7 October 2011

OSLO, NORWAY - Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee has been awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. Gbowee, 39, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her “non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work,” according to the citation of the Nobel Committee.

She shares the prize with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Tawakkul Karman, a pro-democracy activist from Yemen. A widely respected African peace activist, Gbowee is credited for organizing a women’s peace movement that helped bring an end to the Second Liberian Civil War.  She is the Executive Director of the NGO Wipsen-Africa, which is one of the principal partner’s of the African Security Sector Network (ASSN) in West Africa.

The ASSN and Wipsen-Africa have worked together in several programmes in the past, the latest being a 2010 project that successfully lobbied the Government of Ghana to formulate an action plan for the implementation of UN Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.

“At a time when the grave sufferings that resulted from the civil war would have silenced many, Leymah mobilised women to roar for peace,” remarked Ecoma Alaga, the ASSN’s Senior Programme Manager, who co-founded Wipsen-Africa with Gbowee. The entire ASSN network takes pride in Leymah Gbowee’s remarkable feat and congratulates her for remaining a role model for women, peace and security actors all over the world.