Bassata Djiré (1932-2024) was born in Bamako. In 1958, she was one of five African attendees at the conference of the International Democratic Federation of Women in Vienna, where she and other attendees developed the idea for the creation of the Union of West African Women, which held its first conference in Bamako in 1959. From there she was an active member in the creation of the Pan-African Women’s Union (panafricaine des femmes), which preceded other pan-African institutions on the continent. In the 1970s, she was a member of the state-affiliated National Union of Malian Women (Union Nationale des Femmes du Mali). In her professional life, Djiré was a teacher and director of the National Program for Women’s Literacy within the Ministry of Education. In 1985 she was honored at the UN Conference on Women for her work promoting efficient cookstoves (foyers ameliorés) as a dual solution to women’s labor commitments (to collect firewood) and desertification, in the wake of two serious droughts in the Sahel.