A Morning in Monrovia City on Providence Island: A Story About Possibility

The moment that softened something in me came quietly—not with speeches, not with applause, but with the hush of an early Monrovia morning, the sun still stretching itself awake over Providence Island in the city of Monrovia.

I was walking with Harriet—Dr. Harriet Wandira CEO of CMA CGM Liberia (a private company in sea, land and air logistics)—whose presence felt like returning to a familiar place. Maybe it’s the way she believes that a city, like a person, can be healed with enough care and enough hands. 

She led me to a small corner where her company was helping to restore. A quiet place. A humble place. Yet something in the air felt alive—like the city was taking a deep breath.

At first, I noticed only movements. But then the shapes sharpened into people:

Young people, students laughing. 

Community members, nearby, smiling.

Signs of city authorities who had opened the way for this pocket of beauty.

Tools from the private sector, placed with intention—not just given, but offered.

As a UN family member, I thought instantly that this could be woven into something bigger.

I could only see that with broader partnerships there are greater possibilities waiting just beyond the horizon.

I stood there, feet still on the ground but heart rising slowly, watching a small patch of earth being coaxed back to life. And Harriet whispered, soft enough that only the breeze and I could hear: “This is partnership.”

The words lingered in the air, gentle but weighty, like truth often is.

Because in that moment, partnership was not only policies. It was not only a partner meeting or a project document. It was not a tidy diagram of roles and responsibilities.

Partnership was human.

It had faces: It had hands: It had laughter. 

It had women leading with quiet strength, youth carrying the future in their arms, communities standing guard, government enabling the path, private companies stepping beyond profit, development partners offering endurance, and the UN family: all of us holding hands together for a greener and sustainable city.

Sometimes a city doesn’t rise all at once.

Sometimes it rises in small, gentle places—one swept path, one painted wall, one corner reclaimed by those who believe it deserves to shine. 

Sometimes hope arrives with a broom in someone’s hand.

Standing on that small piece of ground, I saw Monrovia not as it is, but as it could be, a city carried forward by all of us—Government, communities UN, government, private sector, women, youth, development partners—walking not in the same footsteps, but in the same direction.

When I left Providence Island that morning, I carried something with me: a quiet certainty: the future we dream for Monrovia is already being written in these tiny acts of shared care.

A future where a city becomes greener not through grand gestures, but through many hands reaching for the same tomorrow.