Bridging the digital gender divide to stimulate growth in African digital economies

This project focuses on the Digital Rights theme and specifically, on "the use of digital technology to enhance participation and access for women and minority groups". It seeks to achieve, but is not limited to, Sustainable Development Goals 5 (gender equality and empowering all women and girls) and 8 (sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth). The project addresses the digital gender divide in Africa, which is highest globally (International Telecommunication Union, 2016) and in particular, African women's continued under-representation that threatens to further economically dis-empower and entrench their gender-inequality. Cultivating female digital talent and enterprise will potentially address skills supply and demand gaps, increase productivity and innovation, and help firms to tailor their tech offerings to meet women's needs (UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, 2017).
Likewise, Small and Medium sized Businesses/SMBs-the growth engine of African economies-often lack the knowhow and capacity to effectively unlock digital opportunities. Specifically, SMBs struggle to provide accessible and appropriate digital solutions to a largely underserved African female market (Intel Corporation, 2013). Intermediaries e.g. innovation hubs and digital skills initiatives are attempting to bridge the gap through digital skills and entrepreneurship support, but are equally resource constrained. The formation of cross-sector partnerships therefore becomes critical between academia and digital ecosystem stakeholders if digital opportunities for women are to be leveraged.
The project team includes a PI Onyas, Co-I Dawa, Co-I Acheampong, Consultants Ball and Giugni and Partner Bar-Shany who will lead in the formation of a Network including 5 partners in Uganda and 6 in Ghana, of which 5 are part of Ball's network.
The project will catalyse cross-sector collaborations and co-create solutions for bridging the digital gender divide in Africa. It will involve consultations with partners and digital ecosystem stakeholders and the co-creation of market-led solutions to drive women's inclusion and impact; and address women's digital participation and investment/ market gaps. The project will further seek to strengthen the digital support ecosystems in Uganda and Ghana, and enhance knowledge exchange with UK academic institutions, businesses, investors and digital industry experts.
Guided by systems thinking, this project will catalyse cross-sectoral collaborations to stimulate digital growth in Uganda and Ghana, which represent two rapidly emerging digital economies in Africa. Consultations with partners and diverse stakeholders will therefore become pertinent in the cultivation of synergies to drive system-wide growth across the African digital sectors.
We propose to bridge the digital gender divide by harnessing opportunities and synergies between: women and the digital ecosystem, SMBs and innovation hubs, SMBs and digital skills initiatives, digital skills initiatives and innovation hubs, and impact investors and policymakers.
To realise the economic and social sustainable development of local capacity and solutions, we plan to collaboratively identify local/international investment and finance opportunities and recommend inclusive measures to enhance female digital entrepreneurship and access to capital.
We also propose to develop partnerships and knowledge exchange between African and UK digital actors, aimed at scaling African SMBs, enabling female entrepreneurs to access capital, and UK firms to access localised solutions in Africa (Digital Economy Report 2019).
The 8-month networking phase will involve 4 work packages: 1. Partner/stakeholder consultations. 2. Co-creation workshops in Uganda and Ghana. 3. University-hosted co-development and implementation workshops in Uganda, Ghana and Leicester. 4. Network building entailing Uganda-Ghana knowledge exchange visits and a livestreamed event in London.

Project beneficiaries
This project will directly benefit 5 user categories in Uganda and Ghana including: 1. The project partners: Hive Colab, Women in Technology Uganda, SEPSEL, Jim Roberts and Simply Group (in Uganda) and hapaSpace, iSpace, Unlocking Women and Technology, Women in Tech Africa, MeltWater Entrepreneurial School of Technology and African Science Academy Ghana (in Ghana). 2. Digital support ecosystems i.e. digital skills initiatives innovation hubs, policy makers and impact investors. 3. Small and Medium sized Businesses (SMBs) in Uganda and Ghana. 4. Female entrepreneurs in Uganda and Ghana. 5. Makerere University Business School and University of Ghana in partnership with the University of Leicester. Secondary beneficiaries will include UK, Africa and international stakeholders livestreaming at the WP4 network building event.
Strategies for delivering impact
This project will deliver impact in three ways: 1. Creating a platform for consultations with beneficiaries (partners and digital ecosystem stakeholders) and co-creating solutions to address their digital gender divide concerns. 2. Network building and knowledge exchange across participating countries and with the UK, Africa and beyond. 3. Engagement with beneficiaries to ultimately co-develop and implement the full project proposal.
We have built a strong project team of academics, consultants and a partner possessing crucial expertise to deliver the intended impact and extensive experience in: leading research and delivering high impact programmes influencing policy in Uganda, Ghana and Africa; and building UK-Africa partnerships. Specifically, Bar-Shany will engage impact investors and monitor impact to ensure the delivery of relevant and scalable impact; and Giugni provide guidelines on gender mainstreaming for the project team and in the review of project outputs.
Creating a platform for consultations and co-creating solutions
The Network partners will critically facilitate access to stakeholders who will be snowballed into the Network potentially as Stage 2 partners and have committed to publicise project events and disseminate project outputs locally. Grounded on consultations with Network partners, the co-creation workshops will generate market-led solutions that will potentially benefit users, enabling female entrepreneurs, SMBs and digital support ecosystems to respectively access: investment, digital skills and resources; knowhow and capacity building to meet women's digital market needs; and SMB and impact investor support targeting female digital entrepreneurship. The workshops will counteract the insufficiency of information and market insights to respectively guide the formulation of appropriate/inclusive digital policies and create impact investment opportunities in African digital markets.
Network building and knowledge exchange
The project will create opportunities for knowledge exchange by connecting diverse stakeholders within and across the Uganda, Ghana and UK digital ecosystems. The Network will ultimately include academia, businesses and digital ecosystem stakeholders in Uganda, Ghana and UK. Livestreaming the event will widen participation to include stakeholders in Uganda, Ghana and the rest of Africa. To foster public engagement, two blogs written following the co-creation and network building event will be publicly shared. Collaborative engagement with diverse beneficiaries is central to our knowledge exchange process, laying the foundation for our engagement with beneficiaries in co-developing the Stage 2 proposal.
Engagement with beneficiaries to co-develop and implement the full project proposal
All WPs will culminate in the development of a full (Stage 2) proposal. The consultations, co-creation workshops, co-development and implementation workshops, and network building activities will collectively feed into the development of a robust full proposal.