Liberia can move on and break from the past. That is very important for us to try to achieve our development goals and reconcile our nation.

If your dreams don't scare you, you aren't dreaming big enough.

In Liberia, the big challenge that remains for us is job creation. We want young people to work or go to school. That is our main preoccupation right now.

Of course, I am the first democratically elected woman president in Africa, and that raises a lot of expectations. Because I represent the aspirations of women all over Africa, I must succeed for them. I must keep the door open for women's participation in politics at the highest level. That is both humbling and exciting.

Liberia has to take primary responsibility for its own reform agenda. But our resources are limited. We have to attract the private sector to get jobs to our people that will enable us to raise the government revenue, but to do that we have to build infrastructure. It's a very complex problem of development we are facing here.

In Liberia, our salary scales are so low that our judicial system has become corrupt over the years. Now, we need to do some things ourselves.

I just think that unless you have that cohesiveness in the family unit, the male character tends to become very dominant, repressive and insensitive. So much of this comes also from a lack of education.