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Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, Ghana’s longest serving First Lady and founder of the transformative 31st December Women’s Movement, died at Ridge Hospital in Accra on October 23, 2025, aged 76 after a brief illness. Ghana has lost one of its most influential advocates for women’s economic empowerment with the passing of former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings. She served as First Lady from 1979 and again from 1982 to 2001 during the administrations of her late husband, President Jerry John Rawlings. The Government of Ghana confirmed her death through a statement by Minister Felix Kwakye Ofosu, describing her as a formidable woman whose vision and leadership significantly advanced the status of women and children in Ghana. According to family head Oheneba Akwasi Abeyie, Nana Konadu felt unwell on the morning of October 23 and was rushed to Ridge Hospital where she later passed away. President John Dramani Mahama and Otumfuo Osei Tutu II were officially informed of her passing. Her most enduring legacy remains the 31st December Women’s Movement (DWM), which she founded in 1982 during Ghana’s economically turbulent period marked by high inflation and unemployment. The organization grew into a powerful grassroots mobilization force that empowered women at the base of the economic pyramid. The DWM provided micro loans, vocational training and support for cottage industries spanning vegetable cultivation, cloth weaving, batik making, gari processing and other small enterprises. These initiatives created stable incomes for rural and peri urban women who previously lacked access to formal financial systems. At its peak, the movement established more than 870 daycare centres and schools across Ghana, enabling working women to undertake full time economic activity without child care constraints. Some centres operated from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm, far exceeding regular school hours. The DWM also championed legal reforms, playing an instrumental role in the passage of the Intestate Succession Law during the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) era. This legislation ensured Ghanaian women gained inheritance rights and control over personal assets, enhancing their creditworthiness and ability to sustain businesses long term. Nana Konadu told Asaase Radio in a 2020 interview that her work focused on making women “self sufficient and self reliant” so their children would not suffer. She described her mission as ensuring women could take their rightful place in Ghana’s development. The movement, which at one point claimed membership of two million women, also addressed literacy, health education, nutrition, immunization and electoral participation. Through Ghana’s efforts under Nana Konadu’s leadership, the country became the first nation to approve the United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child in 1991. In 2014, the organization changed its name to the Development Women’s Movement to decouple from partisan politics and focus on mobilization and empowerment. Nana Konadu made history in 2016 as the first woman to run for president in Ghana after founding the National Democratic Party (NDP).
