Johnson-Sirleaf

MONROVIA (Reuters):

At the height of Liberia's civil war a decade ago, as archetypal African strongmen tore the country to pieces, few could have imagined a woman taking over as president.

But a year since Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was sworn in as Africa's first elected female head of state, many Liberians say they are impressed by the progress the woman dubbed Africa's 'Iron Lady' has made in getting the country back on its feet.

The Harvard-trained economist pledged to restore electricity to the ramshackle coastal capital Monrovia, fight rampant corruption and break with the country's history of violence, when she took office last January.

It was always going to be an uphill struggle for Africa's oldest independent republic, once one of the region's more prosperous states with reserves of iron ore and rubber, but which has seen average annual income fall to just US$130 since the war.

Squatters live in the burned-out concrete shells of government buildings in Monrovia years after the guns fell silent and most of the city is still without piped water after looters ripped up its infrastructure during the violence.

But in July, Johnson-Sirleaf flicked a switch draped in a Liberian flag, turning on power mains in parts of the city for the first time in 15 years, a symbolic step in the nation's emergence from the ravages of its 1989-2003 civil war.

"She has done well in most of the campaign promises. We have light in some parts of the city in less than a year," said Hawa Kameh, 22, a hairdresser in Monrovia's largest commercial market, Waterside, who lost both parents in the war.

"This is what Charles Taylor could not do in all the years he ruled for," Kameh said, referring to the country's former president and warlord, now facing trial for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

"Ma Ellen is my mother and my father. The fact that I am alive and can see her deliver her campaign promises, I am just happy," Kameh said, clapping her hands.