President Joseph Boakai on Monday launched Liberia's third national action plan on women, peace and security at the United Nations, pledging government money and political will behind it as his finance minister disclosed that the Ministry of Gender's budget has grown by nearly 80% since 2023 and the Armed Forces of Liberia set a target of 15% women by 2028.
The plan, which runs from 2026 to 2031, was launched at a high-level side event on the margins of the 81st U.N. General Assembly in New York under the theme "From Pioneers to Global Leaders," before foreign ministers from Austria and Morocco, U.N. officials, diplomats and women leaders whose activism helped end Liberia's civil war.
"In Liberia, men make the big decisions, the women make the small decisions, but the women decide which decisions are big and which decisions are small," Boakai said, drawing laughter.
Liberia became the first post-conflict country to adopt a national action plan to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security in 2009. Boakai said the new plan, known as NAP III, was shaped by what worked and what did not under the first two.
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"During the implementation, we faced challenges, made mistakes, and learned," he said.
A plan built to be measured
Gender, Children and Social Protection Minister Gbeme Horace-Kollie, whose ministry leads the plan, said it was designed so that every commitment can be tracked, funded and delivered. Each of its five areas includes activities, responsible agencies, indicators, baselines and targets, she said, and the government wants the plan to be measurable, financed, implemented and held accountable for delivery.
The plan establishes a National Steering Committee chaired by the gender ministry, with the ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, National Defense, and Finance and Development Planning, along with a technical working group, a fully staffed national secretariat and a county advisory board.
Madam Horace-Kollie dedicated the plan to the women of the Liberia Mass Action for Peace, rural women's groups, Peace Hut leaders and the women's rights organizations that have carried the agenda for generations.
"This plan is yours before it becomes ours," she told them. "You challenged governments to listen to women. And you showed the world that women are not just victims of conflict alone. They are also agents of peace."
She thanked the government of Sweden and U.N. Women for their consistent support, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for organizing the event.
Five areas of action
President Boakai said the plan's five areas, aligned with the government's ARREST Agenda for Inclusive Development, are prevention; protection and access to justice; participation; relief, recovery and resilience; and coordination, accountability and financing.
On justice, he pointed to Executive Order 131 of 2024, which created the office to establish the War and Economic Crimes Court, and said women advocates helped secure provisions prioritizing gender-sensitive justice for conflict-related sexual violence committed during the civil war.
On participation, he said the Armed Forces of Liberia, working with U.N. Women, launched a two-year project in February to remove institutional barriers to women's recruitment, retention and deployment, including in U.N. peacekeeping.
"Our immediate ambition is to reach 15 percent female representation in the armed forces by 2028 while contributing to our broader national goal of 40 percent by 2030," Boakai said.
He said Liberia, which holds the Security Council presidency in December, would not preach abroad what it fails to practice at home.
"A seat is an opportunity, not an achievement. What we do with it is achievement," he said.
Paying for it at home
President Boakai said his government pledges the political will, coordination and resources to carry out the plan, noting that funding for peacebuilding is shrinking worldwide.
"A plan that depends entirely on the priorities of others is not truly a national plan," he said.
Finance Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan backed that up with numbers. Through gender-responsive planning and budgeting, now being institutionalized in nine pilot spending entities, the gender ministry's budget has risen from US$2.35 million in 2023 to about US$4.21 million, he said.
"Plans without budgets are assumptions. Budgets are where governments reveal their real priorities," Ngafuan said, adding that his ministry has already held its first budget session with the gender ministry to capture NAP III priorities in the next budget.
"We cannot say that we own an agenda if a survivor depends entirely on somebody's project cycle," he said.
Pioneers still at work
Madam Ophelia Hoff Saytumah, the former Monrovia mayor and Red Cross president, recounted how the Mano River Women's Peace Network confronted the presidents of Guinea and Liberia to reopen diplomatic channels during the war. She praised Boakai for appointing women to about 38% of cabinet posts and urged him to aim for parity.
"When you move one woman, put another woman there," she said.
Cllr. Yvette Chesson-Wureh described the Women's Situation Room, the election violence prevention mechanism now used in several African countries, and thanked Boakai for supporting it since its founding.
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International partners praised Liberia as a global example. Morocco's foreign minister, Nasser Bourita, said Liberia had turned from a challenge for the international community into "a source of inspiration," and proposed that the nearly 30 African countries with national action plans coordinate and share practices. Austria's foreign minister said Liberian women had shown the world they are the architects of peace, not merely its beneficiaries.
Richard Howard of the U.N. Peacebuilding Fund said the fund has invested more than US$100 million in Liberia since 2007, 40% of it in women and gender equality, and that 40% of its latest support package will go directly to grassroots organizations such as the Peace Huts.
The Women's Peace and Humanitarian Fund said it has channeled US$3.6 million through U.N. Women to 44 Liberian civil society organizations across 21 projects.
Ambassador Lewis G. Brown II, Liberia's permanent representative to the United Nations, closed the event by recalling that Liberian women locked negotiators, including him, in a room until they agreed to peace.
"Every peace agreement that locks out women writes the preamble to the next conflict waiting to happen," Brown said.
