Halimatou Hima MPP 2014 is passionate about improving education for children, in particular those who have experienced conflict. For her ability to create positive change, including with multilateral groups such as the U.N. Security Council and by shaping the global agenda on education in crisis settings, the vlog Alumni Board selected her to receive the 2023 Emerging Global Leader Award.
Hima learned the value of education from her family, especially her great-grandmother. “One lesson from her that I carry with me everywhere I go, is to search for ilimi,” she says. Hima notes that ilimi means “knowledge” in Hausa, the most widely spoken language in West Africa. But her great-grandmother added a key element to the concept: “She explained it to me as the harmonious combination of knowledge, humility, and purpose.”
This sense of purpose led Hima to become, at age 15, the first president of the Youth Parliament of her home country of Niger. She says it was a challenging experience. “We faced threats from some of the voices that didn’t really agree with some of the work that we did,” she says. “Yet as we engaged with communities, it became very clear to me that we have to be able to create unlikely alliances [among] people who might not necessarily sit together. And even people who may initially appear hostile need to be part of the discussion if we are to really create meaningful discourse.”
Her ability to negotiate among people with diverse viewpoints was essential when she served as an expert counselor at the United Nations in 2020–2021, during Niger’s tenure as a member of the Security Council. Amid the global pandemic, Hima successfully shepherded Resolution 2601 through the Security Council—the first-ever U.N. resolution to assert the right of children to education during armed conflict. Ninety-nine nations cosponsored the resolution—a number surpassed only by the 130 nations that cosponsored a 2014 resolution on the Ebola outbreak.
“At its core, this resolution states what should be self-evident—that in arm