Zainab Hawa Bangura

Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war ended in 2002, leaving tens of thousands dead and a large portion of the population displaced. Zainab Hawa Bangura, active in reconstruction efforts, has consulted for progressive civil society and political organizations. She chairs the advisory board of the Network for Collaborative Peace Building in Sierra Leone. A former member of the United Nations Development Programme Sierra Leone Task Force on Special Initiatives for Governance in Africa, she advised the UNDP on integrating methods of inclusion and participation into their programs in the country. She also formulated advocacy positions for the UNDP’s work with Sierra Leone’s government and development partners in an effort to reduce poverty and decentralize the government. She has been a social development specialist for the World Bank in Sierra Leone and Liberia. A member of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs Nigeria Election Monitoring Mission, she was on that country’s Commonwealth Election Monitoring Team. She cofounded and chaired the political party Movement for Progress, devoted to change through good governance and the empowerment of marginal groups, and ran for president in 2002 on the new party’s ticket. A trustee of the Governing Council for the Centre for Democracy and Development, she is also part of the Sierra Leone Government Democratic Reform Sub-Committee and the Sierra Leone Women’s Forum, an umbrella organization made up of women’s NGOs. She has served on the boards of the International Crisis Group and the Open Society Institute for West Africa. Ms. Hawa Bangura won the Sierra Leone Women of Excellence Life of Achievement Award in 2003. She was presented with the Alliance for Female Journalists Award in Sierra Leone; in the United States, the Bayard Rustin Humanitarian Award and the Human Rights Award of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights; and in Nigeria, the Africa International Award of Merit for Leadership in Nigeria.

Ms. Hawa Bangura’s peace-building activities include:

• providing conflict resolution training to soldiers;
• founding Women Organized for a Morally Enlightened Nation (WOMEN), a nonpartisan women’s political rights organization, which played a vital role in the campaign against the ruling military junta, the National Provisional Ruling Council;
• founding and coordinating Campaign for Good Governance, the largest indigenous NGO in Sierra Leone, which promotes democratic participation, civil society and grassroots organizing, human rights, the rule of law, and the political and economic empowerment of women;
• identifying grassroots women’s groups that promote women’s rights and the inclusion and participation of women in peace building as a consultant to the Mano River Women’s Peace Network, which brings together women from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone; and
• formulating a strategy to ensure community empowerment’s sustainability for Sierra Leone office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

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