‘At the End of the Day it is the Politicians Who Make Policy’: Lessons from Women Cabinet Ministers from Five Countries in West Africa

Across Africa (and the world) women’s representation in appointed and elected political office continues to grow, albeit incrementally. In late 2025, more than a dozen African countries had 30 percent women or more in their parliaments, while in early 2025, a handful of African countries were close to achieving gender parity (50/50) cabinets and several more had 30 percent women or more in their cabinets. Because cabinet ministers are appointed, rather than elected, and those appointments are typically the ‘prerogative of the president,’ bringing more women into cabinets can be more readily accomplished than bringing more women into parliaments. This article explores the experiences of women cabinet ministers in The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone since political transitions in the countries in the 1990s and 2000s. Using an interpretive approach, the paper relies heavily on semi-structured in-depth interviews with former women ministers from all five countries. The article focuses on how women ministers enter cabinets, how they experience their terms of office, and how they exit cabinets. The experiences of women cabinet ministers from these West African countries help to nuance our understanding of women in cabinets around the world, including their ‘paths to power,’ attitudes to gender parity, perceptions of representation impacts, and experiences of cabinet shuffles.