Africa-Press – Liberia. Former Liberian President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has challenged world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly’s 80th anniversary High-Level Plenary on Peace and Security to “move beyond words” and recommit to the principles of the UN Charter amid deepening global crises.
Addressing presidents, diplomats, and UN officials, Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female head of state, reflected on the UN’s legacy while warning that its credibility is at stake.
“Eighty years after the founding, we must recommit to the Charter, to our common security; to the belief that nations can choose dialogue over destruction,” she declared.
She highlighted Africa as both a test case and a beacon of resilience: despite conflict stretching from Sudan to the Sahel and the Great Lakes, local communities, regional bodies, and women’s groups continue to push back against extremist violence and negotiate peace where governments often fail.
Drawing on Liberia’s post-war experience, Sirleaf praised the UN’s largest peacekeeping mission—which helped disarm fighters, reform security institutions, and restore trust in governance—as proof that “prevention costs less than reconstruction” and that peace is only sustainable when linked to justice, jobs, and dignity.
But she did not shy away from criticizing the failures of global governance. From Gaza to Ukraine, she said, civilians—especially women and children—pay the highest price as power rivalries and vetoes in the Security Council paralyze meaningful action.
“Have global structures and leaders failed us? Why are they so silent; content to see women and children suffer from acts of inhumanity?” Sirleaf asked. “Commemoration without candor is unaffordable.”
She urged the UN and member states to design a new vision of collective security under the theme “Better Together”—a strategy that includes financing prevention efforts, ensuring women’s full participation in peace processes, protecting civilians, regulating the information space, and tackling the “triple planetary crisis” of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.
“Peace is built not only in conference rooms but in classrooms where girls learn without fear; clinics where mothers deliver safely; markets where youth find dignified work; courts where law is fair; and in daily acts of neighborly coexistence,” she said.
Closing her remarks, Sirleaf issued a rallying call: “Let us leave this anniversary with concrete commitments, funded priorities, and a timetable for action… that the United Nations, as it celebrates its 80th year, remains a place of peace, refuge, solace, unity, and hope.”
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