Following discourses of women’s peacebuilding role in the contemporary, especially in the African context, the controversy has often been the thinking that their recognition in the arena of public leadership is a recent phenomenon. However, as expounded in the literature review chapter, women leveraged political and socio-economic prowess prior to colonialism. While spared from the shackles of colonization, Liberia as far back as 1946 (during the colonial era in Africa) adopted and granted women suffrage to all Americo-Liberian women. Hence, Liberia was the first African country to accord women such recognition, support, and power to vote as well as stand or run for electoral office same as their male counterparts (Women Suffrage and Beyond 2011). In 1951, this right was extended to the indigenous women of Liberia. To this, UI-3 and UI-5 (July 2015) reiterated that before the conflicts in Liberia, women, especially the educated majority, were recognized and accorded leadership positions in the public and political tiers of society. Similarly, more women officiated in the private arenas and at the levels of rural and community leadership. The table below adapted from
‘Worldwide Guide to Women in Leadership’ indicates that women in Liberia took up public and ministerial positions as far back as in 1948.
Table 6.1: Liberian women in leadership – 1948 to 2003
Years Office/Position Held Appointed Leaders
1948 – 1952 Secretary of State of Education Ellen Mills Scarborough 1946 – 1956 Assistant Secretary of the Minister of
Defence
Etta Wright
1951 – 1955 1963 – 1971
Executive Secretary to the President - Special Assistant to the President
(Edith) Mai Wiles Padmore
168 1972 – 1976 - Minister of Health and Social
Security
1954 - 1977 Liberia’s Permanent representative to the UN
Angie Brooks-Randolph
1953 – 1958 1956 – 1973 1955 – 1956 & 1961
1962 –
1965 & 1966
1973 – 1975 1975 – 1977 1977
Assistant Secretary of State - Assistant Attorney General - Delegate to the United Nations - Vice-Chairperson and chairperson
of the Committee of Trust and Non-self-Government Territories - Chairperson on the Commission
for Ruanda-Urundi
- Vice-President and President of the Trusteeship Council
- Ambassador-at-Large
- Ambassador to the United Nations - Judge in the Supreme Court
Angie Elizabeth Brook- Randolph
1970 – 1977 –
President of the UN general Assembly Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
Angie Brooks-Randolph
1970 – 1973 Mayor of Monrovia Ellen A. Sandimanie 1972 – 1973
1977 – 1979 1979 – 1980 1980 – 1992 – 1997
1997 –
Secretary of State of Finance
- Secretary of State of Finance - Minister of Finance
- President of the National Bank - African Director of the United
Nations Development Program - Leader of the Unity Party and
Presidential Candidate
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
1972 – 1978 Assistant Minister of Education for Planning and research
Bertha Barker Azango
169 1978 – 1980 Deputy Minister of Education for
Planning and research
1973 – 1977 Minister of Health and Welfare Dr. Kate Bryant 1975 – 1979 Minister of Agriculture Florence Chenoweth 1975 – 1978
1977 – 1978 1978 – 1981 1981 – 1985 1983 – 1984
Minister of Post
- Minister of Communication - Minister of Health and Social
Security
- Ambassador to the United Nations - Vice-President of the General
Assembly of the United Nations
Hanna Abedou Bowen Jones
1975 – 1989 1991 – 1995 1998 – 2001 1999 – 2001 2001 – 2002
Deputy Minister of Economic Planning - Minister of Planning and
Economy
- Minister of Planning and Economy
- Minister of Commerce and Industry
- Minister of Planning and Economy
Amelia Ward
1981 – Deputy Minister of State without Portfolio in Ministry of Presidential Affairs
Captain Veronica Peagor
1981 – Minister of Health and Welfare Dr. Kate Bryant
1981 – 1987 Minister of Health and Social Security Major Martha Sandolo Belleh
1985 – 1987 1987 – 1990
Minister of Commerce, Industry and Transport
Minister of Post and Telecommunication
McLeod Darpoh
1989 –
1993 – 1994 1994 – 1995 2001 – 2003
Vice-chairperson of the National Patriotic Front (Charles Taylor’s Revolutionary Movement) of Liberia
- First Secretary of the Council of State
- Minister of Foreign Affairs (First in the Cabinet)
- Minister of Gender Development
Dorothy Musuleng-Cooper
170 1995 – 1996
1996 – 1997 1998 –
Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism
- Member of the Council of State - Advisor of President Charles
Taylor
Victoria Refell
1996 – 1997 Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Frances Johnson-Morris 1996 – 1997 Acting President and Leader of the
Government and Chairperson of the Council of State
Ruth Perry
1997 – 1998 Minister of Planning and Economy Sandra Howard 1997 – 2003 Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Gloria Musu Scott 1998 – 2003 Minister of Education Evelyn White-Kandakai 2001 – 2003 Minister of Commerce and Industry Cora Peabody
2001 – 2003 Minister of Post and Telecommunication Emma Wuor 2001 – 2003 Deputy Minister of Finance for Revenue Juanita Neal
2001 – 2003 Deputy Minister of Gender Development Madam Lwopou Kandakai 2001 – Mayor of Monrovia (till 2009) Ophelia Hoff Saytumah 2002 – 2003 President Pro Tempore of the Senate Grace Minor
Source: Worldwide Guide to Women in Leadership (Republic of Liberia). Available at:
http://www.guide2womenleaders.com/Liberia.htm
Acknowledging this realism is to say women’s course for recognition, inclusion and equal participation in the contemporary is powered and well-grounded in a history that conformed to the prominence of their leadership role, as earlier acknowledged by the Liberian government through its appointment of women to influential public positions. While such progress is increasingly being advocated for in present-day development agendas, note is taken that the case of Liberia has been and continues to be shaped by many factors like its conflict past and transformation of the political, socio-economic, human security and development landscape/dynamics. As earlier noted in this study, the Beijing Conference of 1995 happened at a time when Liberia was deep into conflict. In the spirit of echoing women’s voice and supporting Liberian women’s pursuit for peace, Amelia Ward (the then Liberian Minister of Planning and Economic Affairs) during this conference articulated that:
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“... Since 1991, various women’s organizations in Liberia have been at the forefront of women’s rights and empowerment, gender awareness and peace advocacy, taking on different proactive actions and effecting several projects. … But women remain in difficult circumstances and the Liberian society remains male-dominated … and Liberian women are hopeful that the outcome of the discussions of the conference will positively change their lives … Trusting that this conference will further advance the call for ‘greater investment in people and for a new action agenda to make women full partners with men in the socio-economic and political lives of communities’…we delightfully note that
‘sustainable human development also recognizes that not much can be achieved without a dramatic improvement in the status of women’…” (UNDP and UN Fourth World Conference on Women Secretariat. Statement Delivered by Hon. Amelia A. Ward, 1995).
From the vantage point, the holding of the Beijing Conference was an empowering event that gave a voice to women worldwide, Liberia in particular, because of the conflict and women’s already active efforts at resolution. According to UI-1 and UI-3 (July 2015), Beijing1995 served as a critical boost for women’s individual and organizational agency in Liberia, with a plus being the active position of Minister Ward that echoed the reality of their struggles and need for an inclusive platform in the affairs of the state of Liberia at that time. In consonance with this view, UI-5 also maintained that the outcome of the Beijing 1995 did, in fact, propel Liberian women to be more assertive in their pursuit of peace. Subsequent to the Beijing conference therefore, the Liberian Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs created a Women and Children Coordination Unit (which later was transformed to the Ministry of Gender and Development in 2001) and a Women’s Secretariat in 1995 and 1998 respectively.
Tripp (2015: 95-98) avers that through assistance from different women’s NGOs and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), these programmes focused on addressing and managing women’s issues, activities and programmes. Likewise, it ensured the government amplified its gender mainstreaming measures and executed schemes identified as important to the advancement of women’s status in all spheres of life and society. In same manner of strengthening women’s efforts, Tripp (2015:96) draws to attention the element of the founding of a National Gender Forum in 1998, chaired by the then President Charles Taylor, and guided by a directive on defined ‘critical areas of concern’51 described in the
51 The Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action 1995 necessitates for “governments, the civil society and international community, and the private sector to strategically take action in these twelve areas of concerns: 1)
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Chapter III (44) of the BPfA. Departing from these preliminary developments, the Liberian government in its recent past to current post-conflict setting has continued to assume different strategic measures like the implementation of UNSCR 1325. In executing UNSCR 1325, the government embraced the national responsibility to promote and ensure women’s role in society, which in turn is vital for the sustainability of its post-conflict agenda and yonder.