Female Ex-President Wants to Show Women How to Climb the Ladder in Politics

The former female president of Liberia is launching an initiative to help African women move up the ladder in a continent largely dominated by male leaders.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who became Africa’s first female head of state in 2006, established the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development after she left office in 2018. Through the center, she developed the Amujae Initiative, which is Liberian for “we are going up”.

“We’re creating this wave of women who are ready to take high-level leadership positions in society, and they’re going to do it unabashedly, they’re going to go for it intentionally,” says Johnson Sirleaf to the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “After many years of trying to ascend to top leadership positions, I had the experience of how difficult it is for women.”

15 women leaders are to receive mentorship in the first year of the initiative, with the help of two other female ex-presidents: Joyce Banda of Malawi and Catherine Samba-Panza of Central African Republic.