About Joyce Banda: Her Excellency Dr Joyce Hilda Banda is a Malawian politician who was the President of Malawi from 7 April 2012 to 31 May 2014. She is the founder and leader of the People's Party, created in 2011.
I will forever be thankful to the Malawians and international community, and my professional army and army general, who said: 'No, we will follow the constitution.' That's why I'm here.
Overall, I have formed three major organizations: the National Association of Business Women, the Young Women's Leaders Network, and the Joyce Banda Foundation. Under the foundation, we have a huge program that targets women to teach them about HIV a...
I sat down in 1989 and I made up my mind at that point that I was going to spend the rest of my life assisting women and youth to gain social and political empowerment through business and education. I convinced myself economic empowerment of women w...
Lula da Silva was my hero when he was president. I Googled him so many times. The fact that he got 20 million people out of poverty... that happened by encouraging entrepreneurship, by supporting small business.
In 1989, I started the National Association of Business Women. We incorporated microfinance and different job training for women. We did a survey, with USAID, that found women lacked training, credit and information.
When I gave birth to my fourth child, I suffered from post partum hemorrhaging. I almost lost my life. I was lucky to be under the care of trained health care personnel. I started wondering then what was happening to women in rural villages.
Most African women are taught to endure abusive marriages. They say endurance means a good wife but most women endure abusive relationship because they are not empowered economically; they depend on their husbands.
It's heavy, but I am able to carry it. Why? Because I'm an African woman. An African woman carries heavy loads anyway. That's how we are trained; we are brought up that nothing is unbearable. I use that now, positively. I use that now to have the thi...
My father made sure I was treated equally with my brothers.
But the fact that we had to devalue by 40% at once means that Malawians are feeling the shock, the impact of that huge devaluation and particularly rural people, the poor are the ones that are going to be most affected. That is why there is the auste...
What I have said to my team is that at a point such as this, with 40% adjustment in our currency, it means that Malawians are paying the price. While that is going on, they need to see, us, the commitment on our part, particularly right at the top. T...
I want you to know that I don't have any right, Malawi has no right to stop any president from coming to an African Union summit because that is an African Union meeting.
You can still sit under the tree where Dr. Livingstone negotiated with slave traders to set people free.
When I took over, the economy had almost collapsed. I told Malawians we needed to pass through difficult times. Two days ago I even cut my own salary by 30% to show we are making sacrifices.
What I am saying every day to Malawians is that time has come for us to move from aid to trade. We have picked several sectors that we think we can focus on immediately in order for us to grow our economy. So we have decided to diversify agriculture,...
My dear husband, Richard, has been the driving force behind my success and rise to whatever level I am now. My story and legacy is incomplete without his mention.
I got married at 22 and remained in an abusive marriage for 10 years. I made up my mind that that was never going to happen to me again. I made a brave step to walk out in a society when you didn't walk out of an abusive marriage. It was mental and p...
