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Victoire Tomegah Dogbé
Togo's first woman prime minister — and, as it turned out, its last prime minister of any kind.
The rise
Born on 23 December 1959 in Lomé, she took a master's in economics and management at the University of Benin in Lomé in 1982 and trained in marketing in Aarhus. She spent nine years with the UN Development Programme in Togo, Congo-Brazzaville, Burkina Faso and Benin before entering the Togolese government in 2008.
What they did
Appointed on 28 September 2020, she was the first woman to head a Togolese government. Her earlier ministry of grassroots development had built the base for Novissi, the mobile cash-transfer scheme that reached informal workers within weeks of the 2020 lockdown and became West Africa's reference case for digital social protection. She left office on 3 May 2025.
The full picture
She served the Gnassingbé family's long rule and stayed through the constitutional change of 2024–2025 that opposition and civil-society groups read as a way to extend Faure Gnassingbé's hold on power. It abolished her own post on 3 May 2025 and made him President of the Council of Ministers. She holds no office since.
Why it matters
She ran a government's whole economic and social programme in a region where women are still handed symbolic ministries, and Novissi showed cash could reach informal workers in days rather than seasons.
“I am convinced that if Africa wins the fight against poverty, it will be the beginning of a victory over violent extremism and terrorism.”