BANGKOK: Tanzania’s Jihan Dimack has become the first woman from an African country to win Miss Grand International, taking the crown in Bangkok on Saturday night at the end of a competition that had to be moved from India just five weeks before the final.
Dimack, 30, beat a field of about 80 contestants at the MGI Hall at Bravo BKK to become the 14th Miss Grand International. She was crowned by outgoing titleholder Emma Tiglao of the Philippines, whose country had been chasing a third straight win.
Ecuador’s Shyare Andrade finished first runner-up, followed by Beau Megan Goos of the Netherlands, Ximena Carrillo of Guatemala and Emoura Phạm of Vietnam.
The result is the best Tanzania has ever achieved at the pageant. Before Saturday, the country’s strongest showing was Beatrice Alex Akyoo’s fifth runner-up finish in 2025, and four of its previous five representatives left without a placement.
A crown built on a hard road
Dimack’s path to the crown began far from the stage. She is Tanzanian-Lebanese and grew up moving between Beira, Nampula and Maputo in Mozambique, and then Lebanon, before her family settled in Tanzania.
She is one of five children raised by a single mother, and she has said the constant moves made it difficult to stay in any one school system.
“I had to start working at a very young age,” she told PhilSTAR Life in a profile published after her win. She began working at 17 to help support the family, and she has also worked in China.
She is no newcomer to pageantry. She was second runner-up at Miss Tanzania in 2014 and represented the country at Miss Universe 2016. Ten years later, she won Miss Grand Tanzania in August representing Mwanza, which earned her the ticket to Bangkok.
“I just want to be a voice to young girls or any women out there,” she said of her advocacy, which centres on peace, unity, diversity and tolerance.
The answers that won the judges
In an earlier question round, Dimack was asked how she would address inequality in society. Her answer turned on love and equal rights.
“I believe love is the strongest weapon that we have,” she said. “Regardless of what religion you come from, regardless where you come from, we all have equal rights.”
In the final question for the top five, she was asked what qualities an empowered woman should possess. She named a kind heart, and pointed to her mother as the example. “Thank you, mom, for inspiring me to be that woman,” she said.
After the crowning, she posted Isaiah 60:1 on social media: “Arise, shine, for your light has come.” She added: “Thank you, God. For your glory.”
A nation that voted her through
Dimack’s run was powered by a public voting campaign that turned into a national cause back home. Fan votes count at Miss Grand International: the winner of its Country’s Power of the Year contest earns an automatic place in the top 20.
Tanzania reached the final three of that contest alongside Ecuador and Vietnam, after leading an earlier four-country round with 32 per cent of the vote, according to Tanzania Insight. Ecuador eventually took the award.
Gerson Msigwa, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Culture, Arts and Sports and Chief Government Spokesperson, urged Tanzanians to keep voting and framed the campaign as a matter of national dignity. Bongo Flava star Diamond Platnumz and singer Nandy pushed the voting appeal to their large online followings.
Her national costume also caught attention. It brought together lions, elephants, zebras and giraffes with the Serengeti, Mount Kilimanjaro, Maasai beadwork, Zanzibar’s historic architecture and tanzanite.
The Miss Grand Tanzania organisation was also honoured on the night with the Golden Grand Award, given to the national franchise.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan congratulated Dimack in a message reported by Tanzania’s Global Publishers.
“I sincerely congratulate you, my child Jihan Dimack, for flying Tanzania’s flag with distinction and winning the Miss Grand International 2026 crown,” she said, in a translation from Kiswahili by The African Chronicle. “This victory is a source of pride for our nation and an example of the ability of Tanzanians to achieve great success when we unite and work together.”
“It is also an inspiration for young people, especially girls, to be confident, to dare, and to stand by their dreams and talents,” the President said.
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What the win means for Africa
Africa has a strong record at the older global pageants. Angola’s Leila Lopes won Miss Universe in 2011, and South Africa’s Zozibini Tunzi won it in 2019. Nigeria’s Agbani Darego became the first Black African woman to win Miss World in 2001.
Miss Grand International, founded in Thailand in 2013, had never crowned a woman representing an African country until Saturday. Ghanaian-born Abena Appiah won in 2020, but she competed for the United States.
Dimack was not the only African to make an impression. Côte d’Ivoire’s Marlène Kany Kouassi reached the final 11 and won Best in Swimsuit, while Nigeria’s Uzogheli Ifeoma made the top 25.
The message of unity Dimack carried also lands at a sensitive time at home. Tanzania is still recovering from the deadly unrest that followed its October 2025 general election, and the President’s call for Tanzanians to “unite and work together” echoed the theme of her campaign.
A pageant moved weeks before the final
This year’s edition nearly took place somewhere else entirely. Miss Grand International was meant to hold its first South Asian edition in New Delhi, with the coronation on the same 10 October date.
On 3 September, the organisation pulled the competition from India and returned it to Thailand. It cited India’s “failure to fulfill the contractual commitments and standards” agreed by both parties, including “five-star hospitality and production standards” for contestants’ “safety, comfort, and overall experience.”
“Unfortunately, despite discussions and efforts to address the situation, the agreed contractual standards have not been met,” the organisation said at the time.
The pageant, run by the listed Miss Grand International Public Company Limited under founder Nawat Itsaragrisil, has seen its share of turbulence. India’s Rachel Gupta, crowned in 2024, gave up the title the following year, and it passed to the Philippines’ CJ Opiaza.
Nawat himself drew global criticism in November 2025, when, as Miss Universe Thailand’s national director, he clashed with Mexico’s Fátima Bosch at a Miss Universe event in Bangkok, prompting a walkout by contestants. He apologised and was removed from that edition. Bosch went on to win Miss Universe.
What comes next
As Miss Grand International, Dimack will spend the next year as the face of the organisation’s peace and humanitarian campaigns, carried under its long-running “Stop the War and Violence” platform.
For a woman who started working as a teenager to help keep her family afloat, the crown also brings a global platform for the message she says matters most: that girls and women can find a way forward, whatever they have been through.
