Aoua Kéita, a French Sudanese midwife and trade unionist, and Jeanne Martin Cissé, a Guinean teacher, led a series of meetings to generate discussion on Pan-Africanism throughout Africa in 1961.
Women from Dahomey (now Benin) Egypt, Liberia, Morocco, Niger, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Togo, and Tunisia, met to plan an organizational conference to be held in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika( now Tanzania) on the last day of July.
[5] The organization names its founders as Putuse Apollos (1930–1986, Namibia),[6][7] Phoebe Asiyo (1932, Kenya), Nima Ba (1927–2021, Guinea), Fatoumata Agnès Diaroumeye Bembelo (Niger), Fathia Bettahar[6] (1936–2021, Algeria),[8] Angie Brooks (1928–2007, Liberia), Jeanne Martin Cissé (1926–2017, Guinea), Fatou Toure Conde (1929, Guinea), Jeanne Gervais (1922–2012, Ivory Coast), Radhia Haddad (1922–2003, Tunisia), Jeannette Haïdara (1924–2008), Yodit (Judith) Imru[6] (1931[9]–2007, Ethiopia), Betty Kaunda (1928–2012, Zambia), Aoua Keita (1912–1980, Mali), Margaret Wambui Kenyatta (1928–2017, Kenya), Pumla Ellen Ngozwana Kisosonkole[6] (1911–1997,[10] South Africa/Uganda), Muthoni Likimani[6] (born 1925,[11] Kenya), Bibi Titi Mohammed (1926–2000, Tanzania), Joyce Mpanga[6] (1934–2023, Uganda),[12] Rebecca Mulira[6] (1920–2002, Uganda),[13] Ruth Neto (Angola), Fathia Nkrumah (1932–2007,[14] Egypt/Ghana), Maria Nyerere (1930, Tanzania), Aïssata Sow-Coulibaly (1920–1971, Mali), Adelaide Tambo (1929–2007, South Africa), Jacqueline Tapsoba (Burkina Faso), Aïssata Berthe Traore (1927–2005, Mali), and Marguerite Adjoavi Thompson Trénou (1921–2008, Togo).
[6] The initial goals of the organization were to create a platform where women could become politically active in the African nationalist movements and oppose colonialism and racist policies in their fight for equality,[15] in the socio-economic and cultural development of their nations.
[20] At the 6th Congress of PAWO, held in March 1986, Bettahar stepped down when Ruth Neto was elected as general secretary and the organizational headquarters moved to Luanda, Angola.
[27] With the independence of countries in the continent and the end of the Cold War and Apartheid, the focus of PAWO shifted toward peace activism and the human rights of women and girls.