Introduction:

In this article, I want to share my view on female leadership development in rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. I have experienced this first hand through my work with the Hope Development Initiative in Northern Uganda. Therefore, my perspective is highly infused with my practical experience from 15 years of work in the communities, as well as from my being a woman from a rural Sub-Saharan-African community. (...) I want to specifically emphasize the importance of good leadership and leadership development in the process of social and economic empowerment of women in rural communities.

I will do this by first offering my personal view on leadership, which I have developed throughout the years of my work. To put this and the following topics into context, I will then briefly illustrate my own leadership journey. To me, the feminine qualities of the women of our communities strongly correspond to my view of leadership, which is why I will then emphasize my view of women’s natural capability for leadership. My work has shown that some very important relations in this topic are those between leadership development and economic as well as social empowerment. I will therefore draw on my experience to explain how much impact the efforts in those empowerments can have if they are supported by leadership development. Additionally, I will outline how one must pay respect to both these elements when attempting to empower women as leaders in their communities. I will close with some final remarks on how all these aspects can contribute to truly sustainable change in the community and in the lives of people if they are thought through and executed in conjuncture.