Dakar, Senegal — Conversations about women’s leadership usually stop at women. The 2026 Amujae High-Level Leadership Forum did something most forums on women’s leadership rarely do: it put men in the hot seat. Moderated by Jessica Annor, Head of the Youth, Gender, and Women’s Empowerment Unit at AUDA-NEPAD, the panel brought together four men whose work and personal lives sit at the center of that question:

• General Meissa Niang, Grand Chancellor of the National Order of the Lion and former High Commander of the National Gendarmerie, Republic of Senegal
• Dr. Christopher Fomunyoh, Senior Associate for Africa and Special Advisor to the President, National Democratic Institute
• Mr. J. Victor Muyakane, journalist and news anchor, formerly of BBC Africa and KBC
• Colonel Issa Diack, Human Resources Branch Chief, General Staff of the High Commander of the National Gendarmerie, Republic of Senegal

The conversation moved between policy, institutional reform, and something rarer for a forum stage: candid testimony from men about what it costs, and what it requires, to genuinely support the women in their lives and institutions.

Dr. Christopher Fomunyoh was first to intervene. Asked about the “why” behind his decades of work supporting women’s political leadership, he traced his journey back to Senegal in the early 2000s — a country he now holds up as an exemplary case study, but one that didn’t start from an easy place. At the time, conversations with male political counterparts about nominating women were met with excuses. So a different approach was tried: a direct pact. If male party leaders would nominate women candidates, Fomunyoh’s team would train them. Senegal, he noted, had male leaders willing to take that deal. A group publicly signed a memorandum committing to nominate at least 30% women candidates for local elections — years before any legal parity requirement existed. The women who ran were trained, a significant share won their seats, and the resulting momentum helped build the case for what came next: Senegal’s landmark 2010 parity law. Today, Senegal counts more than 47% women in its National Assembly.

Fomunyoh distilled his approach into two working principles for allyship: first, raising awareness among male counterparts and building the arguments to counter the excuses and false narratives that stall progress; and second, intentionality — actively pushing other male allies, building alliances, and tapping into existing associations that create linkages across sectors.

On his part, General Meissa Niang traced the integration of women into Senegal’s armed forces to a specific ingredient: political will. He described the creation of an inclusive platform bringing together different officers to examine the challenges that could arise from integrating women into the military — and a deliberate effort to study other countries, including Mali, Gabon, and Tunisia, to learn from their experiences before Senegal moved forward. That process led to legal reform: a review and harmonization of military law to formally account for women’s presence, including changes to ranking structures and language. Niang also pointed to a decree modifying the general organization of national defense to permit the recruitment of women from all backgrounds — changes that required, in turn, a broader overhaul of military budgeting to include infrastructure built for women. He expressed hope that a dedicated gender office within the military will eventually formalize this work and ensure servicewomen are fully supported.

When Jessica Annor asked J. Victor Muyakane what allyship means to him personally, given his own marriage to a woman navigating a demanding public role, his answer was disarmingly simple: ask. The most useful thing he can do, he said, is ask his wife what she needs and how he can help, rather than imposing his own view of what support should look like or arriving to “save the day.” Muyakane spoke candidly about the added layer of his role as a partner to a woman with a disability, in a political environment he described as often predatory. The instinct to shield her from that world is real, he said — but the harder, more useful discipline is learning to sit back, support her endeavors, and work alongside her rather than in front of her.

Colonel Issa Diack expanded on the role men can play both at home and inside institutions by drawing on his own military career. He described it as ensuring women have full opportunity to compete alongside men, pointing to a recent female leadership training program designed to build the capacity and resources women need to advance within the military academy. He also named a specific form of exclusion he works to prevent: withholding hazardous missions from women simply because of their gender. Diack described a deliberate shift in his own approach — from individual mentorship to building broader mentorship structures — and a commitment to defending women in institutional spaces where that defense is needed.

In a second round of questions, the panel turned from institutional change to the personal work allyship demands.

Asked what advice he gives women navigating male allyship, Fomunyoh urged strategic thinking over convenience: women should be deliberate and calculated about who they cultivate as allies, treating the effort with the same rigor as passing legislation — doing the homework, crafting the strategy, and identifying exactly who is needed to build an effective partnership.

Asked why more men don’t support women, General Niang pushed back gently on the premise. Senegalese men, he argued, are not afraid of women — the country has had a woman prime minister and women in other senior roles, reflecting a broadly positive social perception of women’s leadership. What’s needed, in his view, is less a change in fear and more a sustained political will, the same ingredient that drove reform inside the military under his own leadership.

Muyakane offered the most direct answer on what building a collective of male allies actually requires: honest conversations, and enough men willing to be uncomfortable. He called for men to actively regulate bias and check insults directed at women by other men — and to start earlier than politics altogether, by socializing children differently from the beginning, teaching them to unlearn bias so they show up differently as adults. Getting women into rooms isn’t enough, he said; the environment inside those rooms has to change too, so that women aren’t “walking into bloodbaths.”

Asked what kind of support he provides given the pressures women in public life face, Colonel Diack’s answer centered on a simple practice: back your partner’s decisions, even the hard ones, without trying to make them for her.

Closing the session, Former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf thanked the panelists directly, noting how unusual it was to have men in such specialized, high-level roles take part in a conversation of this kind at all. She credited them for being open about the measures they’ve taken, the views they hold, and the policies they’ve championed to uplift women — a rare and welcome presence, she said, in spaces that don’t often make room for it.