An African legacy for the world

Kenya's Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai has died in Nairobi while undergoing cancer treatment. She was 71 years old.

She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for promoting conservation, women's rights and transparent government - the first African woman to get the award.

She was elected as an MP in 2002 and served as a minister in the Kenyan government for a time.

Wangari’s unique insight was that the lives of Kenyans - and, by extension, of people in many other developing countries - would be made better if economic and social progress went hand in hand with environmental protection.

One of the legacies she has left the planet is the Green Belt Movement that reaches across the globe.

But what made the movement more remarkable was that it was also conceived as a source of employment in rural areas, and a way to give new skills to women who regularly came second to men in terms of power, education, nutrition and much else.

Linda Bordoni spoke to Francesca De Gasperis, director of the Europe Office of the Green Belt Movement, which Wangari Maathai founded in 1977.

listen to the interview...