Abstract One 2005-2006

GLOBAL

DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

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Volume Four Winter 2005-Spring 2006 Numbers 1-2.

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Emerging Leadership Role of Women in Africa: A Fresh Agenda for Liberia

Emira Woods

Co-Director of Foreign Policy in Focus

Institute for Policy Studies.

Washington, D.C..

Lisa VeneKlasen

Director, Just Associates

Washington, D.C.

Published online: February 10, 2017

ABSTRACT

Africa’s oldest independent state now has the continent’s first elected woman President. This phenomenon hailed around the world, must be placed in the context of women’s emerging political leadership throughout the continent. Women, generating hope for the future of the continent and raising the bar for democracy worldwide, are reshaping the African political landscape. In Liberia, the power and momentum of women crossing class, ethnic and political lines to organize and sustain daily marches for peace and change for the past two years, cannot be overlooked. Market sellers, students, farmers, professionals, women from all walks of life, marched daily in drenching rain and searing sun, often with their children on their backs, to demand indicted war criminal Charles Taylor’s exit and insist on an end to civil strife, ushering in a peaceful epoch that has now lasted over two and a half years.When factions disputing the recent elections marched in the streets, it was women and leading religious leaders who talked with former presidential candidate George Weah’s supporters to insist on reconciliation and peace.