Her Excellency, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is a pioneering woman, having become the first female head-of-state in Africa after she was elected in 2005 as Liberia’s president, and then re-elected for a second term in 2011. In the same year, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her “non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.” She was also elected as chair of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 2016, becoming the first female leader to hold the position since its creation.
Liberians went through 14 years of barbaric, drug fuelled, chaotic war, where child soldiers carried out the most unspeakable crimes. Myriad rebel groups reigned over towns and cities with terror, stripping the country of any semblance of infrastructure. Hospitals, schools, roads and even lamp-posts were destroyed; the latter out of a belief that enemy soldiers could turn themselves into one. All thanks to her fascinating portrayal of deep courage, intelligent, shrewd, and determination and deep patriotic commitment to serve her country. Her grand vision and guiding philosophy was to undo decades of despoliation visited upon her country by successive regimes, in some of which she served.
But repairing the enormous damage done her country, she re-establishing state’s institutions, revamped the economy, achieved a normative society, restored hope to millions, such as never before.
Johnson Sirleaf grew up in the Liberian capital of Monrovia, where she married and had four sons. She later moved to the United States where she earned an accounting degree from the Madison College of Business and a Masters Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
In her efforts to bring justice to her people in Liberia, she has spent more than a year in jail at the hands of the military dictatorship of General Samuel Doe and had her life threatened by former President Charles Taylor. She campaigned relentlessly for Taylor’s removal from office and played an active and supportive role in the Transitional Government of Liberia as the country prepared for elections in October of 2005.
She was a presidential candidate in the 1997 Liberia general election where she finished second in the field of 13. Before that, she served for five years as Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa of the United Nations Development Program as Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and was the first woman to lead the United Nations Development Project for Africa.
She served as the Chairperson of the Governance Reform Commission of the National Transitional Government of Liberia until she resigned in March 2004 to accept the nomination of the Unity Party of Liberia as the party’s leader.
In November 2005, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected President of Liberia and became the first woman to lead an African nation.
In October 2007, she was award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civil award, for her personal courage and unwavering commitment to expanding freedom and improving the lives of people in Liberia and across Africa.
Internationally known as Africa’s “Iron Lady,” Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is a leading promoter of peace, justice and democratic rule.
In a recent interview with PRITI PATNAIK of TIME AFRICA, the former president spoke about her work as Co-Chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, which worked to provide evidence-based recommendations for addressing future pandemics, grounded in lessons from the global fight against COVID-19 and previous health crises. The Independent Panel was established by the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General and presented its findings to the 74th World Health Assembly on May 2021.
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