Published: August 31, 2026
KIGALI, Rwanda — The scattered record of Liberia’s civil wars would be pulled into a single national institution under a Peace, Reconciliation and Memorial Museum the government is moving to establish, an effort that has taken officials to Rwanda to study how that country preserved its own history of mass violence.
A delegation led by Minister of State without Portfolio Hadja Mamaka Bility, with support from the United Nations Development Program, concluded a study mission in Rwanda examining how the country has used memorialization, historical preservation and peace education since the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. The delegation is proceeding to South Africa for the next leg.
“This study tour is part of President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s vision for national reconciliation, with the support of UNDP. We want to move Liberia beyond simply talking about reconciliation to building strong institutions that can preserve our experiences, tell our story, and pass the lessons of our past on to future generations,” Bility said.
Photographs, official documents, testimonies and films from Liberia’s conflict years remain held by separate government institutions, private collectors and archives inside and outside the country, with no central body responsible for collecting or authenticating them. The proposed museum is intended to serve as that body, and also as a site for research, peace education and public engagement rather than a store of artifacts alone.
In Rwanda, the delegation visited the Gacaca archives and its digitization program, the National Archives, the Campaign Against Genocide Museum, the University of Rwanda’s Center for Conflict Management, the Rwanda Peace Academy and the Mutobo Demobilization and Reintegration Center. The visits covered the systems Rwanda uses to collect, authenticate, digitize and preserve records that would otherwise be lost, and the role its memorial institutions play in education.
UNDP Liberia Resident Representative Ambassador Aliou Mamadou Dia said the mission is part of the agency’s wider peacebuilding partnership with the government.
“UNDP is working with the Government of Liberia to support the establishment of a Peace and Reconciliation Museum as part of the President’s broader reconciliation agenda,” Dia said. “This study mission gives us an opportunity to learn from the experiences of other countries, document lessons that can be adapted to Liberia, and engage partners who can support the Government in moving this vision forward.”
Dia said reconciliation requires confronting difficult chapters of the past alongside accountability and the preservation of historical memory.
The visit opened discussions on technical cooperation between the two countries covering museum development and management, training for Liberian heritage professionals, digitization of records and testimonies, peace education and professional exchanges. They also discussed possible collaboration with Aegis Trust Rwanda, which works on genocide education and memorialization.
Officials said they do not intend to copy the Rwandan model, and that the aim is to identify practices that fit Liberia’s own history.
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