Podcast: A Woman Attorney General for the Bangsamoro

An interview with Attorney General Sha Elijah Dumama-Alba

Over the past two decades, the UN Security Council has adopted a series of resolutions calling for the inclusion of women in peacemaking and security efforts. Not all Asian governments are actively pursuing this agenda, but this week we meet Sha Elijah Dumama-Alba, the young, energetic, and female attorney general of the BARMM, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, in the Southern Philippines. As her homeland emerges from five decades of conflict and violence, she’s building bridges between the old guard and the new and working to create a durable peace. Of her success so far, she observes, “With women around, there seems to be a looming obligation to get things done.”

Sha Elijah Dumama-Alba was an Asia Foundation Development Fellow early in her career, in 2015, where she says she honed the leadership skills that have helped her succeed in a notoriously challenging environment. Her work in Mindanao’s Cotobato City and her story of growing up in a conflict zone will be the subject of a short film presentation on Thursday, September 24, when The Asia Foundation hosts the online event Leaders on the Frontlines. Please join us then as we travel to the Bangsamoro to hear more of Sha Elijah’s story.