Country of Birth

Zanzibar

Industry

Politics

Top Achievements

Samia Suluhu Hassan is the first female President of Tanzania and considered one of the most powerful and influential women in the world.

Early Life and Education

Samia Suluhu Hassan was born on January 27, 1960, in Zanzibar, which formally merged with mainland Tanzania four years after her birth. Her father was a school teacher and her mother a stay-at-home mom. After finishing her high school education in 1977, Hassan was employed by the Ministry of Planning and Development as a clerk. She spent the next three decades working in various positions within the Zanzibar government while furthering her studies, including a Diploma in Public Administration from the Institute of Development Management (present-day Mzumbe University), a Postgraduate Diploma in Economics from the University of Manchester, and an MSc in Community Economic Development via a joint program between the Open University of Tanzania and the Southern New Hampshire University.

Early Career

By 1988, Hassan was a development officer with the regional Zanzibar government. She was also employed as a project manager for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) and as executive director of an umbrella body governing non-governmental organizations in Zanzibar.

Her political career began in 2000 when she was nominated by the Chama Cha Mapinduzi party (CCM) to a special seat in Zanzibar’s House of Representatives as Minister for Youth Employment, Women and Children. Hassan was the only high-ranking woman minister in the cabinet. She was re-elected in 2005 as Minister for Tourism and Trade Investment.

Achievements in Her Field

In 2010, Hassan was elected to the National Assembly on mainland Tanzania as Minister of State for Union Affairs, a position that she held until 2015 when presidential candidate John Magufuli chose her as his running mate for the elections taking place in October of that year. They won the election, and Hassan became the first female Vice-President in the history of Tanzania.

In 2020, both Magufuli and Hassan were re-elected for a second five-year term. When Magufuli died in March 2021, Hassan was sworn in as Tanzania’s first female President and the only female head of government in the African continent at the time. She is expected to run for presidency again when her current term ends, in 2025.

Recognition

In 2022, Time magazine included Hassan among the top 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2023 Forbes ranked her number 93 on its list of the most powerful women in the world.

She is the first woman ever to receive an honorary doctorate from the Jawaharlal Nehru University of India, for her efforts in bolstering economic ties between the two countries. She has also been awarded doctorates from the University of Dar es Salaam, for her work in gender equality and governance, and from the State University of Zanzibar, in recognition of her commitment to tourism development.

Additional Facts

• Hassan is sometimes known as Mama Samia.
• At age 18 she married agriculturalist Hafidh Ameir, and they have three sons and one daughter, Wanu, who went on to become a member of the Zanzibar House of Representatives.