Efforts to build stable states in Africa have often been conditioned by ideological and policy debates about the right approach for enhancing freedom and social wellbeing. Since independence, African countries have experimented with unorthodox variants of liberalism and socialism. However, neither of these has enhanced African states. This article examines the shift from orthodox neoliberalism in the international approach to state-building in Africa and raises questions about the feasibility of an international development approach that fuses neoliberalism with a human development approach. The article advances the notion of people-centered liberalism as the latest approach to international state-building in war-torn African countries. It uses the internationally-driven postwar reconstruction plans for Sierra Leone and Liberia to demonstrate people-centered liberalism.