LAGOS, Nigeria. (Voice Of Naija) Rwanda has unveiled a first-of-its-kind institution dedicated exclusively to training women in political leadership across Africa and the Caribbean, as the continent grapples with some of the world’s lowest rates of female representation in government and public office.
The African Academy for Women in Political Leadership was formally launched on Monday in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, with an inaugural cohort of 40 women from Africa and the Caribbean. The academy was inaugurated by the United Nations Development Programme, the African Union Commission and the African Women Leaders Network, in partnership with the African School of Governance, with the first cohort including ministers, legislators, mayors and party leaders.
Rwanda, which has long distinguished itself as the country with the highest proportion of women in parliament globally, was a deliberate choice of location for an institution designed to transform the political landscape for women across the continent.
The African Academy for Women in Political Leadership is designed as a structured, high-level training programme for women already in or aspiring to political office, providing them with the governance skills, policy expertise, peer networks and institutional support needed to advance in public life and sustain meaningful change once in positions of power.
According to Ghana Eye, Director of the Regional Programme for Africa at UNDP, Jide Okeke, said the inaugural cohort should recognise that “true leadership is measured not only by how far individuals advance, but also by how many women they empower and bring along with them,” while speaking at the ceremony.
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According to the African School of Governance.”Africa has never lacked capable women leaders. What has often been missing is an ecosystem that intentionally prepares them for the specific challenges of political life, a gap the academy is explicitly designed to close
The academy is hosted within the African School of Governance, a graduate institution founded by former Rwandan President Paul Kagame and former Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and launched in October 2024 on a campus in Kigali.
The ASG, whose President is former Nigerian Central Bank Governor and presidential candidate Professor Kingsley Moghalu, is chaired by Makhtar Diop and offers graduate programmes in policy, governance, leadership and management aimed at developing future African leaders.
The choice of Rwanda as home for the academy is not incidental. Rwanda’s parliament is currently 61 per cent female, the highest share of women in any national legislature in the world, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. That achievement, which emerged from deliberate post-genocide constitutional design including reserved seats for women, has made Rwanda a global reference point for women’s political empowerment for over two decades.
The contrast with the rest of the continent is stark. Across Africa, women hold an average of approximately 26 per cent of parliamentary seats — itself above the global average — but representation drops sharply at executive, mayoral and local government levels. Several African nations, including Nigeria, remain far below even that continental average.
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For Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and largest economy, the launch of the African Academy for Women in Political Leadership in Kigali arrives as a pointed reminder of how far the country still has to travel on gender representation in governance.
Women hold fewer than five per cent of seats in Nigeria’s National Assembly, one of the lowest rates of female legislative representation in the world. The 2023 general elections returned only four women to the 109-seat Senate and 16 to the 360-seat House of Representatives, despite sustained campaigns by civil society groups and women’s rights advocates.
Multiple Gender and Equal Opportunity bills have been introduced and rejected in the National Assembly over successive legislative cycles, with several defeated by the very lawmakers whose composition most reflects the problem.
Nigeria’s 2027 general election cycle is now taking shape, and women’s groups across the country have already begun mobilising to support female candidates and demand institutional reforms, including party primaries that do not systematically disadvantage women through delegate structures and financial barriers that favour incumbents.
The African Academy for Women in Political Leadership offers a resource that Nigerian women in politics now have formal access to through the continent-wide programme. Whether Nigeria’s political parties and government institutions choose to actively encourage participation, or whether the academy’s benefits flow primarily to countries with more enabling political environments, remains to be seen.
What is not in doubt is that Kigali has once again positioned itself at the front of a continent-wide conversation and that the women filling the academy’s first cohort of 40 represent a continent that is increasingly determined not to wait any longer for a seat at its own table.
