MONROVIA, Liberia — President Bush offered encouragement and help Thursday to lift this shattered country from years of ruinous fighting as he concluded a tour of Africa and turned toward other global problems.
In Liberia, the final stop on Bush’s five-country trip, almost nothing works and people are nervous about their future following a 14-year civil war that ended in 2003.
The country is overrun with weapons, malnutrition is pervasive, half of the children are not in school, and many buildings are uninhabitable. There is little running water or electricity and no sewage or land-line phone system.
Though Bush’s entourage was a bit jittery about his seven-hour stopover, Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, declared at one point, “You’re safe.”
Bush used his trek to showcase how billions in aid and diplomatic engagement are improving the everyday lives of people across the continent.
The president had new announcements for Africa ready to drop at each stop:
• Ghana, $350 million to battle tropical diseases across the developing world.
• Rwanda, $100 million to train and equip African peacekeepers going to Sudan.
• Tanzania, a $700 million development compact and help providing an anti-malaria bed net for every child between 1 and 5 years old in that country.
• Benin, $6 million for textbooks, teacher training and scholarships.
• Liberia, 1 million textbooks and 10,000 desks by the start of the next school year.
