Siga Fatima Jagne is a Gambian feminist scholar and administrator. She is the Commissioner for Social Affairs and Gender at

ECOWAS The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS; also known as CEDEAO in French and Portuguese) is a regional political and economic union of twelve countries of West Africa. Collectively, the present and former members comprise an area ...

Life

Siga Fatima Jagne has a MA from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

in 1989, and gained her PhD in 1994 from the

State University of New York at Binghamton The State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton University or SUNY Binghamton) is a public research university in Greater Binghamton, New York, United States. It is one of the four university centers in the State University of New Y ...

, with a thesis on the writers

Mariama Bâ Mariama Bâ (April 17, 1929 – August 17, 1981) was a Senegalese author and feminist, whose two French-language novels were both translated into more than a dozen languages. Born in Dakar, Senegal, Dakar, Senegal, she was raised a Muslim. Her ...

and

Bessie Head Bessie Amelia Emery Head (6 July 1937 – 17 April 1986) was a South African writer who, though born in South Africa, is usually considered Botswana's most influential writer. She wrote novels, short fiction and autobiographical works that are ...

. As ECOWAS Commissioner for Social Affairs and Gender, in November 2019 she helped launch 50 Million African Women Speak (50MAWS), a digital platform to help women in Africa access information to help them grow their businesses. In June 2020, speaking on

World Refugee Day World Refugee Day is an international day organised every year on 20 June by the United Nations. It is designed to celebrate and honour refugees from around the world. The day was first established on 20 June 2001, in recognition of the 50th ann ...

Abuja Abuja (; , ) is the capital city of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, strategically situated at the geographic midpoint of the country within the Federal Capital Territory (Nigeria), Federal Capital Territory (FCT). As the seat of the Federal G ...

, Jagne promised that ECOWAS would support member states to help those affected by the worsening humanitarian crisis in the

Sahel The Sahel region (; ), or Sahelian acacia savanna, is a Biogeography, biogeographical region in Africa. It is the Ecotone, transition zone between the more humid Sudanian savannas to its south and the drier Sahara to the north. The Sahel has a ...

.Victoria Ojeme
292,141 Nigeria Refugees seek asylum in Niger, Cameroon, Chad – UNHRC
'' Vangard'', 18 June 2020. Accessed 12 August 2020.

Works

* (ed. with Pushpa Naidu Parekh) ''Postcolonial African writers: a bio-bibliographical critical sourcebook''. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1998. * (ed.) ''Nation-states and the challenges of regional integration in West Africa. The case of the Gambia''. Paris: Éd. Karthala, 2010

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jagne, Siga Fatima Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Cornell University alumni Binghamton University alumni Economic Community of West African States Gambian feminists