Published: August 3, 2026
MONROVIA – Liberians abroad should stop sending money home for consumption and begin investing it in enterprises that create jobs, a cabinet minister told a diaspora audience in Antwerp, Belgium, saying remittances alone cannot carry the country’s recovery.
“We encourage you to transition from sending emergency funds to financing sustainable, job-creating businesses. Establish local enterprises like supermarkets, agribusinesses, modern retail, and tech start-ups,” F. Sakila Nyumalin Sr. said.
Nyumalin, who serves in the Boakai administration as minister responsible for local government, was keynote speaker at a Liberian Independence Day celebration in the Belgian city. He said the diaspora sends hundreds of millions of United States dollars into Liberia each year, and in some years close to a billion, through formal and informal channels, and that the money sustains households and supplies liquidity the domestic economy does not generate on its own.
That, he said, is no longer sufficient. He asked Liberians in Europe to move from charitable giving to what he called long-term wealth creation, including small and medium enterprises, real estate and modern business models, and to bring back skills in artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure and technology education. He also asked them to provide formal technical and vocational training to young Liberians rather than temporary aid, and to partner with Liberian universities, hospitals and civil service bodies.
“You are better placed to help the government so that Liberia is not left behind when it comes to technology and human capital development,” he said.
Nyumalin said the country still carries unresolved burdens from its founding, naming land rights disputes, economic disparity and the need for tribal reconciliation, and said building a unified civic identity requires moving past selective memory.
He said the government has taken steps toward reconciliation, including the reburial of former Presidents William R. Tolbert Jr. and Samuel K. Doe Sr. and a national apology for the lives lost in the 14-year civil war. The reburials, he said, were intended to restore dignity and correct historical wrongs.
Turning to the administration’s record, Nyumalin said the government is working through the ARREST Agenda for Inclusive Development, and cited the groundbreaking in April for the 255-kilometer Western Corridor Highway, a project he valued at US$363.9 million running from Bo Waterside through Grand Cape Mount County. He said the administration has also created a road maintenance, rehabilitation and financing committee chaired by Vice President Jeremiah Koung to identify funding and assess conditions across the road network.
He said Liberia’s election to a non-permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council has restored the country’s standing internationally.
Nyumalin said diaspora lobbying was instrumental in the 2022 passage of dual citizenship legislation, which allows Liberians abroad to keep their nationality and inherit property, and said Liberians overseas exercise political influence at home by funding campaigns and pressing for governance reforms.
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