Reacting to this development, the former Article 19 executive director, said: “I look forward to joining this sisterhood of African women leaders and learning from inspiring women who have walked the path before us, including former president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, other former heads of international organisations.”
About Fatou Jagne Senghore
Fatou Jagne Senghore is a Gambian human rights advocate with over 20 years of experience in the non-profit sector. She founded ARTICLE 19’s West Africa office in Senegal in 2010 after joining the organisation in 2002 as Africa Programme Officer in South Africa. For more than a decade, she oversaw the organisation’s work in West Africa.
She led ARTICLE 19’s work with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), advocating for the adoption of a declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa, and the establishment of the mechanism of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression in Africa in 2004. She has contributed to legal reforms in many countries, advocated and litigated on behalf of journalists and human rights defenders. Prior to ARTICLE 19, she worked for the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa and developed programmes for the judiciary and legal practitioners in the Gambia.
Throughout her career, Ms. Jagne Senghore has supported women leaders and organizations across Africa. In Senegal, her work included capacity building for women to access media, awareness raising programs on the implementation of the gender parity law which was adopted in 2010. In 2013, she initiated work to tackle fistula in southern Senegal through providing access to information and community outreach programmes. In the Gambia, she has supported women political leaders, journalists, and human rights defenders, and since 2017 she has initiated training programs to support women’s political participation.
Ms. Jagne Senghore has a proven track record in governance of both non-profit and government institutions, and sits on several boards. She chaired the Board of Directors of the Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS) from 2019-2022, as well as serving as Chair of the Africa Freedom of Information Center (AFIC) since 2022. From 2019-2022 she co-chaired the development and adoption of Senegal’s first Action Plan on the Partnership for Open Government (OGP), and was a member of the Multi Actors Group that oversaw Senegal’s reporting process under the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) from 2019-2021.
She holds an LLM in Economic and Communication Law, a Master’s degree in International and European Law, and a Bachelor of Law (Civil Law) from the University of Toulouse, France. She also holds a Bachelor of English Language / Specialty Law and a degree in international relations and development studies.
She has received many distinctions for her human rights work. These include the French National Order of Merit (Chevalier dans l’Ordre National du Mérite) in 2018, the Shield Award for West Africa by the Pan-African Human Rights Defenders Network in 2019, the Press Freedom Hero Award by the Gambia Press Union in 2020, the Deyda Hydara Award in 2021 and Legacy in Activism Award by SheAwards Gambia in 2023. She was included in the Advance Media Inaugural List of 100 Most Influential African Women in 2019.
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