The women of Africa are doing big things, to say the least. As politicians, business executives, NGO leaders and policy makers, women are demonstrating that they are passionate about driving Africa’s economic and political growth. Based off of Forbes’ list, here are just several of Africa’s female prime players:

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

President Republic of Liberia

In 2005, Johnson Sirleaf made history when she was elected as the first female president of Liberia and all of Africa.The highlight of her time in office has been reducing Liberia’s national debt, which stood at approximately $4.9 billion in 2006. Her administration successfully negotiated for debt relief from international creditors, and in June 2010, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund waived off Liberia’s $4.9 billion foreign debt. Johnson-Sirleaf has limited excess borrowing by restricting annual borrowing to 3 percent of GDP and by limiting expenditure of borrowed funds to only one-off infrastructure projects.

(Wall Street Journal) — While the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake is causing many companies to worry about the electronics supply chain, a different pall is hovering over a rare, blue-gray metal that is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The substance is tantalum, an ingredient in components that are a mainstay of devices like smartphones, digital tablets and personal computers. And recently big technology companies like Intel Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co., which either use tantalum directly or buy semiconductors made with it, have started a push to find sources without links to war-torn regions of Africa.  A new U.S. law requires publicly traded companies to ensure key minerals in their products aren’t coming from the Congo’s rebel-controlled mines. A civil war in the Congo, the world’s third-largest producer of tantalum, ended in 2003, but violence in the eastern part of the country continues.

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