What's been happening on the Womanomics Africa™ Virtual Campus in August

We recently celebrated our third month of connecting women entrepreneurs on the African continent with information, insights and capacity building opportunities on the Womanomics Africa™ Virtual Campus - a 24/7 virtual reality environment that is geared towards our mandate of facilitating intra-Africa trade and dialogue by harnessing the power and possibilities of technology.

August, which also marked Women's Month in South Africa, was a particularly busy month on Campus as we hosted several important events and discussions that impact women on the African continent.

Womanomics Africa ™ Entrepreneur Guide to the AfCFTA Series Launch (12 August 2021)

In August we launched the Womanomics Africa ™ Entrepreneur Guide to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), a 12-part series focused on the AfCFTA that came into effect in January 2021 resulting in a 54 country Free Trade Zone. True to our mission to connect women in business to opportunities, insights and ecosystem partners, the series enables women to listen and engage with policy-makers, trade facilitators, civil society players and other entrepreneurs as we unpack the AfCFTA and what it all means for the woman entrepreneur.

Generation Equality Action Coalition on Economic Justice and Rights: Driving and Advancing Economic Justice and Rights for Gender Equality (17 August 2021)

The Generation Equality Action Coalition on Economic Justice and Rights together with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) held a dialogue on “pushing the pedal for economic power-endorsing the transformative agenda of the generational change for the economic justice and rights for women and youth in South Africa”. The dialogue was aimed at galvanising commitments from multi-sectoral stakeholders such as governments, civil society, private sector, entrepreneurs, trade unions, artists, academia, gender activists and social media influencers to make measurable commitments to advance economic justice for women, girls and youth in accordance with the Global Acceleration Plan on Generation Equality.

International Women's Forum of South Africa (IWFSA) Young Leadership Connect Leadership Summit (19 August 2021)

The focus of the joint leadership summit was on developing the next generation of leaders and achieving gender equality. The summit was held in partnership with Young Leadership Connect, an IWFSA initiative, ABSIP Women in Focus and Generation Equality.

UNISA SAWID UN WOMEN Dialogue (19 August 2021)

The theme of the dialogue was "Towards Peace and Gender Equality: Collective Legacies and Co-Creative Solutions of African Women", and it took place at a time of major disruption and systems breakdown, while the youth of Africa, who make up more than 60% of Africa’s population, are demanding that their voices and solutions be included in the many resolutions, frameworks and implementation plans for addressing emerging challenges. The event was held in honour of Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, whose term as Executive Director of UN Women, and UN Under-Secretary-General ended in August. If you missed it watch the event here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GzycitzsRY

PBICT STEAMIE Annual Women Indaba (23 August 2021)

The PBICT STEAMIE Annual Women Indaba tackles issues affecting women and aims to empower women through knowledge and skills development that would eventually benefit them commercially directly or indirectly. This year's indaba the focus was on mental wellness and the impact of the Covid pandemic. The Progressive Blacks in Information and Communication Technology's (PBICT) purpose is to mobilise black ICT professionals, SMMEs and Youth for access and ownership. Science Technology Engineering Arts Maths Innovation Entrepreneurship (STEAMIE) is the organisation's flagship programme.

Write to Speak Book Launch (28 August 2021)

We hosted the second instalment of the The Women's Writes Network'd 'Write to Speak' book launch. The book is a collection of stories told by women from 23 African nations about their individual journeys along some of life's toughest terrains.

The contributing authors for Write to Speak are delightfully multi-generational providing thought provoking perspectives. The curator and editor of this essential collection, Ambassador Nosipho January-Bardill, clearly deliberately sought unique perspectives and the outcome achieves exactly what it declares - defining the next chapter of women's rights.

The launch included an A List of feminist activists and gamechangers such as Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Mrs Scholastica Kimaryo, Fatou Wurie, Ria Ledwaba to name a few!

Click here to watch the book launch our YouTube Channel .

Feminist Action and Climate Justice Workshop (31 August 2021)

The Feminist Action for Climate Justice Coalition in South Africa hosted a workshop aimed at discussing the critical topic of gender and climate change. The objective of the workshop was to unpack the 2020 report by the African Climate Reality Project, South African Institute of International Affairs and South Durban Community Environmental Alliance - A Gendered Lens: Mainstreaming Gender into South Africa’s Climate Change Response. It also sought to identify what South Africa could do at every level to take gender into account while mitigating climate change.

Executive Reflections: September 2021

These days it’s hard to have a business conversation, even a personal one, without referencing technology and how it’s either enabling or disrupting our lives. Digital technology solutions are increasingly immersing us all into a reality of virtual engagement.

As early as 2012, when the seeds of what is now Womanomics Africa were germinating it was evident that technology would play a significant role in driving and catalysing women’s participation in the “Africa Rising” narrative. Many of our discussions were centred around how to effectively leverage technology to facilitate connections and make practical the ideal of a unified, harmonised, commercial Africa.

The progress made in successfully ratifying and activating the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) also directs an undeniable focus on leveraging (inclusive) technology to realising integrated value chains and scaling up the movement of goods and people

Notably multinational organisations have optimised technology to strengthen their local and global networks streamlining supply chains, communication and logistics.

The reality, however, is that while technology adoption is moving along at a record rate, less developed and developing countries are lagging. The significant disruptions made visible where local and global value chains were impacted as a consequence of the Covid-19 highlighted the reality and impact of the "digital divide" on the continent.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), about 40% of the world's population has no access to the internet. Most of them live in Africa. And while sub-Saharan Africa is the fastest-growing region in terms of internet connectivity, with a compound annual growth rate of 4.6%, 900 million Africans are still not connected to the internet, and nearly 300 million live further than 50km from a fibre or cable broadband connection.

With a mission to connect an already compromised demographic, women, we have kept abreast of the implications of the gender digital divide (GDD) which reflects inequalities in digital connection due to gender. According to researched statistics:

• Fewer women are connected to the internet or own mobile phones, compared to men. As reported in the 2020 GSMA Mobile Gender Gap Report, Sub-Saharan Africa has the second widest digital gap gender next to South Asia, and progress remains relatively unchanged.

• Only 27% of women in Africa have access to the internet and only 15% of them can afford to use it. That means women are much less likely to benefit from digital services. As cited by USAID, mobile and internet access and use follow broader social patterns that echo the deep social and cultural exclusion of women; that is, women and girls in all their diversity are disadvantaged in their access and use of technology because of underlying social conditions.

We have had our own fair share of experiences that corroborate the findings above and lessons learnt over the last few months having launched our version of an enabling technology solution in the form of the Womanomics Africa Virtual Campus. Our Campus represents the first step in a journey to curate a metaverse for the primary purpose of supporting, promoting and accelerating women’s meaningful economic participation with a particular focus on intra-Africa trade.

We are proud that UN Women Southern Africa came on board as one of the initial partners, with the Campus being the official platform to host Generation Equality Forum activations in East and Southern Africa. As we worked together to curate content and ensure that activations (in the form of events and experiences) were accessed widely across a broad spectrum of stakeholders, we debunked the notion that women are not ready to leverage cutting edge technology, leading the use of gaming technology for interaction and relationship building. We also obtained insights as to why women still remain on the digital transformation periphery highlighting the following 3 key challenges:

• Availability of relevant support infrastructure, specifically adequate network coverage to ensure a stable connection.

• Access to affordable devices and data.

• Adequate skills and confidence (and the patience to acquire these) to use the platform.
  

In today’s interconnected world and as Covid-19 increases countries’ reliance on digital services, economies will struggle to develop and grow if GDD challenges are not addressed. Nationally and continentally, it will require some bold moves and commitments to achieve this.

As active members of the Technology and innovation for Gender Equality Action Coalition under Generation Equality, we are playing our role in accelerating change by 2026, changing the status quo and look forward to continuing our journey of collaboration successfully achieving a gender-diverse digital reset.

We have activated a great platform, that has already demonstrated it's potential to leapfrog women’s economic participation across the continent. To fully optimise its use and value relies on continued collaboration, resources and commitment across the entire technology value chain. We've taken this bold and invite you to journey with us to support the development new networks and benchmarks to transform innovation ecosystems. Join us on the Campus!

SARMAD LONE: Pandemic offers golden opportunity for intra-African trade

This article was first published on BusinessLIVE on 27 July 2021.

The economic uncertainty in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic places a heavy burden on economists to formulate effective recovery and resilience strategies — the more so in Sub-Saharan Africa. According to the World Bank’s recent biannual Pulse report, the pandemic has exacted a heavy toll on economic activity in the region, putting a decade of hard-won economic progress at risk. Depending on the success of measures taken to mitigate the pandemic’s effects, it is estimated that economic activity will shrink by between -2.1% and -5.1% in 2020 from growth of 2.4% in 2019.

The dip could be attributable to an approximate 6.9% contraction in African economies, which are heavily reliant on exports of commodities — whose prices are dropping. This could claw back some of the major strides Africa has made in its participation in trade and value chains, as well as result in a reduction of foreign financing inflows.

Africa’s international trade has surged in the past two decades. According to a recent Unctad report, in the period 2015-2017, total trade from Africa to the rest of the world averaged $760bn at current prices. Similarly, the share of exports from Africa to the rest of the world represented 80%-90% of the continent’s total trade transactions between 2000 and 2017.

"AfCFTA is key to intra-African trade but the road remains bumpy, for now. Its litmus test will be how quickly members can fast-track export diversification and product sophistication. Domestic policymakers will need to demonstrate their commitment to industrialisation and manufacturing."

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