Highlights of the 1992 Africa Prize

Click on the links below to see full text of the speeches.

The Africa Prize for Leadership annually honors an African man or woman who has exhibited exceptional leadership in bringing about the sustainable end of hunger at a national, regional or continent-wide level.

On July 9, 1992, The Hunger Project announced the laureates of the 1992 Africa Prize for Leadership at a global satellite broadcast live from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and from the United Nations in New York. The announcement was presided over by the president of Ethiopia and by the heads of the Organization of African Unity and the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

The 1992 Africa Prize honored two distinguished leaders who have produced significant achievements in education and health in Africa: Mrs. Graça Simbine Machel, president of the National Organization of Children of Mozambique, and Dr. Ebrahim M. Samba from The Gambia, director of the Onchocerciasis (river blindness) Control Programme (OCP).

The Africa Prize award ceremony was held by The Hunger Project in Rome on December 4, 1992. It was attended by 450 people, including 41 ministers of health and education, diplomats, officials from the World Bank and UN agencies and a delegation of 87 Hunger Project supporters from around the world. Idriss Jazairy, then president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), presided at the event and Prof. Chester A. Crocker, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for African Affairs and chair of The Hunger Project's international prize jury, presented the awards.

At the event, Hunger Project President Joan Holmes emphasized the importance of leadership from the grassroots and particularly from women: 

"People who have not thought of themselves as leaders now must see themselves as leaders. In this group, we must include the youthful as well as the venerable, the disenfranchised as well as the mighty. We have a special obligation to women. Not only must we hold ourselves accountable for recognizing the extraordinary contributions that women make, but we also must empower women to make those contributions as leaders of ending hunger."

The award ceremony was scheduled to coincide with the first International Conference on Nutrition, at which The Hunger Project was represented by Ambassador Fitigu Tadesse, Director of The Hunger Project's Africa Division, and by Renata Beguin, president of The Hunger Project-Switzerland.