Euphrasie Kouassi Yao was awarded on March 3 the Harambee Award 2026 to the promotion and equality of African women. She received this award for her more than 35 years dedicated to the promotion of women, peace and community welfare. In addition, she was recently appointed as a Global Ambassador for Peace and is the only woman to hold a Unesco Chair in her nation.
The laureate is one of Côte d'Ivoire's most influential figures in the development and promotion of women and the family. She is currently minister advisor to President Alassane Ouattara in Côte d'Ivoire and has a solid track record after leading the portfolio for the Promotion of Women, the Family and the Protection of Children. In her speech, she made it clear that «Africa is full of talent.
Euphrasie argues that no society can reach its full potential if it excludes the skills of women, who make up half of the population: «I am convinced that where women are asked to participate in decision-making alongside men, nations will prosper, growth will increase, inclusive and sustainable development will take root and peace will flourish. It is no longer a time for hesitation.».
«Our struggle is not directed against men - on the contrary, it is fought together with them. This is the meaning of our actions in favor of «Positive Masculinity». Our approach does not generate exclusion, it encourages cooperation. It rejects domination in order to achieve balance, equity and peace,» he clarified.
What has Euphrasie's journey been like?
Euphrasie soon realized that women did not lack skills or willpower: they just needed confidence, training, tools and real participation at all levels of development. After her experience as a teacher at the Lycée de Jeunes Filles and later as an executive at the Ministry of Women, she decided to provide concrete solutions. She traveled to train in gender approaches and created two key tools.
The first was the Gender and Development Approach, a strategic compass inspired by African values to identify inequalities and design equitable public policies. Its results were reflected in Côte d'Ivoire, whose progress in reducing the gender gap was recognized by the World Economic Forum and the World Bank, especially in education, where school parity improved significantly.
The second tool was COFA (Awareness, Training, Action): «our lever for community transformation: it is the tool that goes to the heart of villages and neighborhoods, that convinces, that trains, that sets in motion .... transforms consciences where conflicts arise». With it, she succeeded, for example, in getting the men of Diatokro to include women in water management. She later joined the United Nations Women, Peace and Security agenda and helped her country adopt the first African national plan in this field.
She also promoted the Compendium of Women's Skills (COCOFCI), which brings together thousands of women leaders and was recognized by the United Nations Development Program and UNESCO. Convinced of intergenerational transmission, she trained hundreds of managers in gender engineering and created university programs to address challenges such as climate change.
Guided by a deep desire for peace, she understood that peace is only possible with equal opportunities. That is why she founded CREA-PAIX, a community peace initiative that today operates on four continents and has impacted millions of people, promoting the leadership of women and youth as the basis for just and lasting development.
Harambee Award 2026
With all this, Euphrasie expressed her desire for the Harambee Award 2026 to become «a movement, a collective consciousness and a dynamic. That is why I have decided to redistribute its endowment in favor of knowledge-hungry young people and rural women who need support to transform their communities».
The award will finance a mentoring program in the Gbeke region, where 50 established women entrepreneurs will accompany and guide 50 women in strengthening their economic autonomy and the success of their own business models.
An educational project designed to cultivate the values of resilience, dignity and excellence in the new generations will also be launched. This initiative will reach 350 high school students, who will strengthen their integral formation and leadership through the promotion of reading and participation in a high-level literary contest.
Euphrasie concluded her speech with a «viva»: «Long live female solidarity. Long live feminine skills. Long live equal opportunities for women and men, girls and boys. Viva Harambee. Long live Africa, the cradle of humanity. Long live reconciled humanity. Long live peace in the world".
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