Augusta Sena Gabianu

August Akua Sena Gabianu was a Ghanaian born philanthropist.

Augusta Sena Gabianu
Born	August 28, 1940 Kpando-Agebenoxoe, Ghana
💀Died	November 14, 2015 Accra, GhanaNovember 14, 2015
🏳️ Nationality	Ghanaian
Other names	Augusta Dye-Sharp
💼 Occupation	Philanthropist, Economist, Activist

Early Life

Augusta was born to Clemence Kofi Gabianu and Agnes Amba Apoh-Gabianu on August 28, 1940. Augusta’s mother was a trader and her father a teacher-catechist. They were both from Kpando-Agbenoxoe in the Volta region of Ghana. She was the sixth of their eight children.

Augusta Sena was baptized into the Catholic faith in 1940 and confirmed in 1949 at Kpando Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. She attended Kpando Roman Catholic School and went on to Holy Child Secondary School in Cape Coast, Ghana. In 1962, she traveled to Germany to pursue her studies at the University of Westphalia in Münster, Germany where she earned a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Sociology. Miss Gabianu then trained as a development worker at the Ministry of Economic Cooperation in Bonn. In 1968, she married Mr. John Dye-Sharp and moved to London, United Kingdom where her first daughter was born.

Both of Augusta Sena’s parents died while she was away in Germany. In 1969, Augusta Sena returned to Ghana where she was welcomed with celebration for being the first female graduate of Kpando-Agbenoxoe.

Career

Augusta Sena joined the Civil Service where she remained for the next 25 years. Throughout her time she held several leadership positions that built her career and reputation as a seasoned technocrat and administrator. She took up a position with the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development, where she served as an Officer in charge of Women’s Work in Koforidua. After 5 years in that capacity, she was assigned to the Scholarships Secretariat in Accra as Deputy Registrar and charged with the responsibility of interviewing, selecting and counseling student candidates for scholarships to study in Eastern Europe, China and Germany. Her six-year tenure at the Scholarship Secretariat proved memorable and invaluable as numerous successful scholarship candidates and recipients credited her with identifying their potential and launching their professional careers. While at Scholarships Secretariat, Augusta Sena earned a Diploma in Public Administration from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).

In 1980, Augusta Sena was repositioned to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture where she served as acting Principal Secretary (now referred to as Chief Director) until 1985, a period in Ghana’s history marked by economic destabilization and socio-political upheaval.

Augusta Sena managed to earn a Certificate in Senior Management from GIMPA in 1984 and in the same year, was selected as a Hubert Humphrey Fellow to pursue training designed for mid-career level officials in Public Management at the University of Maryland, USA. Upon her return from the USA in 1985, Augusta Sena worked at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, where she assumed several positions over a span of seven years: first as Coordinator of the Central Projects Monitoring Unit (CPMU) for the World Bank-financed Economic Recovery and Structural Adjustment Programme, then as Director of the Structural Adjustment Programme Secretariat (SAPSEC) and then as Secretary to the Program of Actions to Mitigate the Social Cost of Adjustment (PAMSCAD) Committee. In 1988, Augusta Sena returned to the USA to complete a course in Program Management at the (then named) Arthur D. Little Management Education Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1992, Augusta Sena was recruited to work at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., which prompted an early retirement from the Ghana Civil Service (by which time she had been promoted to Permanent Secretary). Along with the early retirement came an official name change (after her divorce) from Mrs. Augusta Sena Dye-Sharp to Ms. Augusta Sena Gabianu. At the World Bank, Augusta Sena worked on the restructuring of the Women in Development (Gender) Unit in Washington, D.C., and on the establishment of the Centre for Policy Analysis in Accra, Ghana. She relocated to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1993, where she served as the World Bank Liaison to the then Organisation for African Unity (now the African Union) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). She worked closely with the UNECA’s Centre for Gender Development to map out Africa’s participation in the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China, in 1995. She attended the Conference on loan from the World Bank and she served as an Adviser to the Secretary-General of the Beijing Conference, Dr. Gertrude Mongella. Augusta Sena continued to work closely with the UNECA on subsequent conferences, including Beijing+5, until her retirement from the World Bank in 1999. Soon after her return to Ghana in 1999, Augusta Sena worked as an adviser on Professor Stephen Addai’s change management team at GIMPA and served as a Programs Facilitator for the Institute’s Distance Learning Center, until 2002. Augusta Sena had rekindled her love for academics and so she also accepted a Visiting Lecturer position at GIMPA to teach a Senior Women in Management course. As an expert on development, socio-economics, and gender issues, she was sought after and consulted on diverse projects with GTZ, UNDP, UNFPA, UNIFEM, and the Centre for Social Policy Studies at the University of Ghana, among others. She was also a Lead Consultant on the Engendering the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy funded by NEPAD in 2002. Augusta Sena was also an active and respected figure in civil society. She served on the boards of several NGOs, namely:

Youth & Social Enterprise Fund (Y-SEF)

Enhancing Opportunity for Women in Development (ENOWID) Foundation

Aid to Artisans Ghana (ATAG)

African Security Dialogue and Research (ASDR)

Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD)

Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO)

Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII)

In order to have the chance of lifelong care for the poor, the vulnerable, and the needy, Augusta Sena chose to belong only to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, as a Catholic. Her qualities of goodwill and philanthropy are worth mentioning and were demonstrated by the number of underprivileged youth that she brought into her home (a tradition she began in the early 1970s). For 15 years, she hosted a much anticipated and well-patronized annual Christmas party in her cherished and lush garden at her home, which she fondly named Lalibela Cottage after a town in Ethiopia. The party’s guests of honor were the wards of Hopeland (a home run by the Catholic Action for Street Children), the Junior Girls’ Correctional Institute, Klagon Children’s Home, and the war veterans from the Legion Veterans Village. It would interest you to know that one of the street children that she took full care and responsibility for has now graduated with a Chemistry degree from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and is preparing for a postgraduate degree. Augusta Sena’s heart of gold will always be remembered. Augusta Sena also had a love for nature and flowers. She tended to her large garden with a contagious passion. It was impossible to visit her at Lalibela Cottage without getting a tour of the garden and hearing about the latest flower in bloom. Augusta Sena Gabianu loved Kpando-Agbenoxoe. Its development – both human and structural – became a lifelong pursuit. She actively raised funds and sought other resources needed to establish a community center. In September 2015, she traveled to Kpando-Agbenoxoe with a team of German engineering professors and students, with whom she had been working for two years before her passing, to firm up the plans of building an eco-friendly structure by which we stand today.

Death

On November 13, she suddenly took ill and was rushed to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra. Augusta Sena went to be with the Lord in the early hours of November 14, 2015.

Surviving Family She was affectionately known as Mama, Grandma, Nnenanor, Delanor, Agu, Augeh, Sister Augusta, Tante Augusta, Auntie Augusta, Auntie Sena, The People’s Mother, and many more. She is survived by her daughters Nnena and Deladem, her grandchildren Maya, Edem, and Dylan, her sister Cate as well as an extended (biological and non-biological) family that spans the globe.

References

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