Elizabeth Cote

2007 was a pivotal year for Guinea and the work of Elizabeth Côté. When she arrived in Conakry six years earlier, the country’s civil society was disorganized and divided, incapable of making their needs known at the national level. IFES responded with a program based on dialogue and citizens’ empowerment through civic education about their rights and responsibilities in a democracy.

“We quickly saw the population was thirsty for information and wanted to understand all aspects of citizenship,” she said.

Côté acquired her expertise in civil society in Africa and at home in Canada, where she worked as teacher and publisher, writing extensively about environmental and women’s issues. She later led IFES’ elections program in Côte d’Ivoire and worked with a nongovernmental organization in Mali addressing child malnutrition and women’s rights.

More than 40 percent of Guinea’s population is under the age of 15.

These experiences prepared her to organize one of IFES’ first civil society oriented activities in Guinea; a national dialogue that attracted more than 1,000 people, including representatives from labor unions, political parties, nongovernmental organizations and the private sector. IFES also led a nationwide civic education campaign that became so popular that the interior minister summoned Côté to stop it.

“Once you mention to villagers they have the right if not the responsibility to look into the local finances and that state officials are accountable to them that, of course, is not what these administrators had in mind,” she said.

The campaign resumed three days later and Guinean citizens have since created a strong and united civil society that occupies a place of choice alongside the government, the political class and the international community. The question now is whether they can transform Guinea from a one-party state mentality into a truly representative government.