This year’s Ghana Women of Excellence Awards Dinner will be held at the Coconut Grove Regency Hotel, North Ridge, Accra on Saturday, 11th March, 2023 to commemorate International Women’s Day. The awards ceremony is being organised by Top Brass Ghana under the auspices of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection.
International Women’s Day is celebrated worldwide on 8th March. In Ghana, the erstwhile Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs mandated in 2010 that the occasion be commemorated with the Ghana Women of Excellence Awards Scheme. Accordingly, the 1st Ghana Women of Excellence Awards Ceremony was organised on 9th March, 2011. Subsequent editions of the awards were staged in 2012, 2015 and annually since 2019.
Organised under the theme: ‘Empowering the Ghanaian Woman for National Development’, the Ghana Women of Excellence Awards Scheme forms part of the celebration of International Women’s Day in Ghana. According to Mr. Isaac Dakwa, Director of Top Brass Ghana, the primary objective of the scheme is to motivate Ghanaian women to strive for excellence in their various walks of life, and to take their rightful places in the national development process.
By convention, the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection graces the occasion as the Guest of Honour while the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Gender presides over the awards ceremony.
Previous award-winners include Dr. Beatrice Wiafe Addai – World renowned breast cancer surgeon; Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo – Literary luminary. Winner of Commonwealth Writers Book Prize; Rev. Dr. Joyce Rosalind Aryee – Stateswoman; Dr. Joyce Asibey – revered educationist. First African and long serving Headmistress of Aburi Girls’ Secondary School; Ms. Anna Bossman – accomplished lawyer and first female Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ); Ing. Carlien Bou-Chedid – top-class Structural Engineer. First female President of the Ghana Institution of Engineers.
Also honoured in the past have been Dr. Mary Chinery-Hesse – first ever woman Deputy Director-General of the United Nations International Labour Organisation (ILO) with the rank of UN Under Secretary-General; Prof. Florence Abena Dolphyne – brilliant academician. First female Pro-Vice Chancellor of University of Ghana; Brig-Gen. Constance Emefa Edjeani-Afenu – distinguished career in the Ghana Armed Forces. First female to reach rank of Brigadier-General; H.E. Judge Akua Kuenyehia – renowned Law Professor. First female Law Lecturer at the University of Ghana. Long-serving Judge and retired President of the Appeals Division of the International Criminal Court (ICC); Mad. Aurore Lokko – Ghana’s first female qualified Accountant; Mrs. Helen Koshie Lokko – astute banker. First female Managing Director of Ghana Commercial Bank, now GCB Bank.
Some other honourees were Prof. Henrietta Mensah-Bonsu – outstanding academician and legal luminary. Now exalted Justice of Ghana’s Supreme Court; Elizabeth Mills-Robertson – distinguished career in Law Enforcement. First female and only Deputy Inspector-General of Police; Dr. Letitia Eva Takyibea Obeng – excellent Environmental Scientist. First Ghanaian female Botany/Zoology graduate. Former Regional Director for Africa of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP); Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang – renowned academician. First female Vice-Chancellor of a Ghanaian University, University of Cape Coast; Dr. Theresa Oppong-Beeko – pre-eminent female in Ghana’s real estate sector. Founder of Manet Housing Limited; and Capt. Beatrice Dzifa Vormawah – first Ghanaian female to obtain Master Mariner Certificate. First Ghanaian female Captain of a Merchant Navy Ship.
