On Monday, Liberia inaugurated a new president and the nation’s first female vice president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf ended her presidency the way she began it—shattering precedent. The first woman to be elected president of an African nation has become the first Liberian president in 44 years to yield political power to a freely elected successor.

The Romanian parliament has approved Viorica Dancila as the country's first female premier. She steps into the post as the government is passing laws critics say could hinder the fight against corruption.

“The merciful heart of the revolution,” a title given by late President Gamal Abdel Nasser to Hikmat Abu Zaid, the first Egyptian woman to be named a minister when she was appointed as the Minister of Social Affairs in 1962.

Fifty-six years later, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail appointed two new female ministers in the cabinet reshuffle, Rania al-Mashat as Minister of Tourism, and Enas Abdel Dayem as Minister of Culture.

Hundreds of thousands of women marched on the streets in response to Donald Trump’s election in 2017. A year after his inauguration, women marched again. This time though, they’re also taking their fight to the ballot box.

Lebanon is campaigning to get at least five times more women elected to Parliament this spring in its first vote in nearly 10 years, the country’s first women’s affairs minister says. It is a daunting task for a Middle Eastern country that may otherwise look like one of the most liberal in the region.

The Federation of Women Lawyers has accused President Uhuru Kenyatta of treating women as ‘second class citizens’ after he failed to name any of them in his first batch of nine members of the Cabinet.

Fida said that in retaining only six men in his Cabinet, and naming three more as new entrants, he had failed to acknowledge the contribution women had made to the nation in the Cabinet.