Close Look at Abiy Ahmed’s 10 Female Appointees, Including Ethiopia's Most Powerful Woman

Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed is being praised across Africa and the world over for presenting a gender balanced cabinet to the House of Peoples Representatives, HPR, which was duly approved.

However, this was not initially in the plans of the Minister.  Back in April, one of the biggest issues raised by legislators during Abiy’s presentation of his cabinet was the absence of women on the list. Yes, there was no single woman on the list!

He however promised that more women would be named in a subsequent list and Abiy seems to have stuck to his word six months later. There is nothing better than a man who keeps his word.

During the presentation of the portfolios, he announced the formation of a Ministry for Peace, and at the time its mandate was said to be unclear.

Days on, the ministry’s mandate has all but become clearer and handed to a history maker, Muferiat Kamil. Kamil, Ethiopia’s first woman speaker of parliament was named first Peace Minister in an equally historic cabinet.

Muferiat Kamil is gradually becoming the face of women in Ethiopia and unarguably the most powerful woman in the country - more powerful and popular than the first lady.

Brief about Minister Muferiat Kamil

In 2008, Muferiat Kamil, became Minister of Women’s Affairs at the age of 32, at the time, the youngest appointee of the late Meles Zenawi.

She was born in Jimma, the largest city in south-western Ethiopia. She graduated from Haramaya University with BSc. degree in Agriculture in 2000.

She held different women affairs roles and from 2002 till her appointment as Public Relations Advisor to the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR) President in 2007.

She has worked at the EPRDF office in Addis Ababa in April 2008, then as a junior public relations officer till her appointment as Minister of Women’s Affairs.

Muferiat Kamil leads the Southern Ethiopia Peoples Democratic Movement (SEPDM) one of the constituent bodies of the ruling Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).

She is also the sole female leader on the four-bloc coalition. When she was voted speaker back in April 2014, she replaced Abadula Gemeda of the Oromo bloc – then OPDO now ODP, who had been in the role since 2010.

Ministry of Peace – Ethiopia’s most powerful appointment?

Reports indicate that Muferiat’s role has a peace title but spans a high security structure. According to the Addis Standard portal, the Ministry of Peace will oversee the National Intelligence & Security Service (NISS).

The Information Network Security Agency (INSA); Federal Police Commission; & Finance Security & Information Center. It will also assume the roles of Federal & Pastoralist Development Affairs, the portal added.

It will further oversee: the National Disaster Risk Management Commission; the Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs; Ethiopian Foreign Relations Strategic Studies Institute; and the Main Department For Immigration & Nationality Affairs.

Abiy Ahmed’s 10  Female Appointees and their Portfolios