By George K. Werner (former education minister)
Since 2020, through my association with the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPR), I have sat close to the negotiations, debates, and quiet diplomatic struggles that have defined the new era of global health security. I have watched governments clash in Geneva, diplomats posture at the UN General Assembly, and delegations from every continent argue over sovereignty, surveillance, pathogens, laboratories, and the rules that should govern the world when the next outbreak strikes.
Over the same period, I have also engaged American officials across two administrations—at the State Department, the White House, and in multilateral arenas—hearing two radically different visions of how the United States believes global health should be governed.
This vantage point has taught me an uncomfortable truth: global health is no longer primarily a humanitarian arena. It is now a theatre of power.
It was during one of those diplomatic tête-à-têtes in New York and Washington, D.C. that I first met Sara Beysolow Nyanti, the woman who would later become Liberia’s consequential Minister of Foreign Affairs. I recall leaving that meeting and sending dispatches to two friends in the media, telling them to watch out for her—her clarity, her discipline, and her understanding of global systems signaled a future leadership role in Liberia. Today, as she signs agreements on Liberia’s behalf in Washington, I am reminded of that early instinct.
To understand why the newly signed U.S.–Liberia Health MOU matters, we must return to Liberia’s own defining trauma—the 2014 Ebola outbreak. The virus swept through the country with terrifying speed. At one point, Liberia recorded more Ebola deaths than any other nation in the region. The health system buckled under the weight of the epidemic. Only one national laboratory could initially test for the virus, and communities were overwhelmed by fear, grief, and mistrust.
International partners eventually mobilized on an extraordinary scale. The United States deployed military engineers, logisticians, and CDC experts, built treatment centers, and committed hundreds of millions of dollars to stem the tide. China built laboratories and treatment units and deployed medical teams that worked side-by-side with Liberian and international actors.
The African Union mounted its first-ever continental health emergency deployment, an operation that would later inspire the establishment of Africa CDC. These interventions saved thousands of lives and prevented systemic collapse. But Ebola revealed a deeper truth: in a world of fast-moving pathogens, Liberia is not marginal—Liberia is geopolitically relevant to global health security.
A decade later, that lesson has hardened into global strategy. Health is now a pillar of national security doctrines in Washington, Beijing, Brussels, Moscow, and Addis Ababa. Laboratories, genomic sequencing hubs, sample repositories, bio surveillance systems, and digital health data platforms have become strategic assets.
The country that detects a dangerous pathogen first shapes the global response, controls the scientific narrative, and gains leverage over the technologies—especially vaccines—that follow. The mRNA platform, in particular, has become a new dividing line between technological leaders and technological dependents.
This shift becomes even clearer when we compare what is being negotiated multilaterally in Geneva and New York with what is now being negotiated bilaterally across Africa, including the MOU Liberia just signed.
At the UN General Assembly and in Geneva, countries negotiate frameworks meant to govern the entire world: the Pandemic Accord and reforms to the International Health Regulations (IHR). These negotiations are slow, universal, and principled. Africa—through the Africa Group and Africa CDC—has championed legally binding commitments: equitable access to vaccines; guaranteed benefit-sharing; regional manufacturing; early-warning systems; and technology transfer.
The EU supports stronger surveillance and One Health but rejects compulsory intellectual property sharing. China and Russia defend sovereignty and resist intrusive verification mechanisms. The United States under Biden engaged cautiously; under Trump it withdrew from WHO, rejecting the treaty and IHR amendments outright.
What is negotiated multilaterally carries the advantage of legitimacy, shared governance, and predictability. Its disadvantage is that it demands compromises powerful nations no longer want to make.
By contrast, bilateral agreements—like the U.S.–Kenya, U.S.–Rwanda, and now U.S.–Liberia MOUs—are fast, flexible, and highly strategic. They allow powerful countries to bypass multilateral constraints, secure early access to pathogen data, build laboratory networks with selected partners, and offer financial packages that strained national budgets find hard to refuse. Their advantage is speed and impact. Their disadvantage is asymmetry: one party is a superpower; the other is a country in need.
These bilateral deals offer immediate resources but can undermine Africa’s collective bargaining power. A commitment made in an MOU today—such as rapid data sharing, specimen transfer, or laboratory cooperation—could weaken Africa’s leverage tomorrow as it negotiates fair global rules on technology access and benefit sharing.
Understanding these dynamics is essential as Liberia celebrates its new partnership with the United States. The U.S.–Liberia MOU promises US$124 million over five years for laboratories, digital health, surveillance, supply chains, maternal and child health, and workforce expansion.
These investments respond directly to Liberia’s most urgent health-system needs. But the MOU also places Liberia within a broader U.S. strategy to build a network of reliable partners for health intelligence—countries willing to share outbreak data rapidly and align with U.S. global health-security priorities.
This is not inherently negative. Liberia has every right—and in many respects, every incentive—to pursue deeper health-sector partnerships with the United States. But transparency matters. Governance matters. And alignment with Africa’s continental agenda matters even more.
What African negotiators are fighting for in Geneva—a legally binding global architecture of equity, technology access, and fair benefit sharing—must not be quietly undercut by bilateral deals signed under fiscal pressure or political enthusiasm. A laboratory today must not cost Liberia its negotiating power tomorrow.
Ebola taught Liberia that delays in global response are deadly, and that health systems without resilience are national vulnerabilities. But it also taught us that solidarity, coordination, and transparency are essential. The multilateral system, for all its imperfections, embodies these principles. Bilateralism reflects power and interest—even when helpful.
Liberia now stands at the intersection of these two worlds. It must neither accept nor reject either approach blindly. Instead, it must ask: Does this MOU strengthen national sovereignty or dilute it? Does it reinforce Africa’s collective position or fracture it? Does it build sustainable, Liberian-owned laboratory capacity or deepen dependency? Does it support global solidarity or embed quiet obligations that might constrain future choices?
The world is reorganizing its biological future. Liberia must navigate this emerging landscape with clarity, strategy, and foresight. In this new era where pathogens, data, and laboratories shape geopolitics, health is power. And the agreements we sign today will determine whether Liberia becomes an equal actor in the global health-security architecture—or remains a convenient node in someone else’s network.
In this moment, Liberia must safeguard not only the health of its people, but also the sovereignty of its future.
