Liberia will take the presidency of the United Nations Security Council in December for the first time in 65 years, the government in Monrovia has said, setting out a calendar of national events leading up to the month in the chair.
Source: The Liberian Investigator
President Joseph Nyuma Boakai is scheduled to chair a high-level debate on maritime security on December 3, the government said on Monday as it launched its “Road to the United Nations Security Council Presidency.” Information Minister Jerolinmek M. Piah told a press briefing on Tuesday that Boakai is expected to travel to the United States during the period and will personally preside over some of the Council's deliberations.
Source: The New Dawn Liberia
“Liberia is at the table”
“The international order is being shaped now, and Liberia is at the table,” Boakai said at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where the government marked UN Day under the theme “Liberia on the United Nations Security Council: From Sustaining Peace at Home to Advancing Peace and Security Globally.”
Boakai said Liberia would approach the presidency with humility and responsibility, drawing on its experience of ending civil conflict, advancing reconciliation and rebuilding after war. He called the country's 2025 election to the Council for the 2026–2027 term a historic achievement, and said global problems — climate change, irregular migration, poverty, widening inequality and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence — require collective action, with developing countries given a meaningful voice.
A first full term
The government stressed that the current term is different from Liberia's earlier turn on the Council. In 1960, Liberia and Ireland reached a negotiated arrangement to share a contested seat after six weeks and 13 inconclusive rounds of voting, with each country serving one year. In 2025, by contrast, Liberia won a majority vote in the UN General Assembly for a full two-year term as a non-permanent member — and Boakai is expected to become the first sitting Liberian president to preside over a Council session.
Ahead of December, the government said the October 26 UN Day observance formed part of the preparations, and a diplomatic briefing and reception with international partners is scheduled for October 30. The government also plans to unveil a National War Memorial honouring an estimated 250,000 people who died during Liberia's civil wars, although no date for the ceremony has been announced, and a delegation from South Africa is expected from November 16 to 18 for engagements on a proposed peace, reconciliation and memorial museum. Liberia is also scheduled to launch its Feminist Foreign Policy on November 17.
The monthly presidency sets the Council's programme of work and chairs its meetings. For Liberia — a country that once hosted a large UN peacekeeping mission after its civil wars — chairing the Council is being presented in Monrovia as a marker of how far its post-war recovery and diplomacy have come.
The Council presidency rotates monthly among its 15 members. Liberia's term on the Council runs through 2027.