The_Open_Door_deel1

exporters. It has attracted more than 1 billion dollars' worth
of foreign investments including the largest Swedish investment
abroad after 1945 as well as the largest German investment in
black Africa.
Exports rose from $ 9 million in 1943 to $537 million in 1979
while Government revenues went up from $ 1.5 million to approximately
$ 200 million in the same period. Employment in the monetary
sector of the economy increased from some 30,000 (in 1944)
to about 150,000 (in 1979), whereas Government jobs, which did
not number 1,200 in 1944 skyrocketed to nearly 40,000 in 1979.
Nearly 9,500 of these were divided over twenty public corporations.
None of these public corporations existed in 1944 whereas
the number of ministries had risen from seven to eighteen. Government
jobs became (necessarily) increasingly available for
tribal people and - extremely important in the long run - the
school population, which stood at only 12,000 in 1944, grew to
more than 235,000 in 1978.
In international affairs and politics the country also broke its
seclusion and in the early 1960's emerged as the leader of a
group of moderate African countries, the "Monrovia-Group",
through an active diplomacy and the hosting of conferences on
regional economic and political cooperation. It played an important
role in the creation of the Organization of African Unity,
the African Development Bank and, more recently, the Economic
Community of West African States. In 1975, Liberia was one of
the few African countries whose Heads of State received the
Prime Minister of the Republic of South Africa, Vorster. In 1979,
Liberia hosted the Summit Meeting of the Organization of African
Unity and President William Tolbert was elected Chairman of the
Pan-African organisation.
Apart from its role in African affairs, Liberia took part in
world affairs when* in i960, it was elected to the Security
Council of the United Nations Organization, the first Black
African country ever to occupy a seat in this body. In 1%9 a
Liberian lady, Angie Brooks Randolph, was chosen to preside over
the 24th General Assembly of the United Nations. Another Liberian
was President of the World Baptist Alliance from 1965 until 1970.
He was William Tolbert, the country's Vice-President at the time.
During the 1970's, Canon Burgess Carr, also from Liberia, was the
Secretary-General of the All African Council of Churches.
Over the years the Open Door Policy has increasingly become subject
to criticism, notably as a reaction to the behaviour of the
two oldest investors in the country, the Firestone Company and
the Liberia Mining Company. This happened in spite of the fact
that an important indirect effect of the foreign investments was
the increased financial and technical assistance to the Lone Star
Republic by the Governments of the countries of origin of these
investments or, sometimes, by the investors. This had already begun
in 1926 with the $ 5 million loan which the Firestone Company
had granted to the government of President King.