Tech sector urged to hand African women the reins of power

Women in Africa have always played a crucial role in the domestic economy. Few historical images are more evocative than the pioneering Togolese female entrepreneurs, draped in colourful dresses, driving their Mercedes Benz cars through the street of Lomé.

These legendary women – known as the Nana Benz – mostly made their fortune between 1940 and 1980, originally selling fabric in market squares and later scaling up to import Dutch wax textile across West Africa. Some of these businesswomen generated millions of CFA Francs per month, becoming some of the nation’s first female business success stories.

And yet despite the success of the Nana Benz, women today continue to face barriers to business success, even in new and emerging sectors. Data reveal a significant gap in female representation within the tech sector.

According to a report by the International Telecommunication Union, women make up only 20-30% of the information and communications technology (ICT) workforce in Africa, and their presence in leadership roles is even lower. Yet the disruptive nature of the technology means there are opportunities like never before for women before to break through, establish lucrative enterprises and succeed on their own terms.

Discrimination persists

Despite the African tech sector’s image as a more progressive outpost of the business community, numerous barriers remain to achieving the full participation of women.

Gender discrimination comes in many forms for today’s working women. It includes challenges to financing, owning and growing a business, as well as legal and policy obstacles when developing a business.

Most African women still earn less than men and are more likely to be trapped in low-paid, low-skilled jobs, often in the informal economy, according to the International Labour Organization.

“We haven’t solved the problems of misogyny in the workplace, teachers actively dissuading girls going into the sciences. We’re definitely better than 10 to 15 years ago, but there’s a very long way to go in fixing the perceptions of women in the tech space,” says Ethel Cofie, CEO and founder of EDEL Technology Consulting and founder of Women in Tech Africa.

Angela Mirembe Semwogerere is a member of Uganda’s national taskforce on emerging technologies, general manager of ICT service company Spidd Africa and founder of Coding in Heels, an initiative focused on empowering women and young girls in technology by offering mentorship and coding training.

She says women in the tech space still habitually face condescension and discrimination. “People undermine me. First of all, I’m 5 foot 2 [1.57 metre tall] and I may not necessarily look very seasoned in terms of age; you’re in meetings with men who are 6 foot 5 and they want to show that they’ve been down this road forever.

“You walk into a room and people are just thinking that maybe you’re the tea girl. They’re asking you, ‘oh, do you know where the tea is?’ And you’re like, ‘No, I’m one of the speakers.’”

Governments must act

The role of women remains constrained by traditions, as reflected by the experiences of women who aspire to senior leadership roles. In 2019 McKinsey & Company found that 25% of board members in African companies were women. It is clear there is much work to be done for women to be accepted as leadership candidates.

Fara Ashiru Jituboh, co-founder of Okra, a fintech firm, says that it is essential for large organisations and governments to place women into leadership roles to encourage a ‘trickle down’ effect throughout the business ecosystem. “As a female founder, a lot of times you might not have the same level of access to funding, to mentors, to investors. I think one way to fix that generally across the board is to have more women in leadership positions and on boards and at investment funds, in government positions. I think that that will continue to trickle down,” says Jituboh.

The World Economic Forum says that female entrepreneurs are still under-earning compared with their male counterparts. For Cofie, it’s crucial that African governments begin formulating policies – for boardroom representation and other areas – that can help women to succeed.

“The opportunity of Africa is huge and we need to be able to do the work to push that potential of Africa. Otherwise, we will end up for years saying the same things, having the same discussions and never actually getting anything done.

“Governments need to have a clear plan. This conversation around ‘Oh, we’re going to do this’, it’s very fluffy. All the presidents have said ‘we’re going to make my country the Silicon Valley of Africa’; there isn’t a clear plan, there isn’t a clear KPI [key performance indicator], it’s just fluffy talk,” she says.

Education critical

Perhaps the main deficit that governments must solve is educational. A survey from the MasterCard Foundation found that girls and boys had the same level of interest in STEM at the early stages of their education; and that girls and women are particularly interested in STEM when they understand its potential applications, especially when they see how STEM can help others. Yet the same research found that the higher in education they go, the less girls and women feel like they “belong”. Furthermore, they felt pressure to select a career path that can be combined with marriage and family responsibilities.

Semwogerere says her work with Coding in Heels has exposed the ongoing gender gap in technological education. After advertising coding classes and receiving applications only from boys, she realised that the issue was deeper than just a lack of interest in coding.

“I started being called into different conferences because people wanted a change in the narrative. How do you convince girls that this is an important topic to know, especially with the advent of AI, without you being intimidated?” she asks.

Cofie, who also works as chair of a committee that is redesigning curricula for Ghanaian technical universities, says there has to be ‘real thinking’ in government on how technology education can serve women who aspire to learn.

“How do we ensure that we have the curriculums in the country to make that happen? I suppose it’s a ying-yang thing; we’ve got to build the educational capacity. Now we’ve got to build the work capacity on the private sector side.”

Researchers posit that to reduce the gender gap in STEM education there should be more early and targeted interventions to ignite interest in girls, STEM scholarships should be introduced; online education and short courses should be launched to increase accessibility to young women; and there should be increased teacher training on gender issues.

iCog is a research and development company that focuses on AI, founded by Ethiopian computer scientist Betelhem Dessie. It collaborates with international partners to push forward artificial intelligence (AI) solutions while fostering local talent. It trains children aged six to thirteen on topics ranging from robotics and AI to programming, aiming to build the next generation of African innovators.

“It’s our responsibility as women in tech to make sure that other women are also encouraged. It always takes one person to believe in you,” says Dessie.

Tech sector must step up

While governments need to introduce policies deliberately targeted at women to repeal discrimination, force leadership changes and deliver maternity support, there is also a huge need for the technology sector itself to offer solutions.

Okra-co founder Jituboh says the fintech sector in particular must step up, not only by providing the space for women like her to flourish, but by using its substantial financial muscle to empower female entrepreneurs in other economic sectors.

“One of the biggest things with open finance banking, generally, is that it puts the power of control into the user’s hand.

“If more females can have access to more capital, for instance, they’ll be able to build more things. Having control of your financial health generally is the first step.”

Women entrepreneurs face multiple challenges accessing finance, with an estimated $42bn financing gap for African women across business value chains, including $15.6bn in agriculture alone, according to the African Development Bank.

But investing in women’s businesses by facilitating their access to funding can transform societies. Research has found that women typically reinvest up to 90% of their income in the education, health and nutrition of their family and community – compared to up to 40% by men.

Be fearless

Until such a time as governments and the tech sector step up to close the funding and educational gaps, African women entrepreneurs will be forced to fall back on the reserves of grit, perseverance and self-confidence that have served them well since the era of the Nana-Benz.

Women entrepreneurs tell African Business that above all else, it is crucial that women aim high without being limited by self-doubt.

“Perseverance is probably the biggest thing,” says Okra’s Jituboh. “You might be told ‘no’ ten times before you’ve raised $1,000,000, but what you don’t see is all the ‘no’s that come before that. Take every ‘no’ in preparation for your next ‘yes’.

“Never stop learning and never stop trying to put yourself in the same rooms [as the decision-makers], and never be afraid to actually try to reach for more. Don’t be afraid to ask for that raise, that equity, that higher salary, that position. Realise that you also have a seat at the table, and you should own that,” says Jituboh.

Semwogerere concurs. “You just have to have a lot of confidence. Keep it at the back of your mind that – yes, it’s still dominated by males – but you should have the confidence.”