Mambou Aimée Gnali

Mambou Aimée Gnali (born 18 October 1935) is a Congolese former politician. In 1963 she became one of the first group of women elected to the National Assembly. She subsequently served as Minister of Culture and the Arts from January 1999 to August 2002.

Biography A member of the Vili ethnic group, Gnali was born in Brazzaville in October 1935. Her family moved to Nkayi when her father was transferred to the city. After two years of schooling in Pointe-Noire, she started attending the Sisters of Saint-Joseph de Cluny boarding school in Brazzaville. In 1947, she transferred to the Jeanne d'Arc high school in Orléans in France. However, she was expelled and returned to Congo in 1952, completing her education at the Savorgnan de Brazza school and becoming the first girl in French Equatorial Africa to earn a baccalaureate. she returned to Congo in September 1963 and began teaching at a high school in Pointe-Noire. However, having become a member of the National Movement of the Revolution (MNR), she was a candidate for the party in the December 1963 parliamentary elections. With no opposition contesting the elections, she was elected to the National Assembly from the Pointe-Noire constituency, becoming one of the first group of three women to enter parliament.

After being rejected for a teaching post at a school in Brazzaville in 1965, she moved to the United States to continue her education, completing courses at Lawrence University, Saint Louis University and Columbia University. After returning to Congo in 1967, she was appointed Director General of the Department of Education in 1968, holding the post until the following year. She also taught at the École normale supérieure in Brazzaville until joining UNESCO in 1971. She oversaw education projects in several African countries, living in Paris until 1978 and then Dakar until 1991. She subsequently joined the Party pour l'Alternance Democratique, becoming its secretary general.