

By Stella Dawson WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The Ebola-stricken nations of West Africa are asking international donors to cancel their debts and give them $5-6 billion over two years to rebuild their economies, devastated by the deadly disease, Sierra Leone's president said on Thursday. "Our social services are ruined, our economies have halted, and we need a real Marshall Plan to take us out of the woods," President Ernest Bai Koroma said in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The leaders of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia will unveil their regional reconstruction program at a meeting on Friday with the heads of the World Bank, the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. Koroma said he wants World Bank President Jim Yong Kim to deliver on his promise last year of regional reconstruction on the scale of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II. The three nations also need about $4 billion in debt forgiveness over and above the relief already provided, he said.



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