Digital entrepreneurship is emerging as a lifeline for African women facing rising unemployment, inequality and funding barriers.
Africa’s timeline to achieve economic gender parity has been pushed back by an estimated 50 years, according to a new report by Boston Consulting Group, which warned that worsening economic conditions and persistent funding barriers are slowing progress for women across the continent.
The report, titled Financing Women's Digital Entrepreneurship: A Pathway to Closing Africa's Economic Gender Gap, found that women’s economic participation in Africa has fallen 0.6 percentage points below 2022 levels, extending the region’s projected path to economic parity from 120 years to around 170 years.
The study drew on BCG’s Africa Women’s Voices Survey 2025, which surveyed approximately 3,000 women and men across South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Morocco and Egypt.
According to the report, Africa’s post pandemic recovery has been slow and uneven, with GDP per capita growth averaging just 1.2% annually between 2021 and 2024, compared with the global average of 2.5%.
