Accra, July 26, GNA – Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, former First Lady of Ghana, on Monday called for capacity building for women to speed up the development of Africa.

She said women should be encouraged to participate in decision making to enable Africa to excel in leadership.

“For Africa to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, women should be motivated to help alleviate all challenges facing Africa,” she said.

Nana Konadu was addressing a group of selected young women from 25 African countries on the Milead Fellows Programme who paid a courtesy call on her in Accra.

The meeting with Nana Konadu served as a platform to educate them on leadership and women’s development and also learn from the experiences of the former First Lady.

It was organised by Moremi Initiative and brought together 25 young women from 25 African countries.

Nana Konadu said women needed to be ambitious to overcome discouragement from men who looked down upon women.

“Being ambitious is good. Somebody has to be ambitious for something important to be achieved.”

She advised women to be confident in themselves and lead by example.

Mr Mawuli Dake, Co-chairman of MILEAD Fellowship, said it was the flagship programme of MOREMI Initiative and had offices in Ghana, Nigeria and USA.

He said the programme was to identify 25 most outstanding and emerging women in Africa every year to go through a year-long training, which started with a three-week intensive workshop in Ghana and online.

Mr Dake said each person implemented a community project which addressed issues of critical importance to women in their community.

He explained that the strategy was to use accomplished women leaders to inspire and motivate women to go as far as they can.