Olubanke King-Akerele, or ’Banke as she is generally known, is a Liberian and former Minister of Foreign Affairs as well as former Minister of Commerce and Industry of the Government of Liberia, over the period 2006 -2010. She studied at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and graduated with BA in Economics from Brandeis University in the U.S.A; an MA degree in Manpower Economics from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts and another MA degree in Economics of Education from Columbia University in the U.S.A. She completed one year at the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law, University of Liberia.

    Prior to her period of public service, she was engaged for some 24 years (1982 – March 2006) in international development at senior levels with the United Nations System, notably, UNIFEM (today’s UN Women), UNDP, UNIDO, and UNESCO. She served as United Nations Resident Coordinator, representing the UN Secretary General for development activities in the field

and Resident Representative of the United Nations

December 2024

Development Programmes in Mauritius and Seychelles as well as in Zambia, having earlier served as UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Senegal. She also served as Managing Director for UNIDO’s regional programmes (Africa; Asia and Pacific; Latin America and the Caribbean; the CIS; Eastern Europe and the Middle East). At that time, she was the most senior African at UNIDO-the United Nations Industrial Development Organization; and was the AU’s candidate (a woman for the first time) for the post of Director General of UNIDO, though not successful, the details of that experience has been captured in the article in the Codesria Bulletin of 1998.

• Before joining the United Nations in 1982, she worked as a technical staff at the Liberia’s then Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs (MPEA) under the late Secretary Cyril Bright and subsequently late Secretary D. Franklin Neal, both of whom were her professional mentors. During that period, she was seconded for 5 years (1975 – 1980) to the National Social Security and Welfare Corporation (NASSCORP) as Deputy Director General and Counterpart to the ILO Advisor A.N. Ambo as they cleared the prerequisites that laid the foundations for today’s NASSCORP, and its actual launch in Feb. 1980 with the implementation of the Employment Injury Scheme, by the late Hon. Richard Morris, Director General.

• Retired from Government public service in November 2010, she is currently Chair of the Board of the Angie Brooks International Center for Women’s Empowerment, Leadership Development, International Peace & Security (ABIC), as well as Executive Director of the Liberian Institute for “Growing” Patriotism (LIGP) – an Action-driven Development Initiative, – her Brainchild.
• The institute’s Vision is to be a premier “action-driven” development initiative for the “Growing” (i.e. development and promotion) of patriotism amongst Liberians. It seeks to develop a sense of pride in the Liberian nation and contribute to the process of nation-building through the consolidation of citizenship and infusing/educating citizenry on what it means to be a Liberian and a patriot.
• It has, amongst others, produced educational and Patriotic Board Games and established its flagship product, the Judge Emma Shannon Walser medal for Rule of Law, Good Governance and Patriotism to honor Liberians Posthumously and Living for their work at all levels of society, in the interest of ‘’mama’’ Liberia.
• She is passionate about the “Growing” (development and promotion) of a new generation of African Leadership, noteworthy through which, the Joint UNDP-UNESCO initiative at UNESCO’s Regional Bureau for Africa (in Dakar, Senegal), entitled The Foundation of Africa’s Future Leadership, the “Growing” of Liberia’s Future Entrepreneurs; (Ministry of Commerce and Industry); and the “Development” Diplomats Training Programme at the Foreign Service Institute, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, all of which were conceptualized and operationalized under her leadership.
• The Dag Hammarskjöld Living Memorial in Zambia in honor of the late UN Secretary General who died there (then Northern Rhodesia) in his struggle for peace in DRC as well as the Kofi Annan Living Memorial (KALM) at the Kofi Annan Institute for Conflict Transformation (KAICT) University of Liberia are all part of the effort at development of a new generation of Africa’s leadership.
• A prolific writer, her publications include Women’s Leadership in Post Conflict Liberia: My Journey with Foreword by former Director General of UNIDO, Dr. Kande Yumkella; another that she co-authored with Kojo Boafo Asiedu, Accelerating Africa’s Integration through Micro-regionalism: the case of the Zambia-Malawi-Mozambique Growth Triangle (ZMM-GT) and its Impact, with Foreword by the late President of the African Development Bank (ADB), Wila D. Mung’omba and The “Growing” of Africa’s Emergent Leadership, launched in February 2014 in Lusaka, Zambia, with a Foreword by Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, First President of Zambia.

• That book has since been transformed into a bilingual educational development Board Game. First released at Alliance Française in Accra, Ghana in November 2016 by former Undersecretary General of the United Nations, Mary Chinery-Hesse; with subsequent releases in Swahili in Nairobi, Kenya in August 2017; in French at the African Development Bank in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire in November 2017 and in Washington DC, U.S.A. in June 2017. The transformation of the book into a Bilingual (English and French) Educational Development Board Game was undertaken in concert with Paulette Mpouma, a Cameroonian Game Developer and Refugee, based in the U.S.A., and her company, Africa Memory Games, Inc.

• Amongst other publications are:

 Women in Development series “Women in Development” under the auspices of Africa Training and Research Centre for Women (ATRCW) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA),