Liberia will need nearly $500-million in stabilisation aid after 14 years of nearly relentless war, the United Nations and the World Bank reported last week in preparation for a donors conference in New York this week, reports The New York Times.

Advocacy groups have urged that particular attention be paid to disarming and reintegrating an estimated 50 000 former soldiers, a great many of them children, with a warning that a failure to invest heavily in peacemaking in Liberia would bring further bloodshed to West Africa.

The International Reconstruction Conference on Liberia, to be held at UN headquarters in New York on Thursday and Friday, is to bring together officials from international lending institutions and donor countries to discuss aid efforts.

Liberia is facing its first chance of genuine peace since 1989, when Charles G Taylor plunged his country into war.

The assessment of Liberia's needs by the UN and World Bank, released last Thursday, found that Liberia would need $487-million in stabilisation aid during the next two years.

The Associated Press meanwhile reports that if Liberia's fragile peace is to hold, international donors must pledge more money to rehabilitate the West African nation's child soldiers to ensure that they-and new generations-don't take up arms again, a leading human rights group said Monday.

"Much of the Liberian civil war consisted of children shooting and killing other children," said Tony Tate, an Africa researcher in the children's rights division of Human Rights Watch.

"The fragile peace in Liberia today cannot be solidified unless they are disarmed and rehabilitated".

The United Nations estimates 15 000 child soldiers were active in Liberia's most recent three-year conflict.

The New York Times and All Africa note that in a separate report published Friday, the International Crisis Group, a research and advocacy organisation, similarly urged donor countries and international financial institutions to provide enough funding to finance education and vocational training for the former combatants. It also urged donor countries to commission an audit of Liberian government funds said to have been diverted by Taylor.

That proposition is likely to cause political waves in a country with a fragile transition government.

The US government has promised roughly $200-million to rebuild Liberia. Secretary of State Colin L Powell, is expected to attend the meeting this week, as is his French counterpart, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.