On 15 July 2026, Bineta Diop accepted an honorary Degree of Doctor of Social Sciences from the University of Manchester, recognising her decades of work advancing women’s rights across Africa. In her acceptance speech, she framed the honour as a tribute to “the countless African women and girls whose courage, resilience, and leadership have shaped my life’s work.”

Born in Guéoul, Senegal, Bineta Diop was raised by her mother, Marèma Lô, a feminist organiser, and went on to study management in Paris and communication in Lausanne. She joined the International Commission of Jurists in 1981, then in 1996 founded Femmes Africa Solidarité (FAS), an organisation built on the idea that peace in Africa’s conflict zones would not last unless women helped negotiate it, years before the UN’s landmark Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.

Bineta Diop went on to play a central role in reconciliation efforts in Burundi, Liberia, and the DRC, helped shape the Maputo Protocol on women’s rights (2003) and the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa (2004), and founded the Gender Is My Agenda Campaign. She  served as the African Union’s Special Envoy on Women, Peace and Security from 2014 to 2025. Her work has earned her a place on Time’s 100 Most Influential People (2011), France’s Legion of Honour (2012), and earlier honorary doctorates from the University for Peace and Middlesex University.

In her Manchester speech, Diop recalled Cameroonian women who, between 1949 and 1960, smuggled petitions against colonial rule past borders hidden in their clothing, “they did not have wealth or political office,” she said. “What they possessed was courage, conviction, and an unshakable belief that their voices mattered.” She urged the graduating class to carry that same conviction forward:

“Build bridges where others build walls… The world does not need more successful people. It needs more courageous people.”

For Bineta Diop, the Manchester doctorate is less a capstone than a continuation of a life spent insisting that peace built without women is peace built to fail.

Mylande Edoun ODJO – media@bineta-diop.com

Communication Specialist