Meet our woman crush for this week, Hon. Francess Piagie Alghali.

Hon. Francess P. Alghali is currently the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Government of Sierra Leone.

She has over 20 years of experience in management, education, and human rights at the national level during which time she has held leadership positions in national institutions.  She served as Executive Secretary of the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone, the National Human Rights Institution from 2010 to 2015. She has attended several conferences and professional development programs on Human Rights, Women’s Leadership, Higher Education Management, Leadership, and Strategic Change at some of which she has presented research papers. She also served as Foundation Registrar of Njala University one of the Public Universities in Sierra Leone. She holds a B.A Hons. Degree in Modern History, a Postgraduate Diploma in Education, and a Master of Education Degree.

She was previously the Minister of State in the Office of the Vice President and Principal Assistant to the Honorable Vice President of the Republic of Sierra Leone. As Minister of State, she supervised the Sierra Leone Compact Development Unit, Private Public Partnership Unit, Sierra Leone Extractives Transparency Initiative Unit and was Chairperson of the Multi-Stakeholder Group, the Scaling Up Nutrition Secretariat all of which are under the Office of the Vice President.  She is also a member of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative International Board representing Anglophone Africa and serves on the Finance Committee and the Validation Committee of the Board.

Under her supervision, Sierra Leone became eligible for the Millennium Challenge Corporation Unit (MCCU) of the United States Compact Programme. She is currently overseeing the Development of Compact Project for Sierra Leone on the Energy Sector which will be submitted to the MCCU shortly.  She was also appointed National Convenor in 2021 for the Food Systems Dialogues for Sierra Leone which was requested by the United National Secretary-General for all UN Member states to undertake, and she currently coordinates and oversees the implementation of the Action Plan and Road Map for Sierra Leone.

As Chairperson of the Multi-Stakeholder Group of the Sierra Leone Extractive Industry Initiative (SLEITI), Hon. Francess P. Alghali led the successful validation of Sierra Leone, and the Country achieved an overall high score of 87% in implementing the 2019 Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Standard.  The overall score reflects an average of the three component scores on “Stake Holder Engagement”, “Transparency”, and “Outcomes and Impact”.