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Africa

Africa: Maimouna Ba Awarded 2024 UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award for Africa

todayOctober 9, 2024 3

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Dakar — Maimouna Ba, a tireless advocate for forcibly displaced women and children in Burkina Faso, has been named the 2024 UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award’s Regional Winner for Africa. The Nansen Refugee Award recognizes individuals and organizations that have shown outstanding dedication in protecting refugees, forcibly displaced, and stateless people. Maimouna’s work, which has empowered over 400 forcibly displaced women to achieve financial independence and enabled more than 100 forcibly displaced children to return to school, exemplifies resilience and hope in the face of the Sahel region’s humanitarian crisis.

The Central Sahel hosts over 3.4 million forcibly displaced people, including 567,000 refugees and asylum-seekers and 2.9 million internally displaced persons (IDPs). Maimouna’s work addresses their critical needs, offering both educational opportunities and economic empowerment to those most affected by the ongoing crisis.

Born in the Sahel region, Maimouna belongs to the first generation of women in her family to receive a formal education. Despite the many challenges she faced, Maimouna pursued her studies and earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing and management. In 2016, Maimouna began helping forcibly displaced families fleeing violence, by collecting donations and securing sponsorships. Her commitment to empowering women and children led her to co-found an organization focused on entrepreneurship, combating gender-based violence, and fostering peaceful coexistence. Maimouna’s scholarship initiative provides education, psychosocial support, and protection from exploitation for orphaned and displaced children.