Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis

Former Prime Minister of Haiti & President

Fokal

In September 2008, Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis became Prime Minister of Haiti. While Prime Minister, Pierre-Louis also served as Minister of Justice and Public Security. Upon leaving office in November 2009, Michèle resumed her activities at the foundation she created in 1995 under the name Fondation Connaissance et Liberté – FOKAL (www.fokal.org). She is now FOKAL’s President, coordinating special projects in Sustainable Development, Higher Education, and National Heritage with an emphasis on human rights and gender justice. Michèle is also a professor at Université Quisqueya, Haiti.

In 2010, President Zapatero of Spain nominated her as a member of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, based in Spain (www.icdp.org). In 2014, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon nominated her as a member of a High Level Panel on a Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries. In 2017, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres nominated her as a member of the High Level Advisory Board on Mediation. 

Michèle is a member and administrator of a Review “Chemins Critiques” in which she wrote several articles along with other Haitian and Caribbean writers, on politics, gender issues, economics, arts, and culture. She has also contributed to several books and reviews.

Michèle has received several awards and distinctions in her career. She holds a “Doctorate Honoris Causa” in Humanities from Saint Michael College, Vermont, in 2004. From September through December 2010, she was a Resident Fellow at Harvard University Kennedy School of Government/Institute of Politics. In December 2014, she received a second “Doctorate Honoris Causa” from the University of San Francisco, California.

In November 2020, as a member of the Council of Women World Leaders (CWWWL), Michèle received the Women Political Leaders (WPL) Trailblazer Award at the Reykjavik Global Forum - Women Leaders 2020. In February 2021, she was elected Board Chair of Le Centre d’Art. In March 2021, Michèle was among Apolitical’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy. The list celebrates people working on gender policy and making the world more equitable, whether they exert their influence through policymaking, public service, research, philanthropy, advocacy, or activism. She was very recently asked to join the International Board of the Global Commission on Drug Policy.