Leymah Gbowee received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her work bringing together Christian and Muslim women in a nonviolent movement that played a pivotal role in ending Liberia’s Second Civil War in 2003. She shared the prize with fellow Liberian Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Tawakkol Karman from Yemen.
Leymah is the founder and president of Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa which provides educational and leadership opportunities to girls, women and youth in West Africa. She is also the Executive Director of the Institute on Gender, Law, and Transformative Peace Initiative at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law.
Leymah was born in Liberia in 1972. She was living in Monrovia when the First Liberian Civil War erupted, and recalls the moment vividly: “All of a sudden one July morning I wake up at 17, going to the university to fulfill my dream of becoming a medical doctor, and fighting erupted.”
Witnessing the effects of war on Liberians led her to train as a trauma counsellor to treat former child soldiers.
A second civil war broke out in 1999 and brought systematic rape and brutality to an already war-weary Liberia. Responding to the conflict, Leymah mobilized an interreligious coalition of Christian and Muslim women and organized the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace movement. Through Leymah’s leadership, thousands of women staged pray-ins and nonviolent protests demanding reconciliation and the resuscitation of high-level peace talks. The pressure pushed President Charles Taylor into exile, and smoothed the path for the election of Africa’s first female head of state, fellow 2011 Nobel Laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The journey is chronicled in Leymah's memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers, and in the award-winning documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell.
"It is time to stand up, sisters, and do some of the most unthinkable things. We have the power to turn our upside down world right."
Leymah has a Master’s degree in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University in the United States. She is a founding member and former coordinator for Women in Peacebuilding/West African Network for Peacebuilding (WIPNET/WANEP). She also co-founded the Women Peace and Security Network Africa (WIPSEN-Africa) to promote cross-national peace-building efforts and transform women’s participation as victims in the crucible of war to mobilized armies for peace. Additionally, she has served as a member of both the African Feminist Forum and the African Women’s Leadership Network on Sexual and Reproductive Rights, and as a commissioner-designate for the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Through these positions, Leymah addressed the particular vulnerability of women and children in war-torn societies.
Widely recognized by the media, academic institutions, and rights-based organizations for her leadership, Leymah has been named one of the 100 Most Influential African Women by Avance Media (2019), one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy by Apolitical (2018, 2019), and one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine (2018). In 2020,she was honored with the Martin & Coretta King Inaugural Peace & Justice Award; in 2019, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) presented her with its Global Leadership Award.