The past 12 months have seen a series of notable successes for African women – with two Nobel Peace prizes, a second president and the first female head of the African Union Commission. For the BBC’s Africa Debate programme, Malawian women’s rights campaigner Jessie Kabwila asks if Africa’s women are on the rise.

It is easy to believe that women are on the rise in Africa, especially when one considers that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the president of Liberia and Joyce Banda that of Malawi. From July 2012, South Africa’s Nkosazana Dhlamini-Zuma took over the leadership of the African Union. Indeed, the list of women occupying spaces of power is growing.

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