Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has just completed her first year in office. One of her biggest challenges is job creation. The west African country has an 85 percent unemployment rate. But the president says one tiny part of the economy is improving. That's the traditional markets, where women sell food, clothing and household items. The World's Jessie Graham reports from the capital, Monrovia.
Listen to Jessie Graham's report

Graham: It's a busy day at Duala market in Monrovia. You can buy all the fixings for a typical Liberian meal here -- like palm nuts, dried fish, plantains and potato greens.

Duala market in Monrovia

Most of the stalls in this busy market are run by women. They spread their wares out on rickety tables under the hot sun.

Elizabeth Klah: "Let's go!"

Graham: Elizabeth Klah leads me to her stall where she sells greens.

Klah: "There is my selling place."
Graham: "So show me what you have here."
Klah: "I've got collard greens, potato greens, Palava sauce. This is the market where I am selling."

Graham: Every morning Klah buys the greens from villages near her home -- a 45-minute walk from the market. She usually spends about $10. Some days, she doesn't make a profit. Other days are better.

Klah: "Sometimes, I make money."
Graham: "How much, on a very very good day?"
Klah: "On a very very good day, like Christmas, I made 1,500, New Years 1,500. Wow!"

Graham: That's 1,500 Liberian dollars -- about 30 U.S. dollars. That's more than what a public school teacher here makes in a month. Klah works 12-hour days, six days a week. She supports seven children and a husband who's out of work.

Klah: "Thank God, the market is producing at least I get to feed my family. That's my career, that's why I am selling. I am the only solution."

Graham: But Klah and her colleagues say they are waiting for help from the Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. They say they want the woman they call Ma Ellen to come and fix their market.

Klah and friends: "We want Ellen to come and fix our market, our market looking dirty."

Graham: Klah and her friends sell their produce next to a four-foot high pile of garbage. They say they've paid a fee for trash removal to the chairwoman of the market, but it's never happened. And they say in the rainy season the market floods, leaving them to work in waste-deep water.

Elizabeth Klah pointing out the garbage

Klah: "So we are asing Ellen Johnson to come to our aid. That she come quick."

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: "They are my greatest constituency so I have an obligation to make their conditions better."

Graham: President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says after 14 years of civil war, the Liberian economy is slowly starting to recover. The war destroyed the country's infrastructure and paralyzed industry. Johnson Sirleaf says with few real jobs available, market women remain heads of household.

Johnson Sirleaf: "The market women have been the vibrant element of the economy, even during the war. They were the ones who went out to fetch food for the family. They were sometimes conscripted into these armies as sex slaves, to provide food. But throughout the war or not, they have been the ones that have been there. I mean they feed the nation."

Graham: Johnson Sirleaf is working with a group of American women to improve the conditions of Liberian markets. So far they've raised about $2.5 million for the Sirleaf Market Women's fund. Thelma Awori is leading the project. She is the former head of the Africa division of the United Nations Development Programme. She says women across Africa keep families -- and communities going -- through trade.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

Thelma Awori: "I tell many important African men, if your mother didn't have a market, if she was not selling vegetables on the side of the road, you wouldn't be where you are today."

Graham: Awori, who is Liberian, spent much of last month visiting markets throughout the country. She says the women all want the same things for their workplaces -- Toilets, running water and shelter from the sun. She says the plan is to build more than 100 new markets throughout Liberia. Each with a day care center, an adult education center and a health clinic.

Awori: "Market women don't really have the time to leave the market and go and sit in a clinic waiting for a doctor forever when her child is sick. Because that means that she will loose the day in the market, and loose her income there. So these services have to come to her."

Graham: The Liberian government has already begun to make improvements in some of Monrovia's markets. Waterside is one of the biggest markets in the capital. Women here sell clothing and household items. They recently moved into a structure with a roof. Toilets were installed. And the market's chairwoman Marva Teamah says business is slowly picking up. Teamah sells curtains, rugs, and bed linens.

Marva Teamah: "Anything that can decorate the house. I believe in decoration. I love beauty, I love seeing beautiful homes."

Graham: Evelyn Kroyoh is here to buy curtains for her home. She's also a merchant. She sells used clothing at another market in Monrovia. She says she started her business with only $5 when she returned from a refugee camp in Guinea at the end of the war. Kroyoh says she thinks President Johnson Sirleaf is wise to try to improve the lives of market women.

Evelyn Kroyoh: "It will help to do things for ourselves, educate ourselves. She wants us to be self dependent, not to depend always on the men. That when we need something we get it. We need it for the children we get it, not always depending on the men."

Graham: Kroyoh is using some of the money she's earned to put herself through college. So she's not planning on working at Liberia's markets forever.

For the World, I'm Jessie Graham, Monrovia, Liberia.