LIBERIA HAS PUT ITS YOUTH AGENDA ON THE WORLD STAGE. NOW GOVERNMENT MUST BACK IT.

Yesterday in New York, Liberia placed its youth agenda before the world through “Rooting and Rising: Liberia’s Vision for Youth, Peace and Security,” a side event convened during the 81st United Nations General Assembly. Hosted by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the event was more than another gathering in the crowded calendar of UNGA. It offered Liberia an opportunity to tell the world how it intends to think about a generation that has grown up in the shadow of war, inherited the responsibility of protecting the peace, and now carries the burden and promise of determining what that peace will ultimately produce. 

For Liberia, peace must mean more than the silence of guns. It must be reflected in the opportunity to work, the freedom to participate, the dignity of being heard and the possibility of building a future at home. A young person who completes school and finds no pathway into employment, an entrepreneur with an idea but no access to capital, or a citizen who sees decisions about their future being made without them may live in a peaceful country while still experiencing a deep sense of uncertainty. This is why the Youth, Peace and Security conversation must continue to evolve from discussions about preventing conflict to building the conditions in which young people can genuinely prosper. 

At the heart of yesterday’s conversation was a reform vision being advanced through the Ministry of Youth and Sports under Minister Cornelia Kruah. The significance of that vision is not that it belongs to one minister or one institution, but that it represents an attempt to rethink how Liberia approaches youth development. Rooting and Rising places greater emphasis on pathways, opportunity, participation and long term transformation, recognizing that young people cannot be treated simply as recipients of programmes when they should be partners in shaping the country’s future. 

There is also something important about the origin of this conversation. Rooting and Rising is not simply a government document written about young people and presented to them. It is a youth centered reform agenda developed through engagement with young Liberians, with the Ministry providing the platform and facilitation to help carry that conversation into the national and international policy space. That distinction matters because meaningful youth participation cannot end when the consultation ends. If young people are expected to believe in the agenda, they must also have the space to help shape it, advance it and hold institutions accountable for what follows. 

This is where yesterday’s event should become a national challenge. The Ministry of Youth and Sports cannot transform Liberia’s youth sector by itself, no matter how ambitious its vision may be. Education, labour, agriculture, finance, commerce, digital transformation, infrastructure, sports, the creative economy and national security all shape the lives of young Liberians. If youth development remains confined to the ministry responsible for youth, then the country will continue to treat a national question as a sectoral issue. The youth agenda must therefore become part of the way the entire Government of Liberia thinks about development. 

Government must now match the vision with commitment. It is easy to celebrate a youth agenda when it is presented at the United Nations, surrounded by international partners and the language of possibility. The harder task begins when the delegation returns home and the work requires coordination, resources, institutional reform and measurable results. The true measure of Rooting and Rising will not be the number of people who applaud it, but whether it creates pathways that young Liberians can see, access and trust. 

Young Liberians must also recognize that ownership comes with responsibility. We cannot demand a seat at the table and then abandon the table once we have been invited to sit there. Supporting this reform means participating in the process, bringing ideas to the conversation, challenging what does not work, monitoring commitments and helping build institutions capable of delivering results. The youth agenda should not become another document that young people celebrate today and forget tomorrow; it should become a living framework through which young Liberians organize themselves and engage the institutions that govern their future. 

For the Federation of Liberian Youth, yesterday’s event provides an important moment to reaffirm its commitment to the national youth agenda and to constructive engagement with the Ministry of Youth and Sports. FLY believes that the reform direction deserves serious national attention, and that young Liberians should stand firmly behind Minister Kruah efforts to move youth development beyond fragmented activities toward sustainable pathways for opportunity, participation and leadership. Supporting the vision does not mean surrendering our responsibility to question government; it means believing strongly enough in the future of young Liberians to participate in building it. 

The real test of Rooting and Rising, however, will not be found in New York. It will be found in Monrovia and across Liberia, in classrooms, communities, farms, businesses, workplaces and institutions where young people confront the realities that policy language often describes more elegantly than it can solve. The question now is whether the energy generated at the United Nations can be carried home and translated into a sustained national effort that young Liberians can actually experience in their daily lives. 

Rooting and Rising should therefore be remembered as more than a successful UNGA side event. It can become a point of departure for a deeper national conversation about what Liberia owes its largest generation and what that generation, in turn, owes the country it will inherit. The vision has been placed on the table, the Ministry of Youth and Sports has helped carry it forward, and young people have helped shape its direction. The next chapter belongs to all of us: government must back the vision, young people must own it, and Liberia must finally begin treating its youth not simply as the future of the country, but as one of the forces capable of building its future now.