Amb. Shoniyin says Liberia’s post-war experience gives it moral authority to champion prevention, mediation and African agency
IPNEWS: Liberia’s journey from a country that once received United Nations peacekeepers to one helping shape global peace and security policy should guide its leadership of the Security Council in December, Ambassador-at-Large B. Elias Shoniyin has said.
Addressing the second session of the George W. Wallace, Jr. Ambassadorial Lecture Series, Shoniyin described Liberia’s current membership of the UN Security Council and its forthcoming presidency as one of the strongest expressions of the country’s post-war transformation. “Once, Liberia was before the Security Council because the international community was discussing how to restore peace to our country,” he said. “Today, we sit in the Security Council helping determine questions of peace elsewhere.”
He said Liberia should use the presidency to promote conflict prevention, mediation, early warning, post-conflict recovery and closer cooperation between the United Nations, African Union and ECOWAS. In his view, Liberia’s direct experience of civil conflict, reconstruction, reconciliation and institutional rebuilding gives the country credibility in debates about how the international community should respond before political disagreements become militarized.
Shoniyin also placed the Sahel high on the agenda, warning that insecurity does not remain confined to distant borders. Weapons, extremism, organized crime, displacement and economic disruption travel across regions, he said, making conflict prevention in West Africa a direct matter of Liberia’s national security.
The lecture took place at a critical time: Liberia is serving on the Security Council and will take over its rotating presidency in December. The position allows the presiding member to organize the Council’s work and lead meetings, but Shoniyin argued that Liberia must use the platform for a larger purpose—elevating African priorities and building bridges among regional institutions, major powers and post-conflict states.
Africa remains heavily represented among situations considered by the Council while lacking permanent representation proportionate to that burden, Shoniyin noted. Liberia should therefore advocate greater African agency in global decision-making and use its own experience to improve peacebuilding policy and practice.
The flagship lecture series is named for veteran Liberian diplomat Amb. George W. Wallace, Jr., who spoke at the event established in his honor. Other featured voices included Foreign Minister Sara Beysolow Nyanti; former Foreign Minister Olubanke King Akerele; House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Nehker E. Gaye; UNDP Resident Representative Aliou Mamadou Dia; Cllr. Jallah A. Barbu of the War and Economic Crimes Court; and Amb. Soulay Daramy, head of Sierra Leone’s Foreign Service Academy.
Daramy’s participation added a regional learning dimension through his focus on Sierra Leone’s experience on the Council. The program also linked global security to domestic lawmaking, women’s diplomatic leadership, economic development and national healing—underscoring the idea that peace and security extend beyond military threats.
Shoniyin cautioned that Liberia’s advocacy abroad must be matched by conduct at home. A state cannot credibly promote democratic governance, rule of law and accountability internationally while weakening those principles domestically, he said. Liberia’s strongest diplomatic statement, he concluded, will be the quality of governance it practices within its own borders.
