The untapped role of Queen Mothers in African economic development

The question I put to Ghanaian policymakers, to the development community, to the donors, and to my fellow traditional leaders is a simple one: What would our economy look like if we finally built on what we already have?

Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, herself of the Asante royal house, named after Queen Mother Nana Konadu Yiadom II, and grand-niece of the Asantehene Prempeh I whom Yaa Asantewaa followed into exile, built the 31st December Women’s Movement into the largest mass mobilization of Ghanaian women in our history, opening preschools, income-generating groups, and credit lines that reached rural women no formal bank had ever bothered to serve.

Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, a Cape Coast woman, a literature scholar, a two-time Fulbright fellow, the first woman to lead a state university in Ghana as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, a former Minister for Education who spent that portfolio fighting for the girl child, an advocate whose voice on child marriage, domestic violence, and sexual abuse has shaped a generation of policy conversation, became, in January of 2025, the first female Vice President of Ghana.