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📄 APA-0015 Implemented

Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement

Also known as: Accra CPA

Country
Liberia
Region
West Africa
Date signed
18 August 2003
Type
Comprehensive Peace Agreement
Mediator(s)
ECOWAS (Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar)

Ended Liberia's second civil war after Charles Taylor's departure into exile, establishing a two-year transitional government excluding the principal warlords from the top office, comprehensive DDR under UNMIL, and elections won in 2005 by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Conflict Background

With LURD shelling Monrovia and Taylor indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone, ECOWAS-led talks in Accra — famously pressured by the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace — produced a settlement conditioned on Taylor's exit to Nigeria.

Negotiation Context

The agreement broke the Liberian cycle of warlord-led transitions by barring faction leaders from contesting the immediate elections and internationalising security through a large UN mission.

Parties

  • Government of Liberia
  • Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD)
  • Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL)
  • Political parties and civil society

Mediators & Guarantors

Mediators
  • · ECOWAS (Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar)
Guarantors
  • · ECOWAS
  • · African Union
  • · United Nations (UNMIL)
  • · ICGL contact group

Key Provisions

National Transitional Government of Liberia headed by a neutral chairman (Gyude Bryant)
Faction leaders excluded from heading the transition
Comprehensive DDRR programme under UNMIL (some 100,000 combatants processed)
Governance reform commissions and a TRC
Elections in October 2005

Implementation

Implemented and concluded; Liberia functions as the reference case for sequenced DDR, transitional exclusion of belligerent leaders, and phased peacekeeping drawdown.

Timeline

  1. 2003-08-11
    Taylor resigns and departs to Nigeria
  2. 2003-08-18
    CPA signed in Accra
  3. 2003-10
    UNMIL deploys at 15,000 strength
  4. 2005-11
    Johnson Sirleaf wins run-off; first elected post-war government
  5. 2018
    UNMIL completes withdrawal after peaceful power alternation

Challenges

  • Transitional government corruption scandals (GEMAP imposed in response)
  • Reintegration underfunded relative to disarmament
  • Regional mercenary recycling into Côte d'Ivoire

Outcomes

  • Two decades of peace, two constitutional transfers of power, full peacekeeping exit
  • One of Africa's clearest cases of successful comprehensive implementation
  • Demonstrated the strategic weight of organised women's civil society in mediation

Lessons

  • Excluding belligerent leaders from transitional headship removes the war's principal incentive
  • Early, overwhelming peacekeeping presence changes combatant calculations
  • Civil society coalitions can supply mediation leverage states lack

Related CRCA Resources

References

  • Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement (2003).
  • Gbowee, L. (2011). Mighty Be Our Powers.