Fixing the Gender Divide in Africa’s Tech Sector

Women currently make up less than one-third of the tech workforce in Africa and are up to 52 percent less likely to have internet access in the least developed countries. We are entering a Fourth Industrial Revolution in which almost all businesses and services are relying on technology for growth. Having access to and an understanding of technology is essential to keeping up in today’s society, and closing the digital gender divide could open crucial paths to promote women’s well-being while offering economic prosperity in some of the world’s most underdeveloped nations.

Women experience disproportionate adverse effects from poverty, including having higher rates of food insecurity, lower rates of education access, and facing the realities of maternal mortality, just to name a few. Providing internet access to women across the African continent could help foster solutions to target these inequalities and promote women’s well-being.

Take women’s access to healthcare, for example. A 2023 World Health Organization Report found that 69 percent of global maternal deaths in 2020 occurred in Africa and that access to essential medicines was below 50 percent in all but two African countries. Telemedicine offers a promising solution to help address this problem. Telemedicine can provide prenatal care instructions as well as screenings, especially for high-risk pregnancies in areas where clinical access is limited. These services could help reduce maternal mortality rates and avoid premature labor, and already have; one telemedicine program, MomConnect, has transcended healthcare barriers in rural areas in South Africa to deliver prenatal services to over five million mothers via text message in six languages.

Furthermore, technological solutions have helped increase sanitation rates and access to clean water, which in turn promotes women’s health, reduces the time that must be spent collecting water so that women can use that time for other purposes, such as education, and allows for healthy practices during menstruation. The African Development Bank rolled out a sanitation project to deploy technology to build water supply and sanitation systems in 14 rural areas. This resulted in roughly 10,000 girls having access to clean water and sanitation facilities, promoting their educational goals and overall well-being.

Closing the digital gender divide also offers extensive economic benefits. A study of 32 low and lower- and middle-level income countries (LLMICs), a majority of which were African, estimates that these countries have lost out on one trillion dollars as a result of the exclusion of women from the digital world. Additionally, they found that closing this gap would deliver an estimated $524 billion increase in GDP by 2025. Not only does this increase spending power, but it also drives up tax revenues that can be turned around to invest in further technological infrastructure or in other areas of social well-being. Especially given the negative economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, closing this divide poses an opportunity for massive economic growth on the African continent.

The need for increased technological infrastructure to achieve these goals provides another avenue for economic growth. Not only would the jobs created to build such infrastructure provide stable employment in many countries, but a 2022 World Bank report found that 87 percent of African business leaders identified digital skills development as a high priority for further investment and that nearly 65 percent of job openings required computer skills.

Africa has the fastest-growing population across the globe, offering a trove of untapped potential for economic and social development. Employing technological solutions and increasing connectivity to close the digital divide will be crucial to harnessing these benefits. Including more women in the tech sector and the digital world is the most direct path forward.

Kenya, known as Africa’s “Silicon Savannah,” has begun this process with its Konza Technopolis diversity initiatives to tap the female talent pool. Over 300 women have joined this program and its benefits are already being seen in successful female-led start-ups in the agricultural sector, fintech, and beyond. Rolling out similar programs across the continent will help to establish the role of women in the tech sector and to close the digital gender divide.

As we embark on a future with unlimited possibilities for development, it would be impossible to fully reap the benefits that technology has to offer if we leave behind half of the world’s population. As Funke Opeke, a female Nigerian tech pioneer who built the first private submarine cable to connect Europe and West Africa, said, “there is so much opportunity, there is so much need here that we need to transform our society when you look around us. No one will do it for us.”