By Othello B. Garblah
Recent reports that Russia has announced plans to open an embassy in Liberia as part of its effort to expand its diplomatic footprint across Africa have ignited a new debate and raised questions about what is driving Liberia’s foreign policy.
In plain English, Liberia’s foreign policy is firmly rooted in its political ideology of liberalism, democracy, and capitalism. It is modeled after the pattern adopted by the United States.
However, a foreign policy generally is a compendium of different strategies a country uses to guide its relationships with other countries and international organizations influenced by interests.
Mutual interests are expressed in every relationship. How the parties maximize those expressed interests is left to them individually.
A bilateral relationship between two countries is established through diplomatic interactions, trade agreements, and cultural exchanges to enhance mutual benefits. These mutual benefits are spelled out.
Thus, countries should have clear-cut goals or agendas before entering any bilateral relationship; they should know what they want and who to befriend to get it.
These clear-cut goals should be tied to the country’s national development agenda, which should be the driving force for entering into bilateral relationships with strategic partners.
National Agendas are long-term plans whose implementation spans ten years and requires periodic updating and revisions. They include a set of national indicators in education, healthcare, economy, police and security, housing, infrastructure, and government services.
The ultimate purpose of National Agenda is to achieve sustainable development through a transformation program. It promotes an inclusive environment that integrates all segments of society.
This is where strategic partners come in, and choosing these partners strategically to target individual pilar within a national development agenda is very important. Rather than a country spreading its net or its leader traveling around with a laundry list of development needs and wishing for any country to come to its aid, it is not strategic. It leaves donor partners confused. Each strategic partner has its unique strength.
Therefore, when deciding to enter a bilateral relationship with another country, it is important to know what you want from that country. Your interests and having a clear-cut goal for that relationship are more important than wasting resources.
For example, the United States could be a strategic partner in energy and electricity, Germany for Hospitals and vocational schools, China for roads and bridges, Isreal for security and counter-terrorism training, Education the United Kingdom, Japan for airports and technology, The Netherlands for seaports and so on.
Meanwhile, in the absence of a clear-cut national agenda and targeting strategic partners to serve your country’s agenda, such a bilateral relationship is a waste of state resources.
It is critical to note that a national agenda without a clear, developed roadmap to achieve it is mere words on paper. Knowing what you want is one thing, but knowing what to do to achieve it and committing to that is another.
It is good for a country to expand its diplomatic footprint across nations, but it should do so based on its interests. What can this country offer my country, and how does it contribute to my country’s development agenda? Are key questions to consider when entering diplomatic relationships the cost-benefit factors.
Liberia’s national vision should be a working tool for all administrations and a desire to implement the right programs to achieve it. This vision should be legislated to compel every government to commit to such an agenda by law. The indicators within the vision should be stand-alone items in the budget. Liberia’s National Budget has been recurrent expenditure-based and not development-oriented year on year, hindering progress in achieving the country’s development goals.
The Boakai regime can get this right if it has a clearly defined goal and looks for strategic bilateral partners for each pillar of the ARREST Agenda.
The author holds a master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Liberia, with high distinction.
