RAND Review Vol 31 No 3 Fall 2007; Passing or Failing?, A Midterm Report Card for “No Child Left Behind”

In summer 2006, the Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding, and Renewal asked the RAND Gulf States Policy Institute to describe the state of the pre-Hurricane Katrina housing markets in Mississippi's three coastal counties, to estimate the damage the storm did to their housing markets, to describe the status of the recovery effort, and to identify problems that might inhibit it. This report publishes the findings. The security institutions, forces, and practices of the regime of Charles Taylor, Liberia's former president, met none of the essential criteria for a sound security sector: coherence, legitimacy, effectiveness, and affordability. Yet even under new, able, and decent leadership, the old structures and ways are unworkable, wasteful, and confused, and they enjoy neither the trust nor the cooperation of the Liberian people at this critical juncture. It follows that Liberia must make a clean break, adopting a new security architecture, forces, management structure, and law. The government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has made security sector transformation a high priority, and the United Nations, the United States, and others are helping Liberia build new forces. What has been done and planned so far to transform the Liberian security apparatus is valid and important. At the same time, Liberia and its partners need an overall security architecture, accompanied by a strategy to create it. Without an architecture and strategy, setting priorities will become increasingly difficult; gaps, redundancies, confusion, and political squabbling over forces are likely. In offering an architecture and strategy, this study identified additional measures, including additional capabilities, that would make Liberia's security sector more coherent, legitimate, effective, and affordable. This report is the final component of the RAND Corporation's research project with the U.S. government under which RAND was asked to advise the Liberian and U.S. governments on security sector transformation in Liberia. By agreement with the U.S. and Liberian governments, and by RAND's own tradition, the analysis and findings of this report are independent In the immediate aftermath of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour appointed the Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding, and Renewal. In summer 2006, the commission asked the RAND Gulf States Policy Institute to describe the state of the pre-Katrina housing markets in Mississippi's three coastal counties, to estimate the damage the storm did to their housing markets, to describe the status of the recovery effort, and to identify problems that might inhibit that recovery. The authors found that Katrina damaged about 60 percent of the three counties' housing stock, but the extent and intensity of that damage varied substantially, depending on the source of that damage. The recovery process then got off to a slow start; the pace seems to have moved more rapidly for single-family than for multifamily units and for moderately than for severely damaged units. Recovery will take at least another two to three years, and the final costs will exceed $4 billion. Three issues will be critical to short-term recovery: construction-sector capacity; availability of funds to finance recovery; and an adequate supply of housing, especially affordable housing, for those whom the storm displaced from their residences. Finally, following through on intentions to implement longer-term mitigation plans seems to become more difficult as time passes since the storm Liberia's new government has made security sector transformation a high priority. The authors analyze Liberia1s complex security environment, set forth an integrated security concept to guide the formation and use of those forces and assemble a complete security structure. They develop specific force-structure options, discuss the cost-effectiveness of each, and suggest immediate steps toward implementation of the new security structure.