Estimated at 24%, the World Bank notes that African women have the highest entrepreneurial activity globally and are more likely to start a business than their counterparts in other parts of the world. However, their success and potential remain impeded by a wide range of barriers such as access to capacity building and support, finance and business networks that permit them to scale up their innovations and businesses. In light of this, the African Women in Digital Health (AWiDH) held a webinar entitled “The Women Shaping Africa’s Digital Health Revolution” that convened leading women entrepreneurs advancing digital health solutions across the continent for an in-depth discussion on these barriers, suggesting possible solutions and emphasise the critical role of stakeholder collaboration within the digital healthcare ecosystem in closing persistent resource and policy gaps impeding women entrepreneurs across the continent.

The discussion was moderated by Dr. Stephanie Watson-Grant, Program Deputy Director, Country Health Information and Data Use (CHISU), with welcoming remarks by Cyril Seck, Strategy and Policy Advisor, Africa CDC and speakers who are at the forefront of digital health innovation, Olutola Vivian Awosiku, Head of Operations, Digital Health Africa; Nuriat Nambogo, CEO, MobiCare and Snider Mugese, Incubation and Finance Lead, Villgro Africa joined the conversation.

In his opening remarks, Cyril Seck noted that Africa CDC realized the need for more women within Africa’s digital health space after only having one female participant out of 26 individuals during workshop engagements for the development of the Africa CDC Digital Transformation agenda.

“We’ve launched AWiDH because we saw a very significant gap in representation. This lack of female representation made it clear that there was an urgent need to create platforms and opportunities to amplify the voices and contributions of African women in digital health,” he said.

He added that with women making up a significant number of Africa’s health workforce, they need to be part of the thinking and creation of solutions to Africa’s various health challenges.  

However, Nuriat Nambogo highlighted that women entrepreneurs are still not reaching their potential in creating these solutions due to systems and cultural biases.  

“There is much discrimination when it comes to women entrepreneurs especially society’s expectations vis a vis what you are doing in terms of chasing your career, as a businessperson or even as an entrepreneur. Most women are expected to perform family roles and it is hard to balance these challenging roles without a system that can support you build a thriving business,” she said.

Snider Mugese reiterated Nuriat Nambogo’s sentiment on cultural role biases and added that systems are not inclusive and continually treat women who are already burdened with family roles on the same level as men who do not have the same responsibilities. 

“We have a system that treats these innovators the same way they would men who do not have the same competing needs. Additionally, whenever I walk into investment committees, it is usually myself and one other female which shows you the space is not as inclusive as it should be. This speaks to systems not being favorable to women who are pitching or looking for opportunities,” she said.

In putting forward solutions to equalize these systems to realize women’s innovation potential across the continent, Olutola Vivian proposed a change in the outlook of gender equality from a women’s issue to a general issue that includes the participation and commitment of everyone including men.  

“There is a good chance that our male colleagues already care about gender equality, but they don’t know how to get involved because they feel that they don’t have a legitimate place in the conversation as it has been framed as a women’s issue. So, men’s advocacy in gender equality is essential, because we cannot accomplish gender equality without support from half of the of the population,” she said.

Nuriat Nambogo added that women should also actively seek mentorship from men as opposed to sticking to the norm of women supporting women within Africa’s digital health space.

“When you are in this tech space, you need mentorship from everyone you see can bring value to you – whether man or woman. That way, we can encourage men to also advocate for gender equality, otherwise if they are left behind, there is no way they can advocate for us,When you are in this tech space, you need mentorship from everyone you see can bring value to you – whether man or woman. That way, we can encourage men to also advocate for gender equality, otherwise if they are left behind, there is no way they can advocate for us,” she said.

In closing, Dr. Stephanie Watson-Grant noted the need to be more deliberate in including women in the articulation of gender-related aspects of public policy across funding and access to STEM education in addition to stressing the need for mentorship being vital to women entrepreneurs. 

“Mentorship is a very key part of the journey that women entrepreneurs are on within the continent and the digital health space,Mentorship is a very key part of the journey that women entrepreneurs are on within the continent and the digital health space,” she said.