26/09/2026
ADDRESS BY HIS EXCELLENCY JOSEPH NYUMA BOAKAI, SR. PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA AT THE 2ND ANNUAL DIASPORA CONFERENCE
Alexandria, Virginia, USA
September 26, 2026
Theme: “FROM DIALOGUE TO DELIVERY: MOBILIZING THE GLOBAL LIBERIAN DIASPORA FOR NATIONAL TRANSFORMATION”
Members of the Liberian Diaspora;
Ambassador Emmett Dunn and Members of the Conference Planning Committee;
Honorable Officials of Government;
Members of the National Legislature;
International Partners;
Distinguished Guests and Friends of Liberia;
Fellow Liberians;
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Let me bring you warm greetings from the Government and people of the Republic of Liberia.
It is a pleasure to join you once again at this very important gathering of Liberians from across the United States and around the world.
Last year, we met under the theme, “Building the Future Together: Reconciliation, National Healing, Growth and Prosperity.” We began an important conversation about Liberia’s relationship with its citizens abroad and how that relationship could produce concrete results for our country.
I pledged then that you would not be treated as observers, but as FULL STAKEHOLDERS in Liberia’s future. That commitment remains unchanged.
The Liberian Diaspora is more than a community living beyond our borders. You are an integral part of the Liberian nation. I have described you as Liberia’s “16th County” and as the “Fifth Estate” of the Republic—because your knowledge, skills, capital, networks, advocacy, and global experience can help shape our national development.
But this year’s theme asks us to go further. FROM DIALOGUE TO DELIVERY means moving from resolutions to responsibilities; from intentions to implementation; and from annual conferences to year-round partnership.
Last year’s conference produced nine recommendations anchored in four areas: Reconciliation, Education, Health, and Investment. Today, we must ask: What have we achieved? What remains unfinished? And who is responsible for delivering the next result?
We have made progress of course. We have supported the establishment of the Legislative Diaspora Caucus, strengthened the Office of Diaspora Affairs through the National Budget, and advanced efforts toward a durable legal and institutional framework for Diaspora engagement.
We have continued discussions on greater Diaspora participation in national life, consistent with our Constitution, laws, electoral systems, and democratic safeguards.
We are also working to better organize Diaspora expertise, philanthropy, partnerships, and investment around national priorities. The objective is not simply to ask Liberians abroad to give more. It is to create credible systems that allow you to contribute more effectively—and with confidence.
Our Diaspora has already demonstrated what this partnership can accomplish. Medical, humanitarian, and educational missions have carried expertise and resources to communities across Liberia.
These efforts show that service to Liberia does not depend only on where you live; it depends on what you are prepared to do.
This conference has also highlighted an important reality: we cannot effectively engage a global community that we do not adequately understand.
I therefore welcome the work undertaken to improve our knowledge of the size, location, skills, institutions, and development potential of Liberians abroad, including the Rapid Survey conducted through our diplomatic missions.
That work should continue. Liberia needs a credible and regularly updated Diaspora information system so that we can connect skills to needs, investors to opportunities, institutions to partners, and our younger generations to the country of their heritage.
Fellow Liberians,
Partnership must be reciprocal. Government cannot ask you to invest, return, serve, or transfer your expertise without accepting its own responsibility to create the conditions in which those contributions can succeed.
Through the ARREST Agenda for Inclusive Development, we are working to improve infrastructure, education, health, agriculture, governance, the rule of law, and the environment for business and investment.
We have strengthened domestic revenue mobilization and recently crossed the one-billion-dollar mark. But the true value of that achievement will not be measured by the number alone. It will be measured by better roads, better schools, health services, jobs, opportunity, and improved livelihoods for our people.
We must therefore match revenue with accountability, investment with integrity, and policy with implementation.
Diaspora engagement cannot be sustained by appeals to patriotism alone. Government must help make returning home, investing at home, sharing expertise, and building partnerships with Liberia practical, predictable, and worthwhile.
For decades, Liberians abroad have supported families, paid school fees and medical bills, built homes, financed businesses, and responded to national emergencies. Liberia is grateful.
But the next stage of Diaspora engagement must complement remittances with PRODUCTIVE INVESTMENT, SKILLS TRANSFER, and INSTITUTION BUILDING.
I want to encourage our doctors to partner with hospitals and medical schools; our educators with schools and universities; our engineers with infrastructure programs; our technology professionals with our digital transformation; our entrepreneurs with Liberian businesses; and our young people abroad with young people at home.
The Maryland–Liberia partnership is one example of the bridges our Diaspora can help to build—connecting trade, education, agriculture, technology, infrastructure, workforce development, and investment. Its success, however, will not be measured by signatures. It will be measured by projects completed, businesses created, jobs generated, and lives improved.
So, I ask that we leave this conference with FIVE practical commitments.
ONE: ORGANIZE OUR GLOBAL COMMUNITY. Stronger coordination among Diaspora organizations, professionals, businesses, youth, women, and our diplomatic missions will multiply our impact.
TWO: CONNECT SKILLS TO NATIONAL NEEDS. Let us create practical pathways for Liberian professionals abroad to teach, mentor, advise, volunteer, and provide specialized service—even when they cannot relocate permanently.
THREE: TURN CAPITAL INTO PRODUCTIVE INVESTMENT. We need credible projects, professional due diligence, transparent rules, and investment mechanisms that can create enterprises, infrastructure, and jobs.
FOUR: INVEST IN THE NEXT GENERATION. We must connect young Liberians abroad to Liberia through internships, mentorship, innovation, cultural exchange, service, and opportunities to visit and invest. If we lose that generation, we lose an important part of our national future.
FIVE: MEASURE DELIVERY. Every major recommendation from this conference should have a lead institution, a partner, a timeline, and a measurable result. When we meet again, we should have an implementation scorecard showing what was promised, what was delivered, what was delayed, and why.
None of this will succeed if we carry our divisions into every space where Liberians gather.
We can disagree on politics, policies, personalities, and priorities without allowing those disagreements to destroy our common purpose. I hope there will come when Liberians will disagree but not be abusive. LLiberia needs a Diaspora that can debate vigorously and still work together; criticize constructively and still contribute; demand accountability and also accept responsibility.
As Liberia serves on the United Nations Security Council during the 2026–2027 term, our Diaspora can also help strengthen our global role. You are bridges between Liberia and the societies in which you live. Your universities, businesses, professional institutions, communities, and networks can open doors for investment, knowledge, technology, education, tourism, and development cooperation.
Diaspora diplomacy is not a substitute for the work of Government. It is a FORCE MULTIPLIER for the work of the Republic.
My Fellow Liberians,
“From Dialogue to Delivery” must become more than the theme of this conference. It must become a standard by which we measure ourselves.
We have talked. We have listened. We have consulted. Now we must ORGANIZE, INVEST, SERVE, CONNECT, and DELIVER.
To those who can return permanently, we welcome you. To those who can return for a season of service, we welcome you. And to those who cannot return now but can contribute from where they are, your contribution is equally part of our national effort.
Liberia needs your skills, your knowledge, your capital, your networks, your experience, your ideas—and, above all, your continuing belief in what our country can become. Liberia will no longer move backwards.
Let us turn PATRIOTISM into PARTICIPATION; participation into PROJECTS; and projects into measurable improvements in the lives of our people.
Let us put our resources behind our convictions and demonstrate our commitment through action.
In all that we do, let us always THINK LIBERIA, LOVE LIBERIA, and together BUILD LIBERIA.
May God bless all Liberians at home and abroad.
May God bless us and save our Republic.
I thank you.
