Your Excellency President Joseph Nyuma Boakai; Honorable Sara Beysolow Nyanti, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Dean of the cabinet; Hon. Gbeme Horace-Kollie, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection; other cabinet members present, members of the Judiciary; members of the Legislature; distinguished guests; colleagues; partners and friends:
Do we think peace just happens?
Peace does not happen by accident. It must be deliberately built, protected, and sustained. Just as violence is produced through human action, preventing violence also requires action: early warning, timely intervention, inclusive leadership, and the courage to address tensions before they become crises.
The Women’s Situation Room is a mechanism that sustains our peace.
When elections become tense, women are often among the first to recognize the warning signs and among the first to suffer the consequences of violence. Yet women are too often treated only as victims of conflict rather than recognized as leaders in preventing it.
The Women’s Situation Room changes that. It places women at the center of peacebuilding, civic engagement, and democratic governance. It transforms their knowledge, networks, and influence into coordinated action to prevent electoral violence and sustain peace.
The Women’s Situation Room is the practical actualization of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, which recognizes women’s essential role in preventing conflict, building peace, and maintaining security.
Initiated by the Angie Brooks International Centre for Women’s Empowerment, Leadership Development, International Peace and Security, it is one of Africa’s most inclusive women-led peace mechanisms. It brings together street sellers, farmers, market women, university students, professional women, and national leaders.
We call our influential leaders the Eminent Women. They are women with reach, women who can engage the President, the Legislature, the Judiciary, the security sector, the media, the National Elections Commission, political leaders, and other key stakeholders. When a dangerous incident occurs, they use their credibility and access to secure timely intervention.
The Situation Room also deploys an all-female team of election observers, while both women and men serve as monitors. Together, they gather and verify information from communities across the country.
Young people are essential to this mechanism. We engage disadvantaged youth living in slums, graveyards, and other vulnerable communities because politicians often target and weaponize them to disrupt campaigns and instigate violence.
We train these young people in peacebuilding, mediation, civic responsibility, and nonviolence. Through peer-to-peer engagement, they share these lessons with others. They learn that their energy should be used to protect their homeland, not to destroy it.
University students and young professionals operate the Situation Room’s call center. They receive reports about incidents that could lead to violence. The reports are documented, verified, and transferred to the Eminent Women, who engage the appropriate authorities for timely intervention.
The Women’s Situation Room operates before, during, and after elections.
During elections, observers, monitors, call-center operators, and Eminent Women work together to identify risks and respond to incidents.
“The Women’s Situation Room is not a stagnant room. It is a dynamic peace mechanism.”
After elections, the Women’s Situation Room reduces tensions, promotes the lawful resolution of disputes, supports reconciliation, and continues the work of sustaining peace.
The Women’s Situation Room is not a stagnant room. It is a dynamic peace mechanism that requires physical intervention whenever necessary. It is adapted to each country’s circumstances because the women of that country decide how their Situation Room should operate. No two rooms have been duplicated during implementation.
Although I initiated the Women’s Situation Room, the women of Africa founded it. Together, we developed it into an effective African peace mechanism.
It has been implemented in Liberia, Senegal, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, and other African countries.
The Women’s Situation Room has received important international recognition. The United Nations Security Council has welcomed it as a women-led mechanism that has helped prevent the eruption and escalation of electoral violence. The African Union has also recognized and supported the Women’s Situation Room as an important African mechanism for promoting peaceful elections.
Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former President of the Republic of Liberia, is the Champion of the Women’s Situation Room. We express our profound gratitude to her for her leadership, her participation in the Room, and her unwavering support for women’s role in sustaining peace.
In Liberia, His Excellency President Joseph Nyuma Boakai has supported the Women’s Situation Room since its founding. As Vice President, he launched our all-women motorcycle initiative. the Pink Panthers and became an honorary member. As President, he has made the Mano River Union Centre available for our activities.
We extend our profound gratitude to our partners, especially the United Nations family—the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund, and UNITAR. We also thank Sweden, Ireland, the African Women’s Development Fund, the United States Embassy, the Urgent Action Fund, and the European Union.
Your partnership has strengthened women’s leadership, created opportunities for young people, and helped communities protect the peace.
The legacy of the Women’s Situation Room is the power of inclusion. It brings together the farmer and the professional, the street seller and the university student, the disadvantaged youth and the national leader.
Each has a role. Each has a voice. Each has a responsibility to protect the peace.
Peace does not sustain itself. It survives because people choose dialogue over confrontation, mediation over violence, and collective responsibility over indifference.
Through the Women’s Situation Room, women and young people are not waiting for peace to happen. They are taking action to build it, protect it, and sustain it for future generations.
Women, unite to lift Africa and lift the world.
THE PEACE IS IN OUR HANDS and sustaining it requires action from us all.
Thank you.