E. A. Ifidon

The study of the place of women in the socio-political and economic life of the society from the early period to the present has aroused a wide range of interests amongst scholars and writers in recent times. Over the last few decades, the contribution of African women to international relations and socio-economic development has been increasingly recognized in both academia and policy circles.1 This growing recognition reflects the active participation of women in various aspects of international organizational, both through formal and informal production in recent years. Women represent half the population of Africa, and although they are considered internationally as one of the main pillars of economic development, they have suffered from an unjust social heritage in addition to discriminatory practices both in terms of gender equality and in the market.2 This reflected on their social, educational and cultural situation. Although some progress has been made in an attempt to address women in Africa and their role in social and economic life, there are still social and economic challenges that prevent the African Women from being enabled

Crisis and conflict have become constant features of countries in West Africa, from civil war in Liberia between1989 and 2003, Sierra Leone from1991 to 2002, to insurgency and instability in Mali, Nigeria, Guinea, and Mali. Election crisis has plunged some West African states into a battlefield between supporters of the contending parties in the election as in Cote d’Ivoire and Madagascar, and this has resulted in a state of instability in these states. When Gambians went to the polls on December 1, 2016 to decide who their next president will be, the country did not know that a change is about to take place in the country’s highest seat of authority, that is, Yayha Jammeh, who has been in power since he led a military coup against President Dawda Jawara in 1994, would lose his bid to became Gambia’s president for the fifth term to the opposition leader Adama Barrow.