By Samuel Ouma
Malawi has taken a place among the world’s most prominent women leaders with the appointment of Vice-President Justice Dr Jane Ansah to the Presidents Advisory Council of G100, the global network that brings together heads of state, ministers, jurists and business leaders in a shared push for gender equality and women’s advancement.
The elevation places Dr Ansah, a retired Justice of Appeal and the second woman to serve as Vice-President of the Republic of Malawi, alongside a distinguished international peer group. Fellow members of the council include Judith Suminwa Tuluka, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo; Rosalía Arteaga Serrano, former President of Ecuador; Iveta Radičová, the first woman to serve as Prime Minister of Slovakia; and Oleksandra Matviichuk, the Ukrainian human-rights lawyer whose organisation was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. Serving first ladies, among them those of Italy and Zimbabwe, also sit on the council.
For Malawi, and for the wider African continent, the appointment is a moment of quiet significance. It reflects a growing recognition of African women in the highest tiers of global leadership, and positions one of the country’s most senior figures within a network expressly designed to amplify women’s voices across governments and international institutions.
G100, chaired by the entrepreneur Dr Harbeen Arora Rai, describes itself as a group of 100 women leaders organised across as many sectors, or “wings”, each supported by national chapters and by male allies it terms HeForShe champions. Its Presidents Advisory Council is intended to guide the network’s global leadership and to advance women’s participation in public and economic life worldwide.
Dr Ansah brings to the council a career of more than four decades in law and public service. Born in Lilongwe in 1955, she graduated in law from the University of Malawi’s Chancellor College in 1978, later earning a master’s degree in international human rights and, in 2002, a doctorate from the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom.
She was appointed a judge of the High Court of Malawi in 1997 and, in 2006, became the country’s first female Attorney General , a post she held till 2011 before returning to the bench as a Justice of Appeal. She retired from the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2020. She has also chaired the Malawi Electoral Commission and served as president of the Electoral Commissions Forum of the Southern African Development Community, strengthening cooperation among electoral bodies across the region, and has contributed to boards and committees within Malawi and the African Union.
An accomplished author, Dr Ansah has written on human rights and legal development, including a study of the right to development in Malawian law. A committed Christian, she serves as national overseer of Christ Citadel International Church, alongside her public duties.
She assumed the vice-presidency in October 2025, having stood as running mate to President Arthur Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party in the general election held on 16 September that year.
Her inclusion on the G100 council adds to a small but growing number of African women taking their place in global leadership forums, and offers Malawi a platform from which to project its voice well beyond the region.
