Our Person of the Month for August 2019 is SIA-Africa's Country Strategic Development Partner, Brigadier General Constance Emefa Edjeani-Afenu.
General Constance Afenu broke the ceiling in the Ghanaian defense community to become the first female to rise to the rank of Brigadier General in 2016. She is the highest-ranking female officer in the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF). In that capacity she continues to strive and advocate for women's achievements. She recently teamed up with others to organize high level events to celebrate sixty years of female contributions in the Ghana Armed Forces. The anniversary on the theme: “Empowering female participation in peace and security for national development,” attracted female military personnel from the various divisions in GAF. The anniversary showed the courage and initiative of female in the Army. General Constance Afenu said that “There have been some positive changes in limitations among females in the Armed Forces and some liberty within the past 60 years since Armed Forces regulations have currently be reviewed and resolved."
General Afenu was commissioned as a second lieutenant in April 1980. In 2013, she became the first woman officer to be appointed a Deputy Military Advisor to the Ghana's Permanent Mission to the United Nations, in New York and she has, in that capacity, been involved in activities relating to peacekeeping operations in Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Liberia. Word in defense circles suggest that this Fall she will assume the role as a United Nations Deputy Force Commander becoming the first Ghanaian female soldier to hold that appointment.
As part of her commitment to the empowerment of women leadership in Ghana and Africa, SIA-Africa proudly names Brig. General Constance Emefa Edjeani-Afenu its Person of the Month.
