Boakai Calls on Liberian Diaspora; Proposes a yearly conference on diaspora engagement
President-elect Joseph Nyuma Boakai has called on the Liberian Diaspora community to join him for the next six years to help build the country.
"I ask all Liberians at home and in the Diaspora to join me as I lead in the fashion of a servant leader to help build our country together to promote a functional and equitable society for generations to come," Boakai told an ecstatic audience at the occasion marking his formal welcoming ceremony hosted by the JNB Movement New England Chapter and Liberian communities in the Northeast of the United States. "It will not be an easy road, but God, above all, we will work together to change and transform our country."
He heaped praises on the Liberian Diaspora, noting that the importance of the Diaspora communities in the political, economic, and social development of the country cannot be overemphasized. Against this background, he noted, the Liberian Diaspora will be nurtured and cultivated as a serious partner in implementing the Unity Party's administration development agenda.
Boakai also proposed what he termed a yearly conference on diaspora engagement to help facilitate Liberia's contribution to the community in the development of the homeland.
"I am pleased to announce that the Liberian Diaspora will be nurtured and cultivated as a serious partner in implementing our development agenda," the President-elect said. "Similarly, I am in this public manner proposing a yearly conference on diaspora engagement to help facilitate Liberia's contribution to the community in the development of the homeland. The importance of the Liberian Diaspora in our political, economic, and social development cannot be overemphasized."
Boakai noted that now is the opportunity to change the course of the country. "As I have always said, our country holds so much promise, and it is up to us as a generation to seize it and transform our country for all to have a fair chance of a better livelihood. I will repeat, as I have always maintained, that Liberia is not a poor country, but the problem of this country is the lack of sound and honest leadership."
He indicated that now is the time to work hard as the elections are now history.
It is no secret that the Liberian Diaspora is a very integral part of the survival of the Liberian state. The 2022 International Organization of Migration estimates put Liberians living abroad at about 500,000 with an estimated 100,000 living in the United States alone. With those living abroad equaling about 10 percent of the Liberian population, direct and indirect engagement with the country will have a contributing impact on the development of the country.
"We are aware of how much financial remittance from you to your families and friends in Liberia has created social safety nets and closed gaps in the provision of social services by the government," Boakai said. "Your remittances have not only provided a means for people back home to feed themselves, and provide housing, health care, and education, but they have also contributed substantially to the economy in many ways. Your expertise and networks in the diaspora have also contributed in meaningful ways to the development of private ventures in the larger economy."
Boakai lauded the Diaspora community for the immense support rendered to him during the elections. "I have come to express my appreciation and deepest gratitude to the Liberian community in Rhode Island and to all Liberian communities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean and many more for joining hands with Liberians in the motherland in creating a spontaneous people's movement, a popular groundswell and the critical mass that brought us this far and undergird our democracy," he said. "I would, therefore, like to take this time to thank you for your financial and material donations, your expertise, your media outreach, your activism, and your critical voices that created awareness and popularized our message of change, transformation, and message of rescue."
He noted that the history of the struggle for democracy and transformation in Liberia has always had a link to the work of Diaspora communities, their organizations, and associations, that have worked tirelessly to address some of the vexing issues confronting our country. "I believe you invested in this process because you wanted a change in the political, social, economic, and material conditions that occasioned the steady stream of emigration, particularly in the last thirty years."
In looking at some of the foundational challenges confronting Liberia, the President-elect noted that there is a need to address the crisis of governance by promoting inclusivity and popular participation in the decision-making process.
"I believe the power of government must come from the people, whose unfettered participation in the democratic process always establishes the legitimacy that ensures political stability and social cohesion," he said. "The nature and structure of our economy have promoted so much inequality and partly caused some of the social tensions and strains in society that have led to conflicts. We must rethink how concession and enclave should work for our people across the entire value chain with deliberate decisions on value addition over raw extraction."
More than that, Boakai noted, natural resource exploitations must not only bring growth; that growth must equally come with development in that income is plowed back into the delivery of social services and other public goods.
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"I also want to make the case for a productive economy, which is why I believe as a mainly agrarian country, Liberia must leverage its comparative advantage in agriculture to increase its economic output," he said. "With sixty percent of the population made of youth and therefore its most productive cohort, and more than fifty percent of those working in the agriculture sector being women, we will ensure the critical investment needed in agriculture for agro-based production."
The Liberian society has historically and unreasonably been bedeviled by inequality with the majority below the poverty line and at the lowest rungs of the social ladder. Historical structural barriers have not only made it difficult, especially for those in the interior of the country to access social services, they have curtailed their ability to earn and sustain respectable livelihoods. These have created fault lines along wealth, class, ethnicity, and many more fractures that are the seeds of conflict.
"We may not remove these historical barriers overnight, but I believe we can manage them by empowering the people and providing opportunities and access to services. There are other social concerns, such as the lack of respect for one another, dishonesty, hate messages, and the culture of impunity. These we can assure you will become things of the past," he promised.
