International Financial Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group and a lead investor in Africa’s Talking (AT) 2018 $8.4 million series A round has denied suing its portfolio company in 2023 for rejecting an acquisition offer from Infobip. An earlier report from this publication cited a court case referenced by people familiar with the matter.

Certain aspects of their claims have now been determined to have been wrong.

IFC holds a 20% stake in Africa’s Talking and as part of the Series A deal, Wale Ayeni, who led IFC’s venture capital arm in Africa at the time of the investment, joined Africa’s Talking board. Marieme Diop has since replaced him.

“IFC does not discuss the business decisions of its clients,” the corporation told TechCabal via email.

“AT was viciously attacked by the IFC last year, continuing a pattern of abuse that started with their investment in 2018,” Gikandi told TechCabal via email. He added that the “attack” felt like a “cover-up” and claimed he was unaware of IFC’s motivation.

Gikandi did not answer any questions on the legal proceedings.

Orange Digital Ventures, a $350 million fund, and Social Capital, a $600 million fund looking to sell its stake in startups, also participated in Africa’s Talking Series A round.

Africa’s Talking is now caught up in at least two legal cases. On Monday, TechCabal reported that Africa’s Talking and Gikandi were sued by Africa’s Talking other co-founders Eston Maina Kimani and Bilha Ndirangu, and three others who allege that Gikandi pushed out Ndirangu as director after she called for an investigation into “workplace abuse.”

“The 1st Applicant (Ndirangu), who previously served as a CEO and until the irregular ouster held the position of an independent director, possesses a deep understanding of the 1st Respondent and its operations,” a court document read.

She also argued that she was fired despite a court order restraining Africa’s Talking from removing her as a director.

Three others, including Eston Maina, another co-founder and former CEO of Africa’s Talking, are also listed as petitioners. Africa’s Talking, Gikandi, and the shareholders’ trust are listed as defendants in a petition filed in a Nairobi High Court.

Samuel Gikandi, Africa’s Talking current CEO, and other shareholders, including a trust that holds unvested shares for employees, voted to remove Ndirangu as director in June 2023, according to court documents seen by TechCabal. Ndirangu, who owns a 6.33% stake in the company, was immediately replaced. 

Africa’s Talking and Samuel Gikandi did not respond to TechCabal’s request for comments.

After Ndirangu called for an independent investigation into misconduct claims at the company, she was removed to obstruct the investigation process, she told a court.

“The unlawful removal of the 1st Applicant (Bilha Ndirangu) as a director and its intended ratification has caused undue prejudice to the Applicants (Africa’s Talking, the CEO and other shareholders), and urgent intervention by this Honourable Court is necessary to prevent irreparable harm,” one court filing said.

Understanding Ndirangu’s removal

To remove Ndirangu, the company’s board needed a majority vote of the shareholders. Court documents show that a trust (AT Group ESOP Trust)that holds unvested employee shares had to vote to satisfy that requirement. Ndirangu claims that the vote cast by the trust was illegal as the trust is inactive and lacks the right to vote her out. 

Ndirangu and her fellow petitioners own 20.83% of Africa’s Talking, while Gikandi and his team own 25.25% of the company.

“If we exclude the 8th Respondent’s [AT Group ESOP Trust] invalid votes, the combined shareholding of ordinary shareholders in favor of the removal does not meet the necessary majority,” court documents said. 

“The applicants (led by Bilha) seek prompt resolution of this matter in the interest of justice, company stability, and shareholder protection,” reads a submission form to the courts, dated August 2023.

Africa’s Talking was founded in 2010 by Bilha Ndirangu, Eston Kimani and Samuel Gikandi and became profitable between 2012 and 2013, according to one report.

After bootstrapping the company for over seven years, the founders raised an $8.4 million Series A round in 2018, led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). At the time, Ndirangu was COO and was promoted to CEO the following year. However, she left the company in 2021, in what court documents show was a forced exit. Gikandi then replaced her. 

In November last year, the International Finance Corporation launched a $225 million venture capital platform to back early-stage startups in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Pakistan.

The platform will be backed by an additional $50 million from the Blended Finance Facility of the International Development Association’s Private Sector Window, which helps de-risk investments in low-income countries. Africa is earmarked to receive approximately $180 million from this VC funding initiative over a period of three years.

The development finance institution (DFI), which is a member of the World Bank, stated at the time that it would make equity and “equity-like” investments in tech startups to “grow them into scalable ventures that can attract mainstream equity and debt financing.”

The IFC is the latest DFI to dabble in venture investing in Africa. The British International Investment (BII), formerly known as the Commonwealth Development Corporation, also announced that it would deploy $500 million into startups by the end of 2026, and half of that amount has been earmarked for African tech companies. The US’ International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), in conjunction with other DFIs, also committed to investing $80 billion in African businesses over 5 years as well as the African Development Bank (AfDB), which committed to investing $618 million in more than 200 Nigerian technology and creative sector startups.

As VC funds and institutional investors slow down their check writing due to the global economic downturn, the active involvement of DFIs in African VC could not have come at a better time.

“Any LP is important, but because the DFIs have a long-term outlook, they have seen downturns before. So it is more about how to work together to manage through the downturn and sharing lessons learnt from previous downturns,” said Keet van Zyl, co-founder and partner at Knife Capital, a Cape Town-based venture capital firm.

Knife Capital received a $10 million investment from the IFC last year for its Knife III fund. IFC was an anchor LP in the investment and together with the Mineworkers Investment Company (MIC) and the SA SME Fund, were the first to commit to Knife Fund III which seeks to make late stage investment in startups.

According to van Zyl, beyond just writing the check, the IFC’s investment also helped to shape the investment agreements in a way that made it easier for other funders to come in on the same standard terms. 

“The IFC also regularly engaged with Knife to share deal flow and co-investment opportunities across the continent. The backing also reassured entrepreneurs that Knife has credible backers that could potentially follow on in future rounds due to their funding capabilities. It also gave other LPs a level of comfort to engage because of the rigorous due diligence done by an established DFI like the IFC,” added van Zyl.

A DFI’s perspective

According to the IFC, its investments in Africa’s venture capital sector are countercyclical, helping to cushion the blow struck by rising interest rates and higher inflation which is driving down valuations in the tech sector and making it much harder for entrepreneurs to raise capital. The IFC also adds that it is often one of the only international investors on African startups’ cap tables when they first invest, helping to shepherd other institutional and strategic investors into future funding rounds. 

“IFC takes an ecosystem approach to supporting VC activity in Africa, an important role we see for DFIs more broadly. By supporting the VC ecosystem growth, we can encourage other investors to finance Africa’s growing startups.  We do this by making direct investments and supporting other funds,” said William Sonneborn, global director of disruptive technologies & funds at IFC.

In keeping with its ecosystem approach to boosting VC activity, IFC launched the Startup Catalyst in 2016. The Startup Catalyst is a platform designed to invest in incubators, accelerators, and seed funds supporting innovative early-stage startups in emerging markets through mentoring, networking, and funding. To date, the program has supported 19 accelerators and seed funds (including 5 in Africa) that have invested in over 1,180 startups in 24 emerging markets.  

The IFC has also recently doubled the program with a new pool of $60 million to expand support for incubators, accelerators, and seed funds in the most nascent venture ecosystems, including startups focusing on strategically important areas such as climate innovations, gender and inclusion.

IFC claims to have a long-term commitment to Africa, and to that end has invested and mobilised over $1.3 billion in capital for the continent over the last 8 years in support of the disruptive technology and venture capital ecosystems.

“In Africa, the digital economy has the potential to contribute $712 billion to the continent’s GDP by 2050. This offers a significant opportunity to support innovation, job creation and new ways to deliver critical services,” added Sonneborn.

For the BII, Sonal Premjee, investment manager in technology and telecoms, the rationale behind backing African startups is the knowledge that tech-enabled companies, which are inherently highly scalable, have the ability to drive inclusive economic growth resulting in transformational impact.

“BII has been investing in emerging markets, including Africa, for 75 years, and continues to carry out our mandate by supporting private sector growth and innovation in Africa, South Asia and the Caribbean. Technology is a key route to achieving this objective and will continue to be a focus for BII. As such, we will maintain our pace of investment in African VC,” she told TechCabal.

Going into the future

With the VC downturn showing no signs of stopping anytime soon, the role of DFIs in supporting Africa’s VC ecosystem and consequently, its tech startup ecosystem, remain vital. According to van Zyl, going forward, the DFIs will target specific regional ecosystem expert fund managers in a co-investment and follow-on investment model, with VCs assuming the commercial lead role.

“For instance, Knife is finalising an investment in East Africa where 3 DFIs are co-investing and following Knife as lead investor. So the partnership with DFIs are very beneficial if the rules of engagement are contracted upfront as one needs to find the balance between impact and growth with a strategy to exit for outsized returns. But luckily these things go hand-in-hand as investing in high-growth disruptive African entrepreneurs by definition advances innovation, job creation and economic growth,” he added.

The IFC’s plans go beyond just supporting African VC for the long term.  The DFI also plans to leverage its partnerships with other development entities to offer assistance just beyond the capital injection.

“In addition to the investments, IFC’s advisory and upstream teams provide direct support to disruptive technology companies in areas including market access, digital financial services and regulatory support. IFC also engages with governments, regulators and other ecosystem stakeholders to support companies in the VC ecosystem to have an enabling environment to grow,” concluded Sonneborn.

For the BII, the expectation is that the available venture capital will go a long way in backing businesses who are solving pertinent socio-economic pain points on the continent.

“The underlying macroeconomy and consumption trends in Africa continue to trend positively in a long-term view. We expect this vintage to also see the creation of more sustainable businesses as entrepreneurs are building in an environment with lower funding availability. That said, African businesses with strong fundamentals/ KPIs have continued to raise capital from global institutional investors despite the downturn in funding and we expect this to continue in the course of the downturn,” added Premjee.

Before dabbling in startup venture investing, DFIs had been present in Africa for years. For example,Mo Ibrahim’s Celtel, which pioneered telecommunication on the continent, got significant DFI support and completely revolutionised telecommunications access on the continent . 

Should the success of that kind of support be replicated through their venture investing, DFIs like the IFC and BII can make a significant contribution to the growth of Africa’s technology ecosystem which would in turn support innovation, job creation and new ways to deliver critical services. 

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African countries are looking to roll out more broadband networks in 2023 as mobile and internet service providers expand their investment in undersea and land-based cables and internet services originating in space become a financially viable option for some consumers.

Broadband is a technology widely defined as one that gives users access to faster internet with a minimum of 25 Mbps in download and 3 Mbps in upload speeds.

The recent landing of a 45,000-kilometer subsea cable in South Africa by mobile network provider,MTN South Africa and its subsidiary, MTN GlobalConnect in the Western Cape Province, is just the latest major investment in internet infrastructure on the continent. It follows a recent announcement by the pan-African network operator, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, that it is expanding its network – already the largest in Africa – into Nigeria, a potentially massive market for the operator.

The 2Africa subsea cable project – one of the longest in Africa – is expected to go live in 2023. It will link African countries to Europe and the Middle East.

MTN Group Chief Executive Officer, Ralph Mupita said the project would accelerate and deepen internet adoption and meet the growing demand for high-speed internet.

“Data traffic across African markets is expected to grow between four and five-fold over the next 5 years, so we need infrastructure and capacity to meet that level of growth and demand,” Mupita said in a statement.

2Africa was launched in late 2021 by a consortium of telecom operators that includes the social media giant, Meta with the target of connecting 26 countries – of which 19 are in Africa – with a massive potential capacity of over 180Tbps over 16 fibre pairs.

Cassava-owned Liquid Intelligent Technologies (LIT) expanded its operations to Nigeria barely a month after inking a partnership agreement with World Bank’s private sector financing arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to expand its data centre capacity and further rollout of fibre-optic cables on the continent.

LIT’s Nigeria, Chief Executive Officer, Wole Abu, said the company will tap into rising demand for cloud computing services and cyber security offerings in the West African nation.

“West Africa boasts the largest connectivity on the continent, connecting Nigeria locally and internationally. Liquid’s Intelligent Technology brings de-facto means of backhauling traffic within middle-mile networks, allowing the effective deployment of broadband networks in Nigeria and the rest of the region” said Abu in a statement.

To date, IFC’s equity and debt investments in Liquid Intelligent Technologies, stands at approximately US$250 million, which the company said will be used to grow hyper-scale data centre capacity in Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa through its subsidiary, Africa Data Centres.

Africa’s enabling environment for broadband success

Africa’s bulging population and rising urbanisation are seen pushing up data consumption across key markets in the continent.

“The investments in our data centres and fibre broadband network will directly support our growth plans over the coming years by encouraging the adoption of new services such as Cloud and other digital services, services that are critical in driving sustainable development across Africa,” said Strive Masiyiwa, Liquid Intelligent Technologies Executive Chairman and Founder.

In early December, Airtel Africa secured a loan of US$194 million from the IFC, which it said would strengthen local operations, including broadband internet offerings in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, the Republic of Congo, and Zambia.

The Broadband Commission on Sustainable Development projects that sub-Saharan Africa will need some US$100 billion in investment to achieve universal, affordable, and high-quality broadband access by 2030. The continent will need at least 250,000 kilometres of new fibre to meet this target.

As investments in under-sea cable intensify, billionaire Elon Musk is aggressively pushing for licensing of his broadband-from-space services across the continent.

Tanzania is set to become the fourth African country to license Musk-owned company, Starlink, to provide satellite Internet services.

Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) last month confirmed to local media that the company had made an application for its satellite connectivity with intentions to launch the service in the first quarter of 2023..

Three countries have granted Starlink regulatory permits to launch satellite broadband services over the last one year since the company started negotiations with different countries’ regulators.

Mozambique became the first African country to grant its license in February, followed by Nigeria in May and Malawi in October 2022.

This investment is the IFC’s second in Wave, having participated in the company’s Series A funding round in September last year in a $5 million co-investment with Partech Africa.

The loan will go to the Senegalese and Ivorian subsidiaries of the startup to help the company increase its customer base and grow its operations in the countries. 

Coura Sene, Wave general manager for the West  African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), in a statement shared with TechCabal, said, “Access to digital financial services remains limited in the WAEMU, region with only 24% active mobile money accounts compared to 34% in East Africa in 2020.  This investment by IFC and other lenders helps us offer a diversity of financial products, encouraging users to stay within the formal financial sector, deepening financial inclusion in the region.” 

IFC’s regional director for West and Central Africa, Aliou Maiga, said “Supporting access to financial services for the low-income unbanked populations is a key priority for IFC. Our investment in Wave will not only promote inclusive finance, but  it will also significantly contribute to further advanced digital economy solutions in West Africa.”

June 19, 2022
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Over the past 2 weeks, I’ve attended 2 major conferences: VivaTech in Paris and the European Development Days (EDD) in Brussels. During my time at these conferences, I realised that funding and support for African startups and the tech ecosystem don’t just come from investment firms, angel investors, corporates, and tech hubs. There are other players.

It’s popular to define progress in the African tech ecosystem by the amount of venture funding raised, but the conversations I had made me wonder whether it was also worth measuring this progress in relation to the activities of development agencies and governmental organisations.

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Development agencies—international and local non-governmental organisations—are tasked with fostering the socio-economic development of different countries, but now more than ever they are realising that leveraging technology is a no-brainer.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the development of the private sector, might be more popular for financing roads, ports and other infrastructure across Africa but over the past 60 years has been it has invested about $10 billion in the private sector, working with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to create jobs and improve livelihoods. In 2020, it led the World Bank Group #GlobalTechChallenge initiative to match early-stage health tech innovators with healthcare providers in East Africa. Some of these health tech companies were also provided with funding.

To reduce the financing gap women entrepreneurs still face, in January the IFC launched the ScaleX program that incentivises accelerators to help women-led companies in emerging markets raise equity financing by awarding deserving accelerators up to $25,000. Three years after leading a $8.6 million Series A Investment in Africa’s Talking, the IFC recently backed ride-hailing startup Gozem with $10 million to finance 6,000 vehicles in Togo and Benin.

Closely related to this is the work the International Trade Centre does toward making global prosperity a reality by connecting small businesses in developing countries to international markets. This entails that it has projects in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Uganda, Zambia, and other African countries that focus on the creation of sustainable jobs in the digital technologies sector, and the modernisation of agribusiness through digital technologies.

Advisory services can play an important role in shaping the allocation of vast amounts of resources. In this vein, the AU-EU D4D Hub primarily aids African governments with strategy formulation and frameworks for digital transformation. 

In the 2 years since it launched, the AU-EU D4D Hub has conducted feasibility studies in Uganda and Rwanda, as well as learning sessions with the Tanzanian government. Germany’s Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) make-IT project develops and implements accelerator and funding programmes across 18 countries on the continent, according to a 2017-2019 impact report

With an estimated number of over 300 million French speakers across 5 continents, the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF), which was created in 1970, is increasing its efforts to give francophone African startups more visibility and attract funding.

Senegal’s Délégation Générale à l’Entreprenariat Rapide des Femmes et des Jeunes (DER) since 2018 has been investing in the country’s tech environment, granting about 60 billion FCFA (~$96,424,000) out and helping transform the Senegalese tech ecosystem.

Many other African country governments like Mauritius, Congo, Tunisia, Ghana, and Rwanda have initiatives to spur the tech ecosystem in their country.

It can be challenging to quantify the impact of some of these projects and programmes—training sessions or sponsorship of startups to conferences, for example—but they sure lead to business leads and investment opportunities.

The attention that African startups are receiving from developmental and international agencies is a testament to the capability of these startups to spread innovation and produce tailor-made solutions for some of Africa’s biggest problems.

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What’s next?

Better awareness of the different players and activities in the African tech ecosystem creates room for collaboration. For instance, during the European Development Days, I witnessed an intro conversation between representatives of the ITC and African European Digital Innovation Bridge (AEDIB) Initiative concerning their projects. The ITC is working on mapping the tech hubs in Africa, while the AEDIB is building digital innovation hubs—a virtual cluster of innovation centres such as tech hubs, research institutes, universities and others in a community. Since they were working on solving a similar problem, at different levels, it created a perfect opportunity for a partnership.

One way to scale the impact of the investment activities of development agencies in the Africa tech ecosystem is to increase similar partnerships between them and other players such as tech hubs, universities, and research institutes.

From the Cabal

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Daniel Adeyemi, Senior Writer, TechCabal.

That’s the estimated number of motor vehicle drivers that Gozem, a Francophone Africa-focused super app, says operate in informal markets across West and Central Africa. But there’s a problem: these drivers do not have access to traditional banks or micro-finance institutions to finance their vehicles. Instead, they rely on money lenders that charge ridiculous interest rates—some are as high as 70% annually.

Gozem, which provides a suite of mobility, e-commerce, and financial services to drivers, retailers, and other consumers, announced on Friday that it has partnered with the International Financial Commission (IFC) to solve these headaches for drivers. 

IFC has dedicated a $10 million investment into Gozem’s vehicle financing project. This investment will enable Gozem to provide access to affordable vehicle financing in Togo and Benin, its operating markets. 

This deal comes about 6 months after Gozem closed a $5 million funding and 14 months after it started its vehicle financing program. The company said it has already helped more than 2,000 drivers acquire vehicles with affordable financing. This new partnership will finance new vehicles for 6,000 more drivers.

“Motor vehincle drivers in West and Central Africa will need access to $3 billion dollars of credit facilities annually to finance their vehicles and we are excited that IFC is placing their trust in Gozem to be at the forefront of providing affordable financing solutions to these underserved communities,” Gregory Costamagna, co-founder and co-CEO of Gozem, said in a statement.

Unlike banks that require credit history, asset collateral, or guarantors before issuing loans, or third-party lenders who charge cut-throat interest rates that are only increasing, Gozem simply uses drivers’ data already available on its platform. The company provides this service by leveraging what Costamagna called its “sophisticated” KYC process, financial and behavioural data, like the number of trips completed using its app—which can be accessed in a matter of minutes—to calculate drivers’ credit worthiness. This alleviates drivers from keeping track of their bank statements and records; simply by using the app to find riders and gigs, Gozem knows how much they earn and how long they are likely to take to make their payments.

Gozem said in a statement sent to TechCabal that for the next year, they will also work with the IFC to test electric bikes in motovehicle operating conditions and “build a green battery-swapping station network in Togo and Benin to demonstrate electric bikes can save drivers money.”

Gozem’s Raphael Dana, Costamagna’s counterpart as co-founder and co-CEO told TechCabal over the phone that IFC is starting a pilot investment to test the impact and scalability of this model and will double down based on the result of the pilot. 

He added that this partnership also factors in electric vehicles (EV). “We have set aside 10% of the investment for our EV pilot phase. There’s a dedicated team working on our EV ambition and we need to ensure that the bikes, battery swapping, economic units, etc. work at scale,” he said.

According to the company’s statement, the project will “validate electric bikes and that their adoption at scale will not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly, but it will also help drivers save money through lower energy and maintenance costs.”

“Electric vehicles have the power to said Aliou Maiga, IFC’s Regional Director for West and Central Africa, emphasised that EVs have the potential to “transform the moto-taxi market in West and Central Africa by lowering carbon emissions and lowering operating costs for drivers.” He said that by partnering with Gozem, together they could “increase affordable and green financing solutions for moto-taxi drivers to shift to electric bikes. 

“We hope IFC’s investment for these underserved communities will encourage other investors and accelerate the reduction of poverty and greenhouse gasses emissions in these markets,” he added. 

There’s been a significant uptick in access financing initiatives lately. Last year, Asaak went into a partnership with Untapped Global to finance 2,000 bikes in Uganda—both EV and fossil-fuel vehicles. Untapped Global had also entered a similar partnership with South African Flexclub. 

Looks like Gozem is gearing up for some big funding. In March, Dana told Africa Report that the company was seeking an $80m Series B—$50 million in equity, $20m in debt, and a $10 million pre-series B—fundraising as it prepares to expand to new markets like Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Senegal.

But much of the gains in e-commerce has so far been realised by male-owned businesses, which saw a collective 7% rise in sales during the pandemic. By contrast, female-owned businesses saw a 7% decline, per Women and E-commerce in Africa, a report by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) that examines the state of e-commerce across Kenya, Nigeria, and Ivory Coast.

More often than not, technological advances exacerbate existing gender inequalities. In this instance, women lag behind their male counterparts in terms of accessing and using digital marketplaces, despite representing half of Africa’s population and accounting for the bulk of entrepreneurial activity in many African countries. 

“There is a digital disconnect,” says Mercy Wanjau, Director, Legal and Board Advisory, at the Communications Authority of Kenya (KCA) while delivering her keynote speech during the first TechCabal Live session this year. “It’s provocative and sad. So much progress has been made in connectivity globally, even in Africa, but there’s still a disconnect when you look at the situation from a gender lens.”

Wanjau adds that the internet is a “gateway to huge economic opportunities” and with women having no access, there’s a digital disconnect and denial of opportunities, particularly in the low and middle-income countries.

Over the past decade, e-commerce in Africa has expanded rapidly and the market value is expected to quadruple in the next decade. But with equal participation rates from both men and women in e-commerce, the growth could be even higher, per the report.

Beyond participation, however, there exists an earning gap between e-commerce businesses owned by women compared to those owned by men, skewed in favour of the latter. According to the IFC report—compiled with data from Jumia, Africa’s largest e-commerce platform—closing this gap between male and female vendors by 2025 would yield $14.5 billion in additional e-commerce market value in Africa by 2030.

How can this be achieved?

Juliet Anammah, Jumia Nigeria’s Chairwoman and Chief Sustainability Officer for the Group, notes that increasing the number of women selling through e-commerce platforms is crucial.

In countries like Nigeria, many women own physical stores while a growing number of female merchants sell through informal social commerce platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram. Helping the latter group transition to selling via formal e-commerce platforms, where they can access wider markets and business records needed to secure loans, is one of Jumia’s objectives, in line with closing the gender gap in e-commerce.

“It’s clear one of the ways women can grow their businesses through e-commerce is participating on platforms,” Anammah says. “Many traders opt for social commerce but in such instances, you’re a single player and not aggregating data that can be useful when applying for loans. On Jumia, there’s a database on your sales history, transactions, which lending partners use in providing credit.”

As an entrepreneur and mother of 3, managing her business while taking care of the family was tough for Bukola Ogundijo, until she started selling on Jumia. “The platform has been very helpful in managing my business in 3 major ways,” the founder of Purple Linings Ventures told the TC Live audience. “Warehousing my product, packaging, and delivery whenever I get orders, all of which has reduced my operational costs.”

In terms of access to credit to grow her business, Ogundijo says she’s been able to secure low-interest loans from Jumia’s lending partner, which has helped scale the business faster than her pre-Jumia days.

For Alexa Roscoe, the Disruptive Technology Lead (Gender and Economic Inclusion Group) at the IFC, the value of an enhanced seller base isn’t just about the number of sellers going online but also bringing in more diverse products and services that serve a wider market and more customer needs.

“Entrepreneurs are just half the puzzle of the marketplace,” Roscoe says. “Women are also buying online and we know they are responsible for making the vast majority of consumer decisions such as what groceries to buy.”

Hence, understanding what women consumers want to better serve them is of equal importance, she argues, especially the women new to online shopping. “That way, they see e-commerce as a way to meet their needs. That’s how we can help grow the market and make it more diverse.”

While the report finds that e-commerce companies can lead the way in the bid to increase the number of female entrepreneurs in e-commerce, as well as their sales, the IFC does recognise the importance of partnerships involving investors and policymakers in achieving this goal. 

“Partnerships play an important role in bringing together different expertise, expanding knowledge and evidence, and most importantly, scaling impact massively and addressing multiple challenges,” Anne Kabugi, the IFC’s Regional Gender Lead for Africa (Gender and Economic Inclusion Group), says. “There is a huge e-commerce opportunity in Africa but Jumia alone may not be able to do massive research covering different geographies.”

With partnerships that bring in the right resources, expertise, and investments to undertake research, players like Jumia can leverage the data to inform strategy and expansion across the continent.

“More of these partnerships are needed, not just in the private sector but also the public. Government can help remove the legal and regulatory bottlenecks for business expansion and enable women access e-commerce and other digital services through inclusive connectivity policies for instance.”

KCA’s Wanjau holds a similar stance on partnerships between stakeholders. “E-commerce companies or the government can’t do it alone. There’s a need for collaboration across board,” she says. “Cooperation between investors, e-commerce platforms, governments, and development organisations is needed to ensure a multi-stakeholder approach to address these issues. This isn’t restricted to national levels because e-commerce is international.”

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Gender inequality is way expensive and is costing the world too much. The World Bank estimates the economic cost of gender inequality around the world to be $160.2 trillion, a huge loss in human capital wealth. 

Gender parity on the other side will add more prosperity to the world. McKinsey reports that closing the gender gap in the workforce could add a staggering $28 trillion to the global GDP, that’s a 26% gain. Even if complete parity is not achieved, we could still add $12 trillion (11%) to the global GDP.

This is only achievable by allowing working women to reach their “full potential” and having equal access to resources while playing identical roles in the labour markets to that of men and getting paid what’s worth.

Looks like companies like MTN understand the assignment and are taking the lead with incentives that promote gender parity. MTN knows that for more women to assume more senior roles in the future, confronting the early-career gender gap is important ( i.e more women must first enter the workforce and progress with time.) Now, it will admit 80% women and 20% men into its graduate trainee program. 

“We have set our graduate development program at 80:20; women take 80 while men take 20,” said MTN Nigeria CEO, Karl Toriola during a brief speech at the launch of Nigeria2Equal’s peer learning platform and the gender gap assessment report, Gender Equality in Nigeria’s Private Sector.

Nigeria2Equal’s core mission is to bring companies in Nigeria’s private sector together to reduce gender gaps in leadership, employment and entrepreneurship.

In partnership with the International Financial Commission (IFC) and Nigerian Exchange Limited, Nigeria2Equal started a gender gap study and 15 top private companies in Nigeria participated as specimens. Now, they launched the report and one of the initiatives to help bridge the gap, peer learning among companies. 

MTN, which recently appointed its first female chief marketing officer, said they’re very intentional about gender parity and that’s why they are going all-in on that decision. 

“To achieve gender parity at the workplace, companies must be intentional and committed to walking the talk,” Toriola added. He added that the development is not only in the papers and that they’ve already kick-started.

“You’d be surprised what women can achieve when given the resources they need to excel,” he said, citing an example from his time in Cameroon. “I have seen it,” he concluded.

The event hosted about 14 other CEOs from the companies that participated in the study, including Sterling Bank, Cadbury, UAC, Access Bank and AP. Among all these CEOs, there was only one woman. And this further legitimizes the case of the initiative.

Similarly, according to Nigeria2Equal’s report, though women represents 17% of Board Chair (greater than global average of 6%), 7% of CEOs (same with global average), and 17% of CFOs (greater than the global average of 13%), the average percentage of women in the workforce is 33% which is lower than the global average of 37%.

These two reports indicate that commitment to gender parity at the senior level has been on the rise. The average C-suite has 24 percent more women than in 2015. The share of open roles going to women is rising, through either promotions or hiring. But the gap is still wide across all metrics.

In Nigeria, there was huge evidence of this in the first half of the year. Four women assumed the echelon seat in some of the biggest banks in Nigeria, making it eight banks out of the 26 commercial banks that are led by women. A decent number but not anywhere close to where we should be par the SDG 5 (to ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making.).

This is not an overnight success but a result of decades of constant advocacy. Initiatives like that of Nigeria2Equal and efforts from companies like MTN are making sure that it doesn’t take us another chain of decades to achieve full-blown gender parity.