Monrovia, Sept. 14 -- In Liberia, showing your work used to mean something simple - a photo of a handshake, a ribbon-cutting, a smiling child holding a new backpack. This week, several government officials, among them Mo Ali, Managing Director of the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation, took "showing your work" somewhere it should never go: they published spreadsheets. Full names. Ages. School enrollment lists. Home addresses. The names of caregivers. All of it, posted to Facebook, as proof that the government's social protection programs for vulnerable children are real.

By Rodney D. Sieh, rodney.sieh@frontpageafricaonline.com

The backlash was immediate. Commenters accused the officials of playing politics with children's lives. But th...