Nigerian, Motunrayo Coker has been awarded as the winner of the For Women In Science 2021 Prize by the Fondation L’Oréal and UNESCO during the official ceremony in Kigali, Rwanda.
The prize aims to promote women scientists in Africa in order to strengthen their visibility and representativeness in the science sector. Each year 20 Young Talent doctoral and post-doctoral students are rewarded for their research subject and its impact on society as well as the African continent.
The Fondation L’Oréal and UNESCO are revealing today the laureates of the 12th edition of the For Women in Science Young Talents Awards for Sub-Saharan Africa. This program rewards every year twenty young African women scientists
for the excellence of their research. For the 2021 edition, the 15 PhD students and 5 postdoctoral students awardees come from 17 countries and embody, through their backgrounds and research topics, all the diversity and potential of African science for today and tomorrow.
The Jury of the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Sub-Saharan Africa Young Talents Awards 2021, chaired by Pr Aggrey Ambali, Director of Technical Cooperation and Program Financing at the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), selected these 20 Young Talents among nearly 440 applications. For the first time since the inception of the Awards, young talents from Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) and Gabon were present in the final list of awardees.
Once again, the Young Talents from this year testify to the fact that African women scientists
are a critical asset for the development of the continent. Driven by their commitment, they stand out for their excellence in their respective fields: from chemistry to virology, biology, neurology, and nuclear physics. Through their research, they make an important contribution to improving the living conditions of millions of people throughout Africa and the world.
During the Young Talents Awards ceremony held in Kigali, Rwanda, on November 25th, they were awarded in front of a high-level audience from all over Africa, including representatives of the scientific world and public authorities, intellectuals, opinion leaders, and organizations promoting gender equality.
These women scientists also have in common an exemplary determination that the obstacles
they encounter cannot affect. Some of these difficulties are inherent in the world of scientific
research in sub-Saharan Africa.
“Today more than ever, the world needs science, and science needs women, and this is
especially true for Sub-Saharan Africa. Why should we deprive ourselves of such talents, when
science and innovation are indispensable growth levers for the continent?”, declares
Alexandra Palt, Executive Vice-President of the Fondation L’Oréal.
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