Is Africa’s tech industry missing out on top female talent?



By Tiana Cline



While African women continue to defy the odds as they assume various political leadership roles, the continent’s tech industry faces a serious gender issue. Despite endless global conversations around diversity within the tech sector, women still face significant barriers and are noticeably underrepresented in many roles, making it difficult for them to enter – and eventually lead – the industry.



According to a global women in leadership study conducted by IBM, gender equity is not a women’s issue, it’s an organizational one. “Women are significantly underrepresented at nearly every level of the workforce,” says Lindsay Kaplan, co-founder and Chief Brand Officer of Chief, a private network of executive women on a mission to change the face of leadership. “If companies prioritize gender diversity across their entire organizations through policies, investments, and a culture that meaningfully supports women, we’ll see a transformative impact — equity for everyone in the workplace and stronger, more resilient businesses.”



The study found that in Kenya, for example, there is even more stagnation in senior professional and non-executive managerial positions. Even though there are some incredible African women in IT like Catherine Muraga, the Managing Director at the Microsoft Africa Development Centre in Nairobi and Kendi Ntwiga, who heads up misrepresentation at Meta, the percentage of women hasn’t budged since the 2019 drop — and at a senior manager, it has even declined somewhat. And while the pandemic continues to have a disproportionate impact on women at work, in Kenya, geopolitical unrest was ranked the number one disruption facing women.



While Kaplan is happy to see slight progress in the representation of women at the C-suite and board level, she maintains that it is imperative that companies do more to fill the pipeline that leads to powerful positions.



One global technology company that is making massive strides in creating a place for women in technology is Cisco and more so, their Vice President for Middle East and Africa, Reem Asaad. Born in Egypt, Asaad moved to the United States at the age of 16 to study computer science.



“I had to leave because there weren’t a lot of accessible universities at the time and I wanted to study computer science. I went to the University of Houston in Texas and that was the beginning,” she says. Now based in Dubai, Asaad’s focus is collaborating with government, customers and partners but creating and developing female leadership is her passion. “Cisco should mimic the communities that it serves. That’s already inclusive and a starting point. We have amazing resources in Africa and we need to invest in female talent,” says Asaad. “Africa is fascinating because we talk about diversity in the region as if it’s something you have to do but our region is diverse by nature.”



Within her role, Asaad is working hard to change the diversity ratio in the Middle East and Africa. She is responsible for 77 countries – some advanced, others emerging – and within those countries, there are over 2,000 languages and six time zones to take into account.



“Cisco operates in 95 countries and 52 of those are in the mid-East and Africa. It’s diversity whether you like it or not, from age groups to colour to ethnic backgrounds. What you learn when you work in this region is how to understand the difference between equity and equality,” she says.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-equality-or-equity">EQUALITY OR EQUITY?</h3>



One McKinsey study on women in the workplace found that gender disparity can emerge as early as the first promotion opportunity – women account for 48% of entry-level hires but only 38% of first-level managers.



This ties in Asaad’s view that even though mentoring and coaching can help grow women into leadership positions, being on the ground is what gives her true visibility. “It’s important because if you don’t know the women around you, those women who could be the next leaders, you will miss them,” she says. “With men, you tend to hire someone because they have ‘potential’. With women, historically, it’s different. You always have to prove yourself in that position. This is a narrative we have to change. We need to hire female leaders because you see the potential.”



For Asaad, this is the difference between equity and equality: equality means giving everybody the same opportunity and the same tools and assuming that you will get similar outputs. Equity is the exact opposite. “Equity is giving everybody what they need. It’s about understanding that people have different strengths and weaknesses. For women, there are certain barriers, certain challenges… what if you could help them to bypass these things?” she asks. “Then women in positions of power can be treated on an equal footing to their male counterparts—judged for their actions and output alone.



Post-pandemic, the hybrid world of work has helped to level the playing field for women to take on leadership roles. In Saudi Arabia, for example, the rate of women participating in the IT sector is now higher than Silicon Valley. “You will be amazed at the number of female engineers, the quality, dedication, commitment and retention that you get,” adds Asaad. “One of our first engineers that got CCIE certified is a female leader in Saudi. We have the talent, but we need somebody to recognize that these women are out there and give them the opportunity.”



Digital transformation is a big part of job creation. Despite geopolitical challenges, governments with an appetite for innovation breed talent and new roles like the chief sustainability officer, renewable energy analyst or green engineer require future-forward skills. “In Africa, we have the skillsets. We have the workforce. We have Cisco Networking Academies that can step in where needed and females have a very big part in this transformation,” she says. “My role is to solve for three things: getting women in the door by managing unconscious bias to open access. Once women are in, how can you involve and retain them? And once they have been there, how can we progress them to goals.

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Let’s Tech About It: Why This Industry In Africa Has Gender Issues

Nomcebo Zikode, the multi platinum-selling South African singer-songwriter who won the Grammy in February for Global Music Performance with Wouter Kellerman and Zakes Bantwini, will be performing at the pan-African welcome celebration of the Forbes Under 30 Summit Africa in Gaborone, Botswana, on April 23.



The artist, who is the founder of the Nomcebo Zikode Foundation, was also at the eighth annual FORBES WOMAN AFRICA Leading Women Summit on March 8 in Pretoria, South Africa, where she spoke on stage about her tough journey to becoming a successful singer.



She outlined her trials and triumphs before performing the foot-tapping hit song Jerusalema and evoking tumultuous applause and cheers from the audience at the SunBet Arena.



She also won the 2023 FORBES WOMAN AFRICA Entertainer Award at a glittering ceremony in the evening on the same day.



Speaking to FORBES AFRICA after the win, she said: “You know, people have read everywhere about my struggles. But I did not focus on my struggles – I kept on pushing. That is why today, [I am] the woman who is a Grammy winner, because I didn’t give up. I kept on pushing. I am so happy as an African woman.”



From being a backing singer to an artist receiving recognition, Zikode is a part of South Africa’s burgeoning music landscape.



“There’s so much that is happening in this industry – when I say so much I mean going through so much. So, for me as a woman, to be recognized by FORBES AFRICA is great,” Zikode added in March.



Zikode worked with Master KG on the 2019 hit single Jerusalema and later remixed with Burna Boy, the song debuted at Number 1 on Billboard Music Charts. It became an anthem in South Africa and across the world as “a feel-good” song during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nomcebo Zikode, image supplied

‘I Didn’t Focus On My Struggles, I Didn’t Give Up’: South Africa’s Grammy Winner Nomcebo Zikode

Winifred Nwania is using her status as a YouTuber and influencer to seek out Nigeria’s rich repertoire of ingredients and recipes to put her country on the global food map.



When Winifred Nwania was 12 years old, her world turned upside down. The happy, idyllic life she and her six siblings were accustomed to in Lagos in Nigeria was shattered overnight when their father passed away.



“In the Igbo culture [of Nigeria], when a person loses her husband, the husband’s relatives come and make life really difficult for the woman, especially if they don’t like her and that was the case for my family. They took my father’s assets, his properties and everything he owned from us and my mother had to start life from scratch,” says Nwania.



In that tragic moment, Nwania would serendipitously find her calling. Noticing her brothers were hungry, Nwania decided to step up to give her mother a breather during the mourning period.



“I don’t know where that strength came from but I decided to do something for my brothers who were hungry and wanted to eat. So, I made the worst pot of jollof rice ever in my life but because I had this winning spirit that my dad had taught me, I changed my strategy the next day,” recalls Nwania.



The next day she decided to enlist the help of her mother. In between running back and forth from the family kitchen to her mother’s room for instructions, Nwania made her second pot of food and this time, it came out a lot better. That was all Nwania needed to convince her that she wanted to spend the rest of her life in the kitchen, cooking for all.



As fate would have it, during her one-year mandatory tenure as a National Youth Service Corps, the Nigerian government introduced an initiative called the skills acquisition and entrepreneurship development program to help everyone learn a skill before they left the youth camp.



“It came to my mind that I loved to cook and so I looked for a catering trainer in the camp and I joined her class and the first [dish] she cooked was with yam. She made a yam piccata and I still have the picture to this day. I was so intrigued by how she transformed the yam and I said this is what I want to do with the rest of my life. I made up my mind that I [would] delve deeper and make something out of this,” says Nwania.



But first she needed to pay her bills. After graduating from the camp, she joined an oil and gas company where she worked in the finance department to help foot her daily expenses but reserved the weekends for learning all she could about catering.



“I would go online, and on social media for articles and videos and the next step was to go to culinary school. The prices in Nigeria were too high and I couldn’t afford it at the time. So, I decided to go to the website of the school and I went to their curriculum section and saw that they had put the names of the books and the materials that they were going to use to teach the students. So, I took down all the names of the books and I bought them myself and trained myself by practicing in the kitchen.”



Nwania decided to post the images of her culinary creations on her Blackberry phone and soon began to get recipe requests from her followers. Her sister introduced the idea of blogging to Nwania and before long she was building a steady following online.



“I wasn’t really excelling in my nine-to-five job anymore. I was given a task and I was making so many errors and mistakes. My boss came and asked me why. He decided to check my computer and saw that I had so many windows opened about food. None of it had anything to do with my actual job at work and my boss said ‘if you want to go and cook in the kitchen why don’t you go and do that instead of sitting here’. And that is when it hit me. I quit my job without a plan,” laughs Nwania.



Her first plan was to have her own cooking channel and she reached out to every network she could find for a TV spot. No one responded. Yet again, her sister came to her rescue with another plan. This time, she suggested Nwania create her own YouTube channel and self-publish her content.



“At that time, YouTube was not that much of a big deal. So, I went on the platform and there was no one there I could look up to. So, I got a one-man production company and our goal was to get 5,000 subscribers but in the first six months, we got over 50,000 subscribers and grew so fast.”



Zeelicious Food was born. Today, Nwania boasts her own cooking show, My Naija Plate, on DSTv’s Honey TV where she has aired two seasons. She her own cook book and a lucrative YouTube channel with over 840,000 subscribers. Her videos average over a million views with brand partnerships from telco companies and other brands wanting to tap into her growing audience as an influencer.



“The main goal was to actually put Nigerian food on the global food map and help people with the opportunity to have a food repertoire. We are blessed with a very rich array of ingredients and I took it upon myself to research and use them to develop recipes that the people in this part of the world can relate to. The feedback has been amazing with people [even] telling me how I am saving their marriage by helping them be better cooks,” says Nwania.



Next up in building her food empire is to become a qualified nutritionist. Looking back on that fateful day when she was 12, Nwania believes everything happened for a reason. She ponders out loud at the end of our call that it was her mother’s tenacity in the face of unimaginable difficulty that made her a successful food entrepreneur.

Why Success Is On The Menu For This Nigerian Chef

Molly Jensen’s dream is to build the largest library of African audio stories.



By Alastair Hagger



Tune into the frequency of African radio and the signal is clear – no other medium has reached more people on this continent or resonated more deeply. From the earliest broadcasts in 1920s South Africa to the post-colonial, continent-wide explosion in radio services in the 1960s, to the establishment of the first private commercial station in Burkina Faso in 1987, Africa has long been wired for sound.



But the reach of the airwaves has never been matched by the depth of revenue streams enjoyed by radio stations abroad. Into this aural breach steps the podcast – a medium set to re-dial Africa’s relationship with the broadcast word from passive to thrillingly proactive.



Molly Jensen is CEO of Afripods, a free pan-African podcast hosting platform based in Nairobi.



“My vision is to build the largest library of African audio stories on the planet,” she says.



“We have created an advertising funnel for audio on-demand content, and built a robust library of stories, categorized in up to 50 languages, from the continent and diaspora. We focus on the technical infrastructure, which positions us as the leading platform capturing market share in the region.”



Though Africa’s internet access is the least affordable in the world, according to the AIA (Affordable Internet Alliance), rapid and inevitable network evolution and improvement is already positioning the podcast as an irresistible opportunity for advertisers and creators alike.



“Podcasting is still very much in its infancy on the continent, and advertisers are still learning how to quantify the value of a highly niched group of people and their audiences,” says Jensen. “But an ecosystem like podcasting, which is based on orated content, taps into generations of storytelling, modernizing it in digital communities. The impact of audio-first media cannot be overstated, and podcasting is an exciting extension.”



This ecosystem is growing exponentially as influencers expand into new verticals, and festival and platform pioneers such as Africa Podfest, SemaBOX, Gold Coast Report, The Podcast Sessions and APVA (The Association of African Podcasters and Voice Artists) create dynamic new synergies.



“It’s exciting to see vernacular content grow, because it sheds a light on the rich diversity of Africa, as mother tongues become less common, with podcasting being used as a vehicle to memorialize culture,” she says. “And we are also at an interesting moment in history where Africa is no longer just consuming the narrative of what is cool, but creating it – and exporting culture to a global stage.”

Molly Jensen, photo by Marcus Olang’

The Resonant Rise Of The African Podcast

For Rachel Moré-Oshodi of RUWAH, financial literacy is a major issue that needs to be tackled to end the cycle of generational poverty for many Africans on the continent.



A basic understanding of your financial health goes a long way in not only how you plan your economic wellbeing but also how healthy an economy is. These small micro financial decisions are so crucial that they are learned by most people by the age of seven, according to Rachel Moré-Oshodi, an investment professional turned entrepreneur, with her solution to teach children about financial literacy called RUWAH.



RUWAH, is a prepaid debit card and financial literacy platform on a mission to educate kids and teens in Africa about generational wealth. As a former investment banker, Moré-Oshodi defines wealth as not just money; wealth is about having a purpose and vision for your life and going for it. She learned the importance of wealth-building after a bitter personal experience – when she lost her father to cancer.



“Growing up, money was not spoken about. When my father died 23 years ago, there was no will that we could find and my mum and kids lost everything. We had a legal battle with some of [my dad’s] family members over assets and we are still in court today,” says Moré-Oshodi.



Originally from Cameroon, she has spent a significant amount of her life helping to raise investments for organizations such as the World Bank, Rand Merchant Bank and Total Energies. But even with that breadth of experience, it was not until 15 years ago that she truly understood the importance of having a firm grasp on financial literacy.



“I have been helping raise money for companies and I thought I knew finance but I didn’t know anything about personal finance. Then I realized I had an issue with money and I didn’t have a relationship with money. The money was just sitting in my bank and going from my paycheck to my bank and I didn’t realize that I had a fear of investing”.



Moré-Oshodi believed it was good and safe to leave the money depreciating in her bank account instead of making the money work for her.



“Until I started to research and educate myself and utilize some of the resources available, that is when things changed. Even though I lost some money, I made so much more and as I was making more money, I wanted to pass it on to my kids.”



So, she started teaching her kids about financial literacy and very soon, friends and family started signing up to learn from her. But it was not until she enrolled on a Harvard program that the idea of RUWAH began to truly crystalize. According to S&amp;P’s global financial literacy survey, African countries score the worst in the world in financial literacy.



For Moré-Oshodi, this is a major issue that needs to be tackled to end the cycle of generational poverty for many Africans on the continent.



“RUWAH is a comprehensive financial literacy program that aims to reduce the knowledge and opportunity gap that exists between kids in Africa and the rest of the world. We teach African kids and teenagers (between seven to 18 years), the knowledge and skills that they need to succeed financially later in life. Our self-paced financial classes, pocket money app, and prepaid debit card will teach them the essentials of personal finance, i.e., what money is, how to earn it, how to save, how to multiply it and use it to achieve their goals,” says Moré-Oshodi.



The goal of the platform is also instilling confidence and providing the foundations for kids and teens to become financially savvy at a young age and secure their financial future intergenerationally. For Moré-Oshodi, tackling this issue requires a psychological approach to looking at money.



“Money is not scarce. It is either you don’t have a good relationship with money or you have an unhealthy relationship with money. In Africa in particular, we feel we cannot make more money and it cannot grow and that is not true. The scarcity mindset instead of the abundance mindset is a real issue. But when you start dealing with that at a later stage it is much more difficult to change that mindset. Money is psychological and money is emotional. Money tells you your value and who you are and where your heart is. I felt instead of dealing with adults, it’s better to deal with children.”



RUWAH leverages technology to make the program accessible to most children in Africa. The platform is device-agnostic as well as user-friendly and tailored specifically to the African landscape, considering the cultural nuances that affects decision-making about money on the continent.

Rachel Moré-Oshodi, pic supplied

‘Scarcity Mindset Instead Of Abundance Mindset A Real Issue In Africa’: The Cameroonian Enabling Financial Literacy

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The 50 Over 50 List Of Africa’s Female Powerhouses

Désire De Oliveira, a pioneering Civil Blaster and Managing Director of Laduma Blasting in South Africa, has worked in one of the most male-dominated industries of all – construction and mining. And all she wanted to really do was hone her skills as a French pastry chef.



In her 65 years, Désire De Oliveira has never stopped moving, running her own financial accountancy business for 30 years, raising four kids, qualifying as a French pastry chef, and starting the Seaside Lodge B&amp;B in Salt Rock in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province in 2006.



Seaside Lodge B&amp;B remains consistently booked and was one of the accommodation businesses that survived Covid-19.



She’s also the first woman of color in KwaZulu-Natal to be a certified Opencast blaster (mining) and a certified Civil blaster. To put it simply: blasting is where rock gets blown into pieces with small amounts of explosive – a trickier process than one might think.



“Every accountant will tell you, the smaller the gross profit, the bigger the margin – that’s the business you’re looking for,” De Oliveira says to FORBES AFRICA. So when the owner of Laduma Blasting wanted her to partner in the business, due to her knowledge of its operations after doing its books, she agreed to make it her sole focus for one year.



She intended to return to her first passion – baking – after the year was up.



She put up the capital and he put up the blasting knowledge. In her first six months, she brought in significant business. Eventually, De Oliveira took over the company entirely and decided to get qualified as a blaster, while having a licensed blaster on hand to learn from.



It was not an easy road, as industry professionals told her she would need at least 10 years’ experience to find jobs in the sector. In 2015, she received her Learner Civil blaster, by 2016, her Opencast blaster certificate for mining, and in 2021 she finished her Civil blaster requirements.



And she’s managed to get the jobs they said she could not.



“Though everything I have succeeded at seems a walk in the park, that is because I embrace life for what it is. I have no regrets. Every hardship seems to have been used as a challenge. Looking back now and joining the dots, because of my belligerent attitude to life, I’m a non-conformer, not a follower, am also not a pushover, and certainly not a dreamer. Everything I have done, has been done my way – there’s been no mentors. I also do not carry baggage, none at all, life is too short,” De Oliveira explains.



Three of her family members contracted Covid-19 in December 2020, including herself. Her husband Peter Rutsch died due to Covid-19 in January 2021.



“It was a big shock. I missed him because as much as we didn&#8217;t see each other, we were good. He encouraged me. He let me do my thing. He did his thing. Nobody pulled each other back.”



She battled for four months with long Covid. Laduma Blasting was closed for that time too, and she had to pick up the pieces and start work again.



De Oliveira has spent the last 40 years working on average 19 hours a day, 360 days a year, including seeing to the children, cooking and caring for the home.



Home maintenance and childcare is called ‘invisible labor’, and something an Oxfam analysis valued at $10.9 trillion per year globally.



De Oliveira did not have an easy life as a woman of color in apartheid South Africa; facing the double blow of racial discrimination in all sectors including work and patriarchal attitudes, as well as surviving sexual abuse at a young age.



“Like most previously disadvantaged South Africans having lived through apartheid, we came with no capital, were not properly educated, worked hard, but could not command decent salaries – the old adage still prevailed, black people being paid far less than their white counterparts – that’s only starting to change now,” she says.



She thinks every mother in her situation wished for a better education for their children. After the 1994 elections in South Africa, the possibility of a good education started to be a reality, except she and other people did not have the finances to access it.



Now, she has managed to give her children a good education.



“I think I&#8217;ve done that my whole life, working on my own and steering my own ship so I don&#8217;t live off other people. I&#8217;m independent. So, it worked well for me that I didn&#8217;t have anything.”



Despite having long Covid and asthma, De Oliveira is preparing to run the Comrades Marathon for the 13th time this year. And she’s even thinking of opening another business.

Desire De Oliveira, first women in KZN to have a blasting license

Blasting Through The Glass Ceiling In South Africa’s Mining and Construction Sectors

With pounding hearts but eyes firmly on target, record numbers of women are learning to use firearms in crime-riddled South Africa. Training starts with the legalities of owning a firearm, which to most, is probably the most effective tool to disarm attackers, and also an introduction to the sport of shooting.



By Paula Slier – Additional reporting by Khaka Ngcof



– *Surname removed to protect privacy



Sitting on a carpet, I’m overwhelmed with a feeling of foreboding. A Kalashnikov rifle is pointed at me by a masked man smoking a cigarette. Behind him, three armed fighters chatter anxiously, casting looks in my direction. The far-off spurts of gunfire light up the night sky. I’m in a remote village in Afghanistan waiting for an interview that might or might not happen.



I chide myself, not for the first time, for coming here alone. If this tip-off proves false, I’m at the mercy of these men. The thought crosses my mind that I could grab the AK47 and…. then what? I’ve never held one of those guns, let alone shoot with it.



Which is why, a few weeks later, I find myself at a shooting range in South Africa. Despite the tip-off being correct, I am making good on a promise to myself that if I got out of that village alive, I would take control of my safety and no longer leave it to fate – or the goodwill of others. It’s fitting I’ve chosen to sign up in South Africa.



While a long way from Afghanistan, the statistics here are amongst the worst in the world which explains why record numbers of people, women in particular, are learning how to use firearms. Most want to be able to shoot for their own safety and that of their families.



From July to September last year, 13,000 women were victims of assault and [over 10,000] rape cases were opened by the police – “a needle in the haystack,” says Lynette Oxley, founder of Gun Owners SA (GOSA) Girls On Fire.



“Statistics show that only one out of six rapes actually gets reported. The police and the broader society are part of the problem. From interviews I’ve conducted over the past three weeks, 13,701 women were victims of assault, nearly 1,000 were murdered and 1,277 were victims of attempted murder.



There were 558 children killed and 1,895 who were victims of assault.”



However, stresses Oxley, this is not just a South African, but a global, problem.



“We have changed our focus from activism to action as predators will always be predators and standing on street corners [with posters] hoping to change people’s minds around gender-based violence just doesn’t work.”



GOSA focuses on firearm litigation, political and public outreach programs and empowering women. Oxley, who started shooting when she was 18 years old, was the first female South African instructor of the International Defence Pistol Association. She drew up GOSA’s training modules.



“A reporter told me that I would never get involved in the gun lobby because it was only white men,” she laughs. That was the catalyst that led to her establishing the organization.



“I feel very strongly that as a woman I do not need to stand back and sit in the background. Women are warriors; we don’t need to be second-class citizens.”



Girls and women from 11-to-85-years-old have benefited from the organization.



“There are some very sad, sad stories out there,” sighs Oxley.



“If you have to fight back, a firearm is probably your most effective tool, especially with a stronger and bigger attacker. It basically equalizes the playing field. You’re not going to be able to karate-chop a guy who is tough. Firearms are stoppages, you need to know how to at least pick the stoppage without even thinking about it.”



Training starts with the legalities of owning a firearm and progresses to situational awareness that includes tips like: don’t sit on your Facebook page while you’re stuck in traffic, look around, be aware of what’s going on; do not look like a victim because then you’re going to be chosen as one.



Many of the women who’ve completed Oxley’s training are now fully-fledged gun range officers, like Nthabiseng*. She survived being repeatedly raped at gunpoint by both her neighbor and a former friend.



Her initial reaction to learning how to fire a gun was understandably to stay as far away as possible!



“But then I just thought let me give it a try and see if I can finally close this chapter and get over my fear,” she confides. 



“And when I went, I found quite a lot of women who were not only learning how to handle a gun but empowering themselves at the same time. It’s a kind of therapy. The idea is not to go and kill whoever is bothering you. You’re just trying to disarm them. It’s more about learning how to defend yourself!”



That first day was very emotional for Nthabiseng because it brought back the nightmares of what she’d endured.



“As I held the gun I remembered what it was like being on the other side of it and how much was taken from me. I’d seen my life flash by at the hands of men I trusted. I blamed not only the person holding the gun, but the gun as well. You soon realize that in the right hands, this piece of metal can have very different results.”



For many women, learning how to handle a weapon is not just about self-defence; it’s an introduction to the sport of shooting that is growing quickly around the globe.



In 2025, South Africa will, for the first time in over two decades, host the World Championship of the International Practical Shooting Confederation under the auspices of its South African chapter, the South African Practical Shooting Association (SAPSA). Zimbabwe and Kenya boast professional teams, despite the relative high cost of the sport.



A competitive shooter with the SAPSA, Martin Janse van Rensburg, meets me at a gun range outside Johannesburg.



Four years ago, he set up a non-profit, MF Arms, to help men and women feel more confident and comfortable around firearms.



“For many women,” says van Rensburg, “the idea of getting a gun is scary. In a perfect world, every law-abiding citizen would be armed. You’re never going to get rid of illegal guns, but at least in this way, with responsible firearm owners, society would be a lot safer.”



Almost 70% of van Rensburg’s clientele is female and like me, most have never held a gun in their life.



As I pick up a pistol, with a pounding heart and sweaty palm, I’m convinced I can’t do this.



But half an hour later and not only have I become more used to gripping a gun, I’ve also learned how to load it and aim at a target.



The recoil frightens me and takes a while to get used to.



“Women have to take things into their own hands and become their own first responders,” van Rensburg insists. “It’s about becoming aware of your surroundings and then choosing how to best protect yourself. Many women prefer learning hand-to-hand combat to shooting because they’re intimidated by a gun. So I train them how to get out of a grip and neutralize a partner. We repeat it over and over. Repetition is important. Technique overcomes power. A small woman can overcome a big man.”



Using a knife is also an option and is more effective than hand-to-hand combat. There are many ways of concealing a weapon and for a city girl dressed in a corporate suit, a small knife hanging from her necklace underneath her blouse, can be very effective.



“Your first choice is always a firearm, but you must know that the second you pull it, you are prepared to use it. You can’t use it just as a threat. You need to know what you can and cannot do with it.”



Van Rensburg encourages all his clients to practice at least once a month at a shooting range so they don’t forget the skill. He has seen how, for some women, what started off as a way to defend themselves, soon becomes a passion for the sport.



“It’s a safe, controlled environment where one competes against shooters of different levels. You compete on speed, accuracy, and power. You become more proficient in using a gun and that selfconfidence rolls over into your life. It’s also not a very physical sport which is something women like,” he says.



Sharmaine Lombard, a gun range officer in training, admits that when she first picked up a gun she was “deathly afraid, I can speak to the girl who is quivering in her boots because she’s thinking this is a real gun, with real ammo, and she’s having scary thoughts of what she can do with it”.



Lombard’s husband introduced her to shooting, and she quickly became hooked, especially after growing up in an abusive home.



“There’s this whole mental metamorphosis you undergo from the moment you start. The things you learn even before you get to the firearm part is amazing. The biggest lesson is that as women, we don’t have to take crap or be in an abusive situation. We can take care of ourselves – and nothing is more empowering than that!”



As for me, I’m due for my second session with van Rensburg. Firing a gun hasn’t come naturally to me and I sense the journey is going to be a long one. While there is definitely something liberating about taking control of one’s personal safety, don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself.

Women And Guns In South Africa: Fear, Fury And Fire

By Colin Iles



I was recently asked to comment on how the opportunities for women leaders have changed since I started work. And then, I was asked to share some thoughts about what changes we can expect over the next decade.



To the first question, my answer was simple. Not much. According to the World Economic Forum, only 15% of the Fortune 500 are run by women. In South Africa where I’m located, this drops to only 7% for Johannesburg Stock Exchangelisted companies.



And that’s despite billions being spent on diversity training, new hiring models and anti-bias algorithms.



Having lived through and led many cultural change programs, I’m not surprised. It is ridiculously hard to try and change human behavior.



And HR-led diversity initiatives are trying to fix behaviors that have become systemic and entrenched over decades. I don’t know if these behaviors were created by genetics or the persistent pre-teen brainwashing about what our respective roles in society should be.



I do know that unwinding behaviors, that have developed with 20-plus years of application prior to even entering the workforce, is always going to be a tough ask for any HR team, no matter how right, how passionate, and how resourced.



Depressing as this may be, I am still incredibly upbeat about the possibilities opening up for female leaders to do incredible things over the next decade.



But this change will not come because the incumbent male leaders have an epiphany about the benefits of diversity. It will be driven by organizations changing in a way that aligns better to diversified leadership.



And the good news is this transformation has already started.



Over the last decade, we have seen more and more examples of companies that focus on “doing good”, outperforming their profit-at-all-cost competitors. Case study after case study has shown how purpose-led companies have happier customers, more engaged employees and better support from their investors.



Patagonia, as one example, has cemented its place as a premium outdoor brand by focusing on using business to save the planet.



Thousands of other companies are now seeking accreditation from organizations like the US Based B-Corp, to showcase how they are using business to benefit people, communities and the planet.n(If you know Ben &amp; Jerry’s or Lemonade, they are both registered B-Corps.) 



And listed companies are also facing more pressure from institutional investors to apply the United Nations-led Sustainable Development Goals. BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink has written regularly about how he is more likely to invest in businesses that make “a positive contribution to society”.



So the shift from “for-profit” looks to have momentum. This will obviously challenge those incumbents that have a symbiotic relationship between the CEO’s bonuses and shareholder returns, as purposeful organizations have more complex and ambiguous environments to manage.



This might mean taking the hard decisions not to operate in oppressive jurisdictions, accelerating the switch to renewables or doubling junior pay.



Bad for bonuses. Good for the planet.



Managing these trade-offs will require conviction, courage and curiosity, because there is no playbook for this new model.



And that is precisely why the opportunity for female leaders is better than ever before.



This new-styled leadership model is not male-dominated and females are already trailblazing in these somewhat unchartered waters.



Take Indra Nooyi for example. As PepsiCo’s CEO prior to 2018, she introduced “performance with purpose”, sold off a profitable set of food brands that didn’t align with her vision and made significant inroads in rebalancing the portfolio towards healthier, more sustainable food and drink offerings.



Transformation stories from leaders like Nooyi demonstrate why purpose is a more powerful motivator than profit, and how curious and courageous female leaders can drive transformation programs that benefit society as a whole. So, there is real opportunity for women in this new leadership paradigm. And we, as in society as a whole, really need them now to help transform business into a force for good, that can improve lives and save our planet.



This requires radical change. And diversity will be a critical step in achieving this.



The writer curates thought leadership events that help executive teams transform their organizations; visit coliniles.com

Working Late. Young woman, architect working late in office

Business Models Are Changing. Why It’s Good For Women

Flora Duffy, gold medallist in the women’s triathlon at the last Olympics in Tokyo, is determined to repeat the feat again next year. 



The mountains that surround Stellenbosch are a veritable paradise for sportspeople, offering the perfect challenge for both serious and recreational trainers.



And there is no shortage of takers. Any day, and throughout the daylight hours, the roads around the town heading up either the Drakenstein, Jonkershoek, Simonsberg or Stellenbosch mountains are filled with cyclists and runners.



For part of the year, among their number is Flora Duffy, gold medallist in the women’s triathlon at the last Olympics in Tokyo and determined to repeat the feat again next year.



The name of the 35-year-old might not immediately jump out at followers of South African sport and there is a good reason why.



Duffy hails from Bermuda, as far as you can get from the Cape winelands on the tip of the southern African continent. The tiny island lies some 1,000km off the US into the Atlantic and is a British overseas territory, renowned more for its pink beaches and the semi-formal knee length short pants.



She is royalty on the island; their only ever gold medallist and most famous sports person.



She ran to glory in the rain, having swum churning seas, and cycled in the wet before surging away from the field in Tokyo for a triumph that was decades in the making. Duffy has been an aspiring triathlete from before her 10th birthday and was competing at her fourth Olympics, having first gone to Beijing in 2008 at the age of 21.



She had paid her dues on the international triathlon circuit, winning the first of four world championships in 2016, and meeting fellow triathlete, South African Dan Hugo, who had success also on the world tour. The two married in 2017, and he has since become her coach and manager and hence the Stellenbosch connection.



“Stellenbosch has played a very big role in my preparations every single year. This is my 10th summer here,” Duffy tells FORBES AFRICA at her home in the quiet suburbs, where she starts her pre-season training which this year is very much focused on the defence of her Olympic title in just over 12 months’ time.



“A lot of people locally have really helped me, whether it&#8217;s to train with me or to help with a bit of coaching medically. Yeah, I have a really great team here. So when I come back in December/January, I can slot right back in and I have this community that&#8217;s very supportive.



“And yeah, there were are crucial people that have played important roles on my journey, building up towards Tokyo. So when I came back here, after Tokyo, there was some very meaningful people that I wanted to show the medal to and celebrate with,” says Duffy, engaging, affable and welcoming when FORBES AFRICA comes to visit.



The Olympic medal might have been a dream from early but Duffy admits the reaction to it – particularly on her island – was way more than she anticipated.



“I couldn&#8217;t believe how much. I planned so much about the race in Tokyo and performing my best to win. I never thought about the after and what it would mean to so many people in Bermuda, I just did not think of that all through,” he explains.



“So my world felt like it changed in an instant. And it was incredible to see the response and see how meaningful and how impactful winning Bermuda’s first-ever gold medal was to everyone back home. It was incredibly special and it felt like it was more than just this sport. And I think that&#8217;s a really powerful place to be.



“In some ways, being Olympic champion does change your life. But then I think my daily life is still the same thing. At the beginning of the season, I&#8217;m quite unfit. I turn up to training and I get hammered in the pool. And I&#8217;m like, ‘oh yeah, I am the Olympic champion but I&#8217;m also just a normal human in a way’.”



But Duffy wants to be anything but normal come July next year in Paris when she defends her gold.



“After winning in Tokyo, the start of the 2022 season was pretty tricky for me because I think for the first time I was sort of hit with, ‘well, why am I doing this? What now, I&#8217;ve achieved my biggest goal?’ And here I’m still training. So I really had to rethink it and kind of reframe why I&#8217;m still doing it.



“But then there&#8217;s this other part of me that obviously loves the Olympics, I&#8217;m still doing well, I&#8217;m still enjoying it for the most part. And being in Tokyo, everything went perfectly from a race point of view. But I didn&#8217;t have my friends, my family, my sponsors, that sort of Olympic experience, because of all the COVID protocols that were in place,” Duffy adds.



“So that&#8217;s really a big motivation, to go back to Paris and to have everyone there, almost regardless of the outcome, just to see it as sort of a celebration of my career, getting to race at the Olympics, as a defending champion in front of everybody.”

IMG_5443

From Being Bermuda’s First-Ever Olympic Triathlete Champion To Celebrating Success In A South African Wine Town

75| FORMER JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT OF KENYA AND PRESIDING JUDGE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC) AT THE HAGUE| KENYA



By Marie Shabaya



A trailblazer in many respects, the esteemed Lady Justice Joyce Aluoch carries her title with grace. After a long judicial career that spanned over four decades, she has now taken on a new set of challenges including a career in high-level mediation running in parallel with an assignment to reform the judiciary of South Sudan; Africa’s youngest nation.



“I remember that I wasn’t terribly convinced [to take on this role]…I had never been to Juba. I had never been to South Sudan. I knew it was going to be challenging. This is a country that has been in conflict for a long time and this is a government in transition,” she explains.



For much of her career, the Lady Justice has been presiding over some of the continent’s most definitive legal decisions, particularly during her nineyear term as a judge on the bench at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague. In order to serve one of the highest benches in the world, candidates must be nominated by their governments. 



For the Lady Justice, her appointment was a matter of fate.



“As if fate would have it, the candidate who had been nominated [for the role]…his name had been sent to The Hague and also to New York and nominations had been closed. Come September of the same year, nominations were open [again] because Asia Pacific had not sent names. It was during that brief opening that things happened. The original candidate [from Kenya] whose name had been sent was withdrawn and my name was substituted.”



As a presiding judge at the ICC, the Lady Justice was assigned to cases related to war crimes in Darfur, the post-election civil war in the Ivory Coast, and the case of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi; son of the late Muammar al Gaddafi of Libya. Off the bench, the Lady Justice has served on a number of pivotal committees including an appointment as the First Chairperson of the Committee of African Union Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child as well as being the Vice-Chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child from 2003 to 2009.



Now in her seventh decade, the work continues. A life-long love of learning and curiosity keeps her going, she admits. It has also supported the longevity of her career in the law and allowed to serve on a diversity of cases and assignments.



“By the time I retired from The Hague, I had served as magistrate and judge for a total of 44 years. Some opportunities will knock on your door but not all opportunities. Most opportunities you have to look out for,” she advises

50over50 images2

Lady Justice Joyce Aluoch: “I KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE CHALLENGING. THIS IS A COUNTRY THAT HAS BEEN IN CONFLICT FOR A LONG TIME…”

Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions, published in 1988, was the first English novel in print by a black woman from Zimbabwe. She is a playwright, novelist, and filmmaker. Her novel in 2018, This Mournable Body, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.



“I would like people to know that personal redemption is possible, even under the worst circumstances,” she says about her latest novel to FORBES AFRICA. She says there’s a feeling that poverty dehumanizes in a way that is unrecoverable, but she believes that the “human thing is not given by the world, it is something we bring into the world when we are born”.



Dangarembga was arrested in Harare in 2021 for protesting against corruption – the same year in which she was awarded the PEN International Award for Freedom of Expression. In 2021, she was also the recipient of the Peace Prize – the first black woman to receive it. In 2022, after an arduous legal process, she was convicted in a Zimbabwean court of inciting public violence, as she and one other person displayed a placard asking for reform on a public road.



Dangerembga has done more than write: she has made a successful, if difficult, foray into filmmaking. After completing her degree, she found a job as a researcher at a video unity in the mid-1980s. She enjoyed the process, and after the unit closed, applied to film school.



She eventually founded Nyerai Films in 1992, the International Images Film Festival for Women (IIFF) in the Director of the Women Filmmakers in Zimbabwe, set up and became the Director of the Institute of Creative Arts for Progress in Africa (ICAPA) Trust in 2009. Dangarembga noticed that funding was given for films that problematize Africans rather than seeing Africans as agents with aspirations. She says this is self-defeating, and something she is concerned about.



The ICAPA Trust does content, training, exhibition and networking events. Dangarembga says they’ve had their ups and downs with funding. She is still looking, and still hoping Zimbabwe’s film industry will grow. She has made 21 short films, shown them internationally and locally, and received awards.



In 2020, she was announced as the University of East Anglia’s inaugural International Chair of Creative Writing, received an honorary fellowship of Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge, and in 2022, was selected to receive a Windham-Campbell literary prize for fiction.



Her advice to young filmmakers and writers? “Persevere, you simply have to find a way to persevere.”

Screenshot 2023-02-18 at 11.13.51

Tsitsi Dangarembga: ‘I Would Like People To Know That Personal Redemption Is Possible’

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



The number of top-grossing movies starring women and women of color increased slightly last year, according to <a href="https://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/aii-inequality-1600-films-20230216.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">an annual study</a> released Thursday from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at USC, but the number of films starring people of color decreased.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



Of the 100 top-earning domestic movies released in 2022, 44% featured female-identified actors in leading or co-leading roles, compared to 41% that did in 2021—under the 50% of the U.S. population women make up.



This is an improvement from 2007, when just 20% of the top 100 movies had women in leading or co-leading roles.



Of those same 100 films, 29% featured an actor from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group in a leading or co-leading role, down from 32% in 2021 but up from 13% in 2007, and notably below the 40.7% that these groups make up in the U.S. population.



The largest increase was for women of color: 16 of the top 100 movies in 2022 featured a woman of color in a leading role, up from the 11 that did in 2021; two movies also featured nonbinary actors in leading or co-leading roles.



Women over the age of 45 starred in 10 of the top films last year, compared to 35 movies that featured men in this age group in leading roles.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h2>



31%. That’s how many of the top 100 films per year since 2007—1,600 in total—starred a woman or girl.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Women and people of color have historically been excluded from leading roles in films, as well as in the director’s chair. In 2015, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite went viral, when the Academy—whose&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vox.com/22332389/oscars-academy-diversity-membership-2021" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">voting members</a>&nbsp;were overwhelmingly white—nominated 20 white actors for its honors. The creator of the movement, April Reign, wrote for&nbsp;<a href="https://variety.com/2020/film/news/oscarssowhite-nominations-diversity-april-reign-1203467389/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Variety</a>in 2020 that she has often received pushback along the lines of: “Well, there just weren’t enough diverse films to nominate.” And while people of color are still underrepresented, there has been progress, making their exclusion from awards shows a noticeable problem. “When we have this wealth of talent in front of and behind the camera, and they are still not recognized by what is considered the pinnacle in the industry, then we need to take a closer examination” of the Academy and the industry, Reign wrote. In 2018, Natalie Portman made headlines when she called out the “all-male nominees” when presenting the Golden Globe for Best Director. The Oscars did not nominate any women in its Best Directing category this year.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



“The pace of industry change is certainly not a breakneck one,” the Annenberg study said. “The advocacy and activism that may have fueled change in the mid- to late-2010s may have had a short-term impact, but more is needed to achieve lasting improvement.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h2>



Some of the 2022 films led by women of color included&nbsp;Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,&nbsp;Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,&nbsp;Nope,&nbsp;Scream,&nbsp;Everything Everywhere All At Once&nbsp;and&nbsp;The Woman King. These performances were awarded at last month’s Golden Globes, where winners included Michelle Yeoh (Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy) and Angela Bassett (Best Actress in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture), who were both also nominated for Oscars.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2023/01/10/golden-globes-2023-abbott-elementary-the-banshees-of-inisherin-win-big/?sh=bd44b0d59c58">Golden Globes 2023: ‘Abbott Elementary,’ ‘The Banshees Of Inisherin’ Win Big</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="http://forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2023/01/24/oscar-nominations-2023everything-everywhere-all-at-once-leads-pack/?sh=282621a435e2">Oscar Nominations 2023: ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ Leads Pack</a> (Forbes)



By Marisa Dellatto, Forbes Africa

European Premiere of Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”

More Top Films Starred Women Of Color In 2022, Study Shows

67| CHAIR, INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE (IOC) ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS| SOUTH AFRICA



In 2022, Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka took home the FORBES WOMAN AFRICA Lifetime Achievement Award at the 7th annual Leading Women Summit. The former UN Women Executive Director’s recent appointment as the Chairperson of The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Advisory Committee on Human Rights is just one example of how success has no age limit.



“Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka has devoted her career to issues of human rights, equality, and social justice, and her experience will help the IOC enhance respect for human rights across our three spheres of responsibility,” said IOC President Thomas Bach in a December statement after her appointment.



Mlambo-Ngcuka was born in Clermont, a township of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, which housed multiple notable residents like Nonkululeko Nyembezi-Heita (chairperson of the Standard Bank Group), actor Muzi Mthabela and former anti-apartheid activist Eric Mtshali.



Having attended schools in KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, and England, the start of Mlambo-Ngcuka&#8217;s illustrious career began in the 1980s when she started at some of the world&#8217;s largest organizations in Geneva, to take up the position as the coordinator at World YWCA, where she established a global program for young women.



“I owe most of my breakthroughs to supportive and tough leadership of both men and women who assigned me to take up roles I learned a lot from,” Mlambo-Ngcuka says to FORBES AFRICA.



She was in Geneva from 1984 to 1989 and then returned to South Africa where she spearheaded TEAM in Cape Town, an ecumenical organization that focused on upskilling women, and where she was held to a high standard as a leader in the women&#8217;s movement, especially in the fight against apartheid.



“These were leaders who were both inspiring and they set the bar high and gave support when I faced challenges.”



Mlambo-Ngcuka has dedicated her career to “issues of human rights, equality and social justice, with a specific emphasis on gender and youth development”. In a 2022 interview with Global Citizen, she reflected about being part of the apartheid regime as a young South African activist which is why she has so much respect for young people fighting for equal opportunities today.



“[Young people] will take whatever steps necessary to achieve their objectives,” Mlambo-Ngcuka told Global Citizen. “&#8230;This is where you can see that it is really necessary to open up and allow young people to play the role they want to play in providing leadership and solutions in society.”



Her political career in South Africa also consisted of her working “tirelessly” to build and create policies and programs to diminish inequality, which began in 1994 when she became a member of the first democratically-elected South African Parliament. In 2005, she became the first woman to hold the position of Deputy President, the highest-ranking female political leader in the history of South Africa.



According to the University of the Witwatersrand, located in one of South Africa’s biggest economic hubs; Johannesburg, her 2005 appointment as the country’s first female Deputy President was not “only a win for women but it paved the way for sharper policies to unlock bottlenecks that suppressed economic growth”.



Mlambo-Ngcuka was happy to see change.



“Men are still dominating in most fields,” Mlambo-Ngcuka says. “Change is slow and it will not be permanent if we don&#8217;t focus on making it permanent.”



In data released by the World Bank showing the proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments for South Africa was only 33% in 2008. In 2021, that number rose to 47%, making South Africa the second-highest in having female members in parliament, Rwanda being the first with 61%.



“As women get into decision-making in parliaments, private sector boards, civil society,” Mlambo-Ngcuka further tells FORBES AFRICA, “they must ensure policies and special measures that promote women and sustain those roles. Ensure women gain irreversible momentum.



“Younger women have to keep rising and taking up space. The older good men and women must provide a support system, offer them opportunities and continuous push. Education in this context is critical but education alone is not enough; own drive and support are necessary. Young women must never forget the importance of sisterhood and organizing.”



In 2021, after completing her term as United Nations’ (UN) Under Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, her colleagues and friends bid her farewell describing her as a visionary inter-generational champion.



But this not mean slowing down in any way for Mlambo-Ngcuka as she continues to be engaged and affiliated with organizations committed to education, women empowerment, and gender equality.



“In 50 years, we should not be talking about female leaders, we should just be talking about leaders.” Mlambo-Ngcuka concludes. There should be a representation of women at higher echelons as a norm.



Both men and women should play an equal role in leadership with no spotlight on women. This is what we are working towards.”


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<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/lists/2023/02/14/50-over-50-success-at-every-age/">For the full 50 Over 50 List </a>

Untitled

Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka: ‘I Owe Most Of My Breakthroughs To The Supportive And Tough Leadership of Both Men and Women’

INTRODUCING FORBES AFRICA’S 50 OVER 50 LIST – OUR FIRST- EVER COMPILATION OF 50 WOMEN OVER THE AGE OF 50 SCALING NEWER HEIGHTS AND INSPIRING THE NEXT CADRE OF LEADERSHIP ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT. AGE IS JUST A NUMBER FOR THEM AND RETIREMENT NOT AN OPTION OR THE END OF THE ROAD, AS THEY CONTINUE TO POWER THEIR WAY INTO HISTORY BOOKS AND THE HEARTS OF AFRICANS. FROM BUSINESS TYCOONS TO TECHNOCRATS, FOUNDERS TO C-SUITE EXECUTIVES, AND ACTIVISTS TO ENTERTAINERS, THEY HAVE BROKEN BARRIERS THROUGHOUT THEIR IMPACTFUL CAREERS, AND TAKEN UP SPACES TO ENSURE OTHERS HAVE A VOICE IN THOSE VERY SPACES AND BEYOND. READ ON: THE SENIOR-MOST CHANGE-MAKER ON THIS LIST IS 98 AND STILL UNSTOPPABLE!



By Chanel Retief, Lillian Roberts and Marie Shabaya – With inputs from West Africa by Peace Hyde



We are in 2023 talking about mainstreaming electric cars, virtual reality, drone deliveries and space travel.



Sure, NASA is talking about landing a woman on the moon by 2024, but back on earth, gender disparity is still a norm, a discussion point, an unfinished business. As it has been for a long time And sadly, as reports suggest, as it will remain.



The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2022 states that the gender gap globally has been closed by 68.1%, but at the current rate of progress, it will take another 132 years to reach full parity.



The statistics speak. But so do generations of women wanting the needle to move, faster.



Although no country has yet achieved full gender parity, the top 10 economies have closed at least 80% of their gender gaps, with Iceland (90.8%) leading the global ranking. The only sub-Saharan African countries to make the top 10 in narrowing the gender gap are Rwanda (81.1%, 6th) and Namibia (80.7%, 8th).



In an analysis by the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), their gender parity index (GPI) report showed that 30 (66.67%) countries have increased gender parity while 15 (33.33%) have decreased gender parity. For ACCORD, this is an average increase for the continent when comparing the gender gap between 2013 and 2021.



But even with these figures, the reality is that women in Africa make a sizeable contribution to the continent’s informal and formal economies. The African Development Bank (AfDB) in its Empowering African Women report states that women on the continent are “more economically active as farmers and entrepreneurs than women in any other region of the world. It is the women who grow most of Africa’s food, and who own one-third of all businesses”.



But yet, the well-entrenched stereotypes and conditioning have been hard to break.



Says Nonkululeko Gobodo, Chief Executive Officer at AWAKENED Global and better known as South Africa’s first black female chartered accountant, in an interview with FORBES AFRICA: “Because these topics [racial and gender inequalities] are so embedded in history, we are so confused by this history that has defined who black people are and who women are that we’ve been unable to break free from [them]. I call them myths, because whatever people believe about women or black people are just really myths that were created.”



Milestones were hard won, particularly for this generation that had to also look past historical hardships, as they powered on.



“My parents lost everything, including all their life savings because they were on the Biafran side,” Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the first woman and first African to lead the World Trade Organization as Director-General, said in FORBES AFRICA’s December 2020-January 2021 issue when she won African of the Year. “I was eating one meal a day and children were dying. So, I learned to live very frugally. I often say I can sleep on a mud floor as well as a feathered bed and be very comfortable. It has made me someone who can do without things in life because of what we went through.”



The AfDB report shows that while African women work 50% longer hours than men, the pay gap between men and women is still very wide.



But this has not swayed the fairer sex to give up on their goals.



“I am in full of admiration for women all over the African continent,” Okonjo-Iweala said at the 2021 FORBES WOMAN AFRICA Leading Women Summit for the closing keynote address. “Our priorities for African governments make sure girls are in school getting an education.”



Winnie Byanyima, the Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, wrote in her column for FORBES AFRICA’s 10th anniversary issue in 2021: “Woman leaders, particularly young women, when given space to share their creativity, will show how to build societies able to overcome any crisis and to unleash the potential of all.”



“I’ve always viewed myself not as a woman but as a human being,” Professor Quarraisha Abdool Karim, renowned South African AIDS researcher, tells us. “And what is it that I want to contribute to leaving the world as a better place. And what is it that I can do to enhance our lives and ensure a sustainable future.”



This is what spells success for these 50 powerhouses on our 50 Over 50 list.



Each of them has taken the time to ensure a foundation has already been built for their successors to further build on.



In 2020, at the helm of a new decade, FORBES WOMAN AFRICA ran a list of Africa’s 50 Most Powerful Women; those challenging the status quo and paving the way where there was none.



There are many formidable personalities from that list you will find on these pages too; from Wendy Luhabe to Wendy Appelbaum to Wendy Ackerman and Angélique Kidjo to Arunma Oteh to Amina J Mohammed, you will find them here, amongst several new names too from across the African continent.



“There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise,” says Louisa Mojela, the CEO of WIPHOLD in South Africa, aptly.



No matter their work in entrepreneurship, entertainment, investment, activism or philanthropy, this 2023 edition is a befitting list of respected change-makers to honor International Woman’s Day on March 8 (which is also when the eighth instalment of the FORBES WOMAN AFRICA Leading Women Summit will be held in Pretoria, South Africa).



“I think everyday should be a day celebrating women and what women achieve,” says Wendy Ackerman, Founder and Honorary Life President of Pick n Pay Stores.



“Because everyday is a miracle what we do achieve. I watch my daughters and I watch the other women around me. In the company, I’ve watched how women have risen through the ranks, and educated themselves while working. I really believe that we should all celebrate women, and protect them.”



Here’s presenting Africa’s inter-generational female champions.



 Editor’s Note: The list follows no particular order



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Name </td><td>Age</td><td>Country </td><td>Title</td></tr><tr><td>Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka</td><td>67</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Chair, International Olympic Committee (IOC) Advisory Committee on Human Rights</td></tr><tr><td>Nolitha Fakude</td><td>55</td><td>South Africa</td><td>President, Minerals Council South Africa and Group Director, Anglo-American plc</td></tr><tr><td>Dr Helena Ndume</td><td>62</td><td>Namibia </td><td>Head, Ophthalmology Department at Windhoek Central Hospital</td></tr><tr><td>Tsitsi Dangarembga</td><td>63</td><td>Zimbabwe</td><td>Author, Playwright and Filmmaker</td></tr><tr><td>Juliet Ehimuan</td><td>50+</td><td>Nigeria</td><td>Country Director, GoogleChief Justice Martha Koome</td></tr><tr><td>Chief Justice Martha Koome</td><td>63</td><td>Kenya</td><td>15th Chief Justice of the Republic of Kenya, President of the Supreme Court of Kenya</td></tr><tr><td>Dr Victoria Kisyombe</td><td>50+</td><td>Tanzania</td><td>Founder and CEO, Selfina</td></tr><tr><td>Dr Agnes Kalibata</td><td>50+</td><td>Rwanda</td><td>President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), Policymaker and Agricultural Scientist</td></tr><tr><td>Folorunso Alakija</td><td>71</td><td>Nigeria</td><td>Managing Director, Rose of Sharon Group</td></tr><tr><td>Louise Mushikiwabo</td><td>62</td><td>Rwanda</td><td>Secretary General, Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie</td></tr><tr><td>Dr Matshidiso Moeti</td><td>69</td><td>Botswana</td><td>Regional Director, World Health Organization Africa|</td></tr><tr><td>Wendy Luhabe</td><td>65</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Social Entrepreneur</td></tr><tr><td>Arunma Oteh</td><td>50+</td><td>Nigeria</td><td>Chair, Royal African Society, Former Treasurer and Vice President of the World Bank</td></tr><tr><td>Nomhle Maggie Mliswa</td><td>58</td><td>Zimbabwe</td><td>CEO, Summerhill Farms</td></tr><tr><td>Graça Machel</td><td>77</td><td>Mozambique-South Africa</td><td>Founder and Chair of the Board for the Graça Machel Trust, Co-founder and Deputy Chair, The Elders</td></tr><tr><td>Irene Charnley</td><td>62</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Chair, Gibela Rail Transport Consortium</td></tr><tr><td>Nonkululeko Nyembezi-Heita</td><td>62</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Chair, Standard Bank Group and Standard Bank of South Africa</td></tr><tr><td>Alda Salomão</td><td>50+</td><td>Mozambique</td><td>Environmental Lawyer, Human Rights Activist, Land Specialist</td></tr><tr><td>Olajumoke Adenowo</td><td>54</td><td>Nigeria</td><td>Founder, AD Consulting</td></tr><tr><td>Zipporah Kittony</td><td>80</td><td>Kenya</td><td>Former Chairperson, Maendeleo ya Wanawake and Veteran Politician</td></tr><tr><td>Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala</td><td>68</td><td>Nigeria</td><td>Director-General, World Trade Organization</td></tr><tr><td>Grace Onyango</td><td>98</td><td>Kenya</td><td>Veteran Female Politician</td></tr><tr><td>Dr Frannie Léautier</td><td>50+</td><td>Tanzania</td><td>CEO, SouthBridge Investments</td></tr><tr><td>Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa</td><td>52</td><td>South Africa</td><td>CEO, Naspers South Africa</td></tr><tr><td>Amina J Mohammed</td><td>61</td><td>Nigeria</td><td>Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations</td></tr><tr><td>Dr Precious Moloi-Motsepe</td><td>58</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Co-Founder and CEO, Motsepe Foundation and Founder and Executive Chair, African Fashion International</td></tr><tr><td>Connie Ferguson</td><td>52</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Actress, Filmmaker and Co-Founder, Ferguson Films</td></tr><tr><td>Wendy Ackerman</td><td>60+</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Founder and Honorary Life President, Pick n Pay Stores</td></tr><tr><td>Professor Quarraisha Abdool Karim</td><td>63</td><td>South Africa</td><td>President, UNESCO-TWAS, Professor in Clinical Epidemiology, Columbia University and Vice-Chancellor for African Health, University of KwaZulu-Natal</td></tr><tr><td>Jennifer Karina</td><td>64</td><td>Kenya </td><td>Board and Governance Expert, Founder and CEO, Anchor Relationship Network</td></tr><tr><td>Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</td><td>84</td><td>Liberia</td><td>First Female President of Liberia, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate</td></tr><tr><td>Flora Mutahi</td><td>50+</td><td>Kenya</td><td>Founder and CEO, Melvin Marsh International</td></tr><tr><td>Ibukun Awosika</td><td>61</td><td>Nigeria</td><td>Founder and Chief Executive Officer, The Chair Centre Group</td></tr><tr><td>Lydia Nsekera</td><td>55</td><td>Burundi</td><td>Chair, International Olympic Committee for Gender Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion</td></tr><tr><td>Magda Wierzycka</td><td>54 </td><td>South Africa</td><td>Founder and Executive Chairperson, Sygnia</td></tr><tr><td>Judy Dlamini</td><td>63</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Founder and Chairperson, Mbekani Group</td></tr><tr><td>Dr Jennifer Riria</td><td>50+</td><td>Kenya</td><td>Veteran Women’s Rights Campaigner, Founder and CEO, Echo Network Africa</td></tr><tr><td>Catherine Wijnberg</td><td>64</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Founder, Fetola</td></tr><tr><td>Nonkululeko Gobodo</td><td>62</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Co-Founder, SNG Grant Thornton</td></tr><tr><td>Louisa Mojela</td><td>60+</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Co-Founder, WIPHOLD</td></tr><tr><td>Thuli Madonsela</td><td>60</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Advocate and Professor of Law</td></tr><tr><td>Lady Justice Joyce Aluoch</td><td>75</td><td>Kenya</td><td>Former Judge of the High Court of Kenya and Presiding Judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague</td></tr><tr><td>Wendy Appelbaum</td><td>62</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Entrepreneur, Founder, DeMorgenzon Wine Estate</td></tr><tr><td>Nokugcina Elsie Mhlophe</td><td>64</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Storyteller, Writer, Playwright, Director</td></tr><tr><td>Chileshe Kapwepwe</td><td>64</td><td>Zambia</td><td>Secretary General, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)</td></tr><tr><td>Professor Glenda Gray</td><td>60</td><td>South Africa </td><td>President, South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC)</td></tr><tr><td>Connie Chiume</td><td>70</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Actress and Filmmaker|</td></tr><tr><td>Angélique Kidjo</td><td>62</td><td>Benin</td><td>Five-Time Grammy Winner, Singer-Songwriter, Actress and Activist</td></tr><tr><td>Rebecca Enonchong</td><td>55</td><td>Cameroon </td><td>Founder and CEO, AppsTech|</td></tr><tr><td>Yvonne Chaka Chaka</td><td>57</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Singer, Songwriter, Actress, Entrepreneur and Humanitarian</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



To read the full feature,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/product/forbes-africa/">subscribe to Forbes Africa</a>&nbsp;or download the issue&nbsp;<a href="https://shop.forbesafrica.com/product/single-digital-issue-feb-mar-2023/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here.</a>

The 50 Over 50 List Of Africa’s Female Powerhouses: Success At Every Age

Africa shone in Washington this past week, as the US wooed African heads of state at the US-Africa Leaders Summit underlining the continent’s significance and committing to invest in its future with renewed vigor. What’s next? More in this exclusive FORBES AFRICA interview.



The United States demonstrated the big Africa push with commitments to support Africa’s inclusive growth at the US-Africa Leaders Summit held last week in Washington DC.



At the US-Africa Business Forum, President Joe Biden said the US is “all in on Africa’s future” and called it “another historic summit”. As many as 49 African heads of state attended and business deals worth a reported $15 billion were signed during the forum.



The last time this summit was held was eight years ago under the Obama-Biden administration.



The Biden-Harris administration now plans to invest at least $55 billion in Africa over the next three years, and is recasting traditional US policy priorities.



After signing a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation for Trade and Investment between the US and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) with the Secretary General of the AfCFTA Secretariat, Wamkele Mene, during the US-Africa Business Forum, US Trade Representative, Ambassador Katherine Tai, said: “The future is Africa – for the United States and global economy. Africa’s significance is undeniable… The Biden-Harris administration recognizes that it is impossible to meet today’s challenges on trade without African contributions and leadership, and our support of the AfCFTA is part and parcel of this…



“But our work together will be an inclusive undertaking, requiring active participation from African Union member states, Regional Economic Communities, diaspora, SMEs, women-owned businesses, young entrepreneurs, workers and civil society groups.”



More from an interview during the December 13-15 summit with Constance Hamilton, the Assistant US Trade Representative for Africa, Office of the United States Trade Representative, who also oversees the administration’s implementation of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA):


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignleft size-full is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Constance-Hamilton-image-credit-Office-of-the-United-States-Trade-Representative-Executive-Office-of-the-President.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-57172" width="375" height="375" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Constance-Hamilton-image-credit-Office-of-the-United-States-Trade-Representative-Executive-Office-of-the-President.jpg 240w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Constance-Hamilton-image-credit-Office-of-the-United-States-Trade-Representative-Executive-Office-of-the-President-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes="(max-width: 375px) 100vw, 375px" /><figcaption>Constance Hamilton, image credit US Department of State</figcaption></figure></div>


Q. It’s Africa in the United States, with heads of state visiting from the continent. What is the sentiment you&#8217;re seeing right now about Africa?



A. There&#8217;s just a lot of optimism about the relationship, that we all have an interest in finding common ground so we can work better together [on] all the major issues facing not just Africa and the United States, but the world; everything from climate change to the war with Ukraine to all issues. I think that what this [summit] does is it brings together like-minded people to try to find solutions to some of the major problems in the world today. And so it&#8217;s a very good vibe right now. We had a big meeting to talk about the African Growth and Opportunity Act, they had an opportunity to engage with congressional members&#8230; both sides offered their views on what should happen, what&#8217;s worked, what didn&#8217;t work well in the program, and changes that they may want to think about going forward… it’s a lot of goodwill. I hope one of the things this meeting does is reinforce the importance of Africa to America. I think that&#8217;s a very good thing.



Q. It’s good to see the narrative shifting, because we always hear about Africa needing aid, but people not really talking about working together with Africa. Do you see big collaborations coming together?



A. Absolutely. I mean, even countries that are facing challenges, as Ambassador Tai has articulated many, many times is that we do believe in growth from the bottom up, so that [for] those who are marginalized, those who are not seeing any benefits and trade, that we come up with policies and plans to make sure that they do, that they are part of the success story. There are a lot of conversations about how we work together both as a group, and individually in each of the countries we talk to; how do we work together to do better.



Q. There are smaller countries that don&#8217;t receive the kind of attention from the world that the bigger economies perhaps receive, and they have their peace and security issues and are conflict-ridden. How you engaging specifically with some of the smaller emerging markets on the continent?



A. One thing I would say about that is the way my office is structured, every country, whether they&#8217;re big or small, is important to what we&#8217;re doing. So whether you&#8217;re a tiny island nation, whether you&#8217;re Nigeria or South Africa, we pay attention to you… we pay attention to all the criteria, we look at each country to make sure that they are meeting the criteria. And we get very specific. So when there are challenges, we reach out to find out where we can find the assistance to help them address some of their problems. We use USAID and some of the other agencies within the US government to make sure that we can identify resources that we can point in their direction. So it&#8217;s not just about providing aid, it&#8217;s also providing assistance for them to do what they want to do.



Q. With the AfCFTA aiming for a single market, how are you capitalizing on that opportunity?



A. One of the things that happened at this meeting, was Ambassador Tai and Secretary-General Mene from the AfCFTA Secretariat find a memorandum of understanding, laying out a plan for us to work with the African Union Secretariat, to help them implement and negotiate new protocols on the AfCFTA. We definitely want to be a partner in that, we see the importance of it; we&#8217;ve been supporting regional integration on the continent for decades. So we know the importance of this. We also understand the challenge. I mean, you think about 55 nations, we know that the borders are thick, you know that it&#8217;s difficult for goods to move, we know that there&#8217;s some transportation and trade facilitation issues. This is an opportunity to work with the Secretariat and with the members to figure out a path forward.



Q. Moving to Africa’s greater integration into the global economy, what does the world think of Africa&#8217;s investment climate at the moment? How are you mobilizing the power of the business community there to invest into Africa?



A. I think that where Africa and African nations can really benefit from this whole move towards globalization is by getting into value and supply chains, where they have strength to do that. I think that&#8217;s one of the things when we talk about the AfCFTA, when we talk about AGOA, when we talk to countries about improving their investment climate so that investors aren&#8217;t just interested and taking out raw materials, they&#8217;re interested in joint ventures or putting up manufacturing facilities&#8230; I do think that there is, especially with AGOA, that allows countries from other partners to produce manufactured goods. I think that there&#8217;s a way forward on that. One of the issues we&#8217;ll be looking at is how to bring African countries more into value and supply chain.



Q. What about catalyzing private sector partnerships?



A. It’s always a part of what we&#8217;re trying to do, part of the AGOA forum that we&#8217;ll have in South Africa in 2023. We hope to bring a large US private sector contingent so they can see what Africa offers. And they can also talk about joint ventures and other investment opportunities. That&#8217;s always part of our idea. The governments can’t do it, trade happens from private sectors. And so getting our companies, our SMEs, our women or youth-oriented enterprises to come to Africa, and see what they can do. That&#8217;s part of what we hope to encourage.



Q. This is a continent with countries that lack basic services such as power, health equity, food security, rule of law or democratic reforms. How are you going to accelerate progress in all of those areas?



A. It&#8217;s a big continent with a lot of countries, and each one has different issues. They don&#8217;t all have the same challenges. I think the key is to find out what are the challenges in a particular country and identify what we can do to assist. If they&#8217;re part of the AGOA family, that gives them a leg up, because there are things that we&#8217;re already doing to help them trade. If they&#8217;re not part of the AGOA family, we still care about their development, even when we take a country out of AGOA, part of the work is how do we get them back in? There are a lot of challenges on the continent, there are a lot of challenges in America, but these are all things I think that can be solved by working together.



Q. With the growing youth population on the continent, how are you engaging with these young minds, innovators and entrepreneurs in the startups ecosystem?



A. We know that a lot of the innovation in digital trade is coming from young people. But it&#8217;s not just the youth, it&#8217;s also women. When we had the African Women Entrepreneurship Program, which was a big part of AGOA, and I thought that this was one of the most exciting elements of what AGOA brought to the table because it allows these women to form their own chapters in the countries, and they help each other find employment opportunities or help their companies grow. And I think that the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) that started under President Barack Obama is also a way of identifying really bright, enterprising young people, and helping them get to where they want to go in terms of business. So I think there&#8217;s a lot that we&#8217;re doing already that supports not just women, but also youth. It&#8217;s hard for me to articulate all of the different initiatives that are out there, but I do think that there&#8217;s a lot that we&#8217;re doing to try to bring them into businesses so that they can follow their dreams.



It&#8217;s really important to have this kind of dialogue and meet face-to-face [at the summit]; it’s very important for relationships. I think that it&#8217;s a fantastic vibe. Next year, we hope to be in South Africa for an AGOA forum after [South Africa’s Minister of Trade and Industry] Ebrahim Patel said he&#8217;s looking forward to hosting everyone, and I&#8217;m looking forward to being there.

US-Africa Leaders Summit 2022, image credit Office of the United States Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President

$55 Billion And The Importance Of Africa To America

On December 6, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), a non-profit German organization with operations in South Africa, launched the Lindiwe Mabuza Space, a new conference facility, in the country.



The launch commemorated a year since the passing of Lindiwe Mabuza, the distinguished South African diplomat who died at the age of 83. An anti-apartheid activist, Mabuza went on to become a member of the first democratically-elected parliament of South Africa. She was also an academic, journalist and poet.



In attendance at the launch was Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, South Africa’s Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, also a former anti-apartheid activist.



As part of the program, group exercises were held where people posed answers to important problems of the day.



“We must be the change we want to see,” added Dlamini-Zuma to the discussion. When the group spoke of greater youth participation, she emphasized that women should be included.



Sebastian Sperling, resident director of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Johannesburg, spoke to FORBES AFRICA about how the new facility would be used.



“It’s a space for progressives to meet, develop ideas, engage on ideas, experiment, and talk to each other again – as we have felt today. And lastly, build alliances, overcome our divisions, especially in the progressive camps,” says Sperling.



The organization is a global network, and while they are working with South African partners, a big element of their work is creating links internationally, “because we need to organize across borders,” he says.



FES is advancing socio-political and economic development in the spirit of social democracy, through civic education, research, and international cooperation.

SAMSUNG CSC

Commemorating A South African Struggle Icon

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



French soccer referee Stéphanie Frappart will make history Thursday when she leads the first all-female refereeing trio in a men’s World Cup match—the latest in a series of records and tournament firsts happening in Qatar.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



Frappart will be joined by assistants Neuza Back from Brazil and Karen Diaz from Mexico to officiate the match between Costa Rica and Germany on Thursday,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/FIFAcom/status/1597670007735218176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1597670007735218176%7Ctwgr%5E4299cada349615949e65f39d6a25e1e07141ad5d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsports.yahoo.com%2Fworld-cup-2022-germany-vs-costa-rica-to-feature-historic-all-female-refereeing-crew-175316042.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">FIFA</a>&nbsp;announced this week.



During a match against Qatar last week, England’s 19-year-old&nbsp;<a href="https://news.sky.com/story/england-make-winning-start-to-world-cup-campaign-in-qatar-thrashing-iran-12752494" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jude Bellingham</a>&nbsp;became the first player born in the 21st century to score a goal in a World Cup match.



The Qatar tournament also features the first set of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fifa.com/fifaplus/en/articles/fifa-world-cup-2022-qatar-inaki-williams-nico-williams-spain-ghana" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">full siblings</a>&nbsp;to compete for different teams, with Iñaki Williams representing Ghana and his younger brother, Nico Williams, making his World Cup debut for Spain. (The Williams brothers were born in Spain to a Ghanaian father and Liberian mother, and Iñaki previously played for Spain.)



Canadian coach John Herdman is the first manager in World Cup history to have led both a men&#8217;s and a women&#8217;s team at the tournaments, having previously coached the New Zealand women’s team in the 2007 and 2011 women’s World Cups.



When Qatar lost to Ecuador last week, it was the first time in World Cup history that a host team lost their opening match.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



The Qatar World Cup is the first ever held in the Middle East, and the most expensive in the tournament’s history, with Qatar spending an estimated&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattcraig/2022/11/19/the-money-behind-the-most-expensive-world-cup-in-history-qatar-2022-by-the-numbers/?sh=7f2bbfddbff5">$220 billion</a>&nbsp;over the past decade to prepare, including constructing seven new stadiums in which to hold matches. Because of the hot Qatari climate, the tournament is also the first to be held in winter instead of the usual summer schedule, which has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sportingnews.com/uk/soccer/news/leagues-world-cup-2022-schedule-premier-league-la-liga-serie-a-ligue-1/dryqyalwdjryz31jhpx7n494" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">disrupted club lineups</a>&nbsp;in other countries. FIFA’s decision to hold the World Cup in Qatar has drawn controversy due to the country’s human rights record, and after&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/29/football/qatar-world-cup-migrant-worker-deaths-spt-intl/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">scores of migrant workers</a>&nbsp;died while working on World Cup-related construction projects. Qatar and FIFA officials have also been accused of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/11/18/1137204271/qatar-world-cup-controversies" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">bribery and corruption</a>&nbsp;in voting to hold the tournament in the country.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattcraig/2022/11/19/the-money-behind-the-most-expensive-world-cup-in-history-qatar-2022-by-the-numbers/?sh=7f2bbfddbff5">The Money Behind The Most Expensive World Cup In History: Qatar 2022 By The Numbers</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/11/30/heres-how-much-us-soccer-players-will-make-from-the-world-cup-based-on-stage-of-elimination/?sh=41ebbe0157b1">Here’s How Much U.S. Soccer Players Will Make From The World Cup Based On How Far They Go</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/11/29/us-beats-iran-advances-to-world-cup-round-of-16/?sh=740f18cd7e54">U.S. Beats Iran—Advances To World Cup Round Of 16</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



By Carlie Porterfield, Forbes Staff

Mexico v Poland: Group C – FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022

First All-Female Referee Team Planned For World Cup—Here Are The Other Records Set In Qatar

It is often said that women’s football will not develop and grow until teams are given more international fixtures to play, and Zambia’s Copper Queens are the shining example of this. One of their current stars is goal-scoring midfielder Ireen Lungu.



ZAMBIAN WOMEN’S FOOTBALL HAS SEEN A meteoric rise in the last 12 months, culminating in the country’s first-ever qualification for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup that will be staged in Australia and New Zealand.



The side is reaping the reward of their own hard work, but also the exposure they gained to the international stage when they managed to qualify for the Olympic Games held in Tokyo last year. It is often said that women’s football will not develop and grow until teams are given more international fixtures to play, and Zambia’s Copper Queens are the shining example of this. One of their current stars is goal-scoring midfielder Ireen



Lungu, who played every minute at the Olympics and followed that up by playing all six games as Zambia took the bronze medal at the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) and in doing so qualified for the World Cup.



She paints a picture of a side who were fearful to play on the international stage, but have gained confidence with every outing they have had.



“The Olympics was where it started, that experience we had, and we carried that into the WAFCON and gained even more from that tournament,” Lungu tells FORBES AFRICA.



“We came up against some great players and that took our confidence to another level again.



“But the Olympics’ experience was tough. Many of us had never played against white people before, but after the first game, where we lost 10-3 to Netherlands, that actually boosted our confidence. It sounds strange, but it did.



“We could see the level and felt that we could go higher ourselves. In every game after that we improved and that 



removed the fear we had from every player. It turned into a great tournament in terms of helping us to grow and improve.



“If I look at how we have progressed from before then, we sometimes struggled to display our best football but now we have a lot of players who have competed at the highest level.



“Everyone [back home] now wants to compete and be part of the national team, which makes for greater competition among players.”



That was not the only highlight for Zambian football. Lungu’s club Green Buffaloes recently qualified for the CAF Women’s Champions League in Morocco later this year, and in doing so beat current African champions Mamelodi Sundowns, who had a star-studded line-up.



It is yet more continental exposure for Zambian football.



“We were so happy to beat Mamelodi Sundowns, they are a good team with quality players compared to what our clubs have back in Zambia,” Lungu says. “That’s because in South Africa there are many sponsors [for women’s football] compared to what we have at home.



“That is starting to change, there is sponsorship coming in and now it is up to everyone to show that improvement and why corporates should invest in women’s football.”



Lungu says the changing face of the game in Zambia is pleasing, as is the multitude of opportunities offered to young girls compared to when she started out and was forced to play in boys’ teams.



Though she credits that for her rapid development.



“I started playing in 2007 when I was still in Primary School. I used to play with the boys there. There was no girls’ teams where I was staying back then so I was very used to playing with and against boys. That was my only choice,” she says.



“When there was the chance to play with girls, I actually found it very hard to do so because all I had known to that point was playing with boys. It was a big adjustment. I tried to find a better team with girls who knew how to play football. I found the standard too low.”



She also admits to the fact that, certainly 15 years ago, attitudes towards women playing the sport were not as they are today.



“It was quite tough because where we come from the parents don’t want to allow you to go and play [if you are a girl], so it was very hard for me. But I had to stand up for myself and say, ‘this is what I want and nothing will stop me from playing’.



“I am where I am today because of determination and discipline. I am also a very hard-working player.”



She will hope a positive showing at the World Cup puts her in line for a contract abroad, and with it the chance to go fully professional as a footballer.



“That’s the thing now I am pushing for now. I don’t want to be in my country anymore, I want to go and play in new leagues. That is a big ambition of mine and something I have to work extra hard towards,” she says.



“I would like to go to any country as long as there is competition, but Spain looks like a good option. I want to compete with great players so that I can improve my own level.”

Zambia v Netherlands – Tokyo 2020 Olympic Football Tournament

Now Time For Zambian Football And Its Top Female Players 

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World-leading AIDS researcher, South African Quarraisha Abdool Karim, has been elected to serve as the seventh President of The World Academy of Sciences for the advancement of science in developing countries (UNESCO-TWAS).



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A Professor in Clinical Epidemiology at Columbia University, USA, and pro-Vice Chancellor for African Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, Abdool Karim will serve as president from 2023 until 2026. The South African professor succeeds Sudanese mathematician Professor Mohamed Hassan.



“It is a real honor and privilege to be elected as President of TWAS,” said Abdool Karim in a statement released by TWAS. “And to have the opportunity to build on the strong foundations established over four decades by my predecessors in realizing the aspirational vision of the founder, Nobel laureate Abdus Salam, on the use of science to improve the lives of the most vulnerable in the developing world.”



Abdool Karim was included in the Women In Science list released by FORBES AFRICA in 2021.



According to TWAS, this is the first time that the 16-member council will comprise of exactly eight men and eight women. Abdool Karim will also be the first woman to serve in the role of TWAS President. Furthermore, this is the first time the council will include a Vice-President and council member from the Global North.



The TWAS Council, elected by members every four years, is responsible for supervising all academy affairs. TWAS treasurer Korean physicist Young Hee Lee, Director of the Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics of the Institute for Basic Science and Professor at Sungkyunkwan University in the Republic of Korea, said that Abdool Karim is an accomplished scholar, scientist and health policy leader.



“&#8230;With deep knowledge of what it takes to training developing world scientists and make a powerful real-world impact with her research&#8230; I am confident that under their guidance the Academy will not only continue to build scientific capacity through research, education, policy and diplomacy — but also expand its activities and programmes, taking TWAS to new heights,” he added.



In her statement Abdool Karim emphasized that while much progress has been made in collaboration with the global network of science academies and strategic partnerships, much more remains to be done during these socially, politically and economically challenging times.



“This is also an opportunity for scientific excellence in developing countries to flourish as we continue to find solutions to the ongoing and new challenges that face the most vulnerable in our communities,” she added. “And ensure that we can all realize our full potential as one people in a safe planet that ensures a sustainable future for all who inhabit it.”

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South African To Be First Woman To Head The World Academy Of Sciences

The 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand next year will see Zambia and South Africa participate with big hopes hinged on their performance.



BY NICK SAID



If there is one thing the coaches of South Africa and Zambia are in agreement on, it is that the hard work starts now as they prepare for the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand next year.



The draw for the 32-team finals competition was held a few weeks ago, and has not been particularly kind to the two southern African nations.



Debutants Zambia have been paired with Spain, Japan and Costa Rica in Group C, no easy task, but coach Bruce Mwape knows that however they do, the symbolism of seeing the Copper Queens on the global stage is perhaps the important thing.



“There are no easy teams in women’s football at the moment,” Mwape says. “For us, it’s just important to be there, especially as this is our first time.



“The whole country is behind us, supporting the team, and our achievements recently show that there has been a lot of improvement in Zambian football.”



He is correct. The Zambian national side won their first COSAFA senior title in 2022, while the country’s top club Green Buffaloes won the COSAFA Women’s Champions League as well.



These are all big steps forward for the game in Zambia and a major reason why they find themselves at the World Cup too.



Mwape has certainly improved their performance drastically, as has forward Barbra Banda, who was a star of the Olympic Games in Tokyo last year and could have a huge impact at the World Cup.



For South Africa, this competition will be second time round after they had their maiden World Cup qualification in France in 2019.



The core of that group remains in place and as recently-crowned African champions, there will be much expectation that they get out of their pool.



But the draw has not been kind, they face top sides Sweden, Italy and Argentina, with certainly the first two formidable foes. Coach Des Ellis is putting on a brave face.



“I think it’s a reasonable draw,” she said. “We’ve played Sweden before but we haven’t met Italy and Argentina. My feeling is that it could have been tougher.



“Now the planning and preparation starts, making sure the players have as much information as they can.”



The World Cup will be staged from July 20 to August 20, with South Africa canvassing hard to be the hosts of the 2027 tournament. The women’s competition has never been held on the African continent before.

FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup Qualifier: South Africa v Ethiopia

Big Steps Forward For Women’s Football In These Southern African Nations

The lure of judo is odd as it is an incredibly painful sport but South African Judoka Michaela Whitebooi has found gold medal success, and is looking forward to the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.



By Nick Said



MICHAELA WHITEBOOI’S GOLD MEDAL AT the 2022 Commonwealth Games was a reward for years of pain and toil on the judo mat, but she is already thinking of her next goal at the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.



Whitebooi won gold in the 48-kilogram category, but despite



her diminutive size, is a born fighter who had to make up for the disappointment of a first round exit at the Tokyo Olympics last year.



Raised in Booysen Park in Gqeberha, South Africa, she started judo at the age of 10 after a friend invited her to training, and won a place at the TuksSport High School in Pretoria, the country’s capital.



“I was 14 years old and my mom traveled with me, but then had to leave a few days before the school opened,” Whitebooi tells FORBES AFRICA from her training base in Budapest.



“That was devastating for me, I was crying the whole time. I honestly can’t tell you how I survived, though the next year two or three of my friends came, including one boy from my judo club [in Gqeberha].



“So that made it easier, I had people that were familiar to me and I could hang around them. The first year I was so alone.”



Whitebooi says the lure of judo is odd as it is an incredibly painful sport.



“I don’t know what it really is. It is really painful falling and you know when you go to training you are going to feel that pain. But the judo mat also makes you feel you are in a happy place.”



She is trained by Bulgarian Nikola Filipov, who has helped to shape her career, even if first impressions were not promising.



“He was my coach at the TuksSport High School, so I have been with him since 2010,” she explains. “I met him the first day there. It was quite scary, he is a rough guy with a hard face. And he was looking at me like, ‘are you really a judo player, you are so tiny?’



“When he was told that I was there at the school for judo, he started laughing at me! But from that time we grew a strong relationship. It’s a powerful team.”



Whitebooi found gold medal success at the All-Africa Games, but had a stroke of bad luck when she was drawn against the reigning Olympic champion Paula Pareto in the first round in Tokyo and lost.



“I had Covid-19 in March 2021 and didn’t think I would go to the Olympics because I missed out on qualifying competitions. I was not scared to fight her and I learned a lot in those few minutes I was on the mat.”



Whitebooi took that experience into the Commonwealth Games and beat Shushila Likmabam in the final.



“I was very confident about the Commonwealth Games and thought Ihadagoodchancetobeonthe podium. I pushed myself as much as I could, there was a big shift in my mind and I really believed in myself.”



She says Paris 2024 will likely be her last major competition and, having thought about quitting after Tokyo, is putting all her efforts into going out on a high.



“I’ve put a lot of years into judo and after Tokyo I had to really think about whether I wanted to come back for another four years, rather than a life I could have outside [the sport] and make more money and build a family,” she says.



“Paris 2024 will probably be where I end my competitive judo. I will always want to give back to the sport and help the younger generation. But there is also a point where your body tells you that you must give up because I’m crying every single day!”



As for life after the sport, she is well set and says she is “very much looking forward” to building a career.



“Since a young age I was very invested in my schoolwork. I made sure my grades were good. My first degree was financial science and then I did my honours in internal auditing. I then did a post- graduate [degree] in entrepreneurship. I can’t wait to see what is possible for me out there.”

2022 Commonwealth Games, Day 4: Judo (Gallo Images)

The Good Fight By An African Judoka 

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Survivors and Thrivers: The Women Fronting Some Of South Africa’s Coolest Startups

The 12th annual Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture took place in Cape Town, on October 7, the Archbishop’s birthday. Amina J Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), spoke at the in-person event, themed ‘A Vision for Hope and Healing’. Key in establishing the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), she has worked as Special Advisor to the former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and was formerly Nigeria’s Minister of Environment. She elaborated that while more people are in poverty, denied basic rights, with the climate crisis crossing all borders, social cohesion fraying, inequalities, increasing xenophobia, nationalism and hate speech, it doesn’t have to be this way. The planet has irreplaceable resources and renewable energy, she said, and we’ve never been so connected by technology, living as long, or with as many women in positions of power. More in this interview with FORBES AFRICA:



Q: You spoke a bit about the fourth industrial revolution at the lecture, and you also spoke about decolonizing hundreds of years of education meant for other people. What do you imagine that to look like?



A: I think it starts first of all for from where we create access to education, and the curriculum that we put in place for it. And we talk about the scientific basis that we find we must have in early childcare. I think early childcare is not in a classroom, but very much in Africa today, it needs to start with adult literacy and mothers because as African women, and in our cultures – our children are with us until they’re three, attached at the hip, if you would.



So I think that we need to find creative ways of bringing education into the home, and not taking kids to institutions at that early age. So early childhood education, for me, is one transformation that happens together with a mother [for] that bonding in the community, where we say that Africa is brought up by a village and not by a couple of people. So, really bringing that community learning into early child care.



Then, building on that, the primary and secondary education that we need. One that really looks at that intrinsic value of education to a person, a person&#8217;s identity from their cultures, their religion, the good practices – so we don&#8217;t throw the baby out with the bathwater – we&#8217;re always referring to harmful cultural practices, and we never look at it from the positive side. And that we move on from things that we did not know were so harmful because they were so cultural, or so male-vested. And we need to move on. But there are some good things there.



And then really, to begin to build the foundational skills of literacy and numeracy, by putting the digital in front so that we&#8217;re not waiting until ‘oh, Africa is ready, or Africa has the resources right at the beginning’. Our ambition is for each child, as a global citizen, and not just an African citizen, but to bring that whole technology and learning into an environment. What I&#8217;m trying to say is that as we learn to have pride and independence of one&#8217;s being, how that contributes from the inside out. So you&#8217;re not just looking at capacities and skills to connect to the outside world without understanding anything about who you are, and the part that you play in your own ecosystem.



I do this because I was part of an education system that did this, although I have to say that we had a broader education. But as years have gone on, that curriculum has become loaded. It has lost its core. And I think people are struggling with who they are, and who they are is such a contradiction to people who want us to join this global family. And I think that we are richer for it if we identify with what we really are. The question of diversity for me is far deeper than the narrow, silo approach that we are seeing on diversity now.



The diversity piece has lost its meaning, because we&#8217;ve sort of pigeonholed different parts of our society that are different, and will choose to live differently. And what we need to see is healthy respect, and that these are the threads of our human fabric. And as such, each thread matters, each thread makes the fabric stronger, not weaker. So the less threads we have, that we leave behind, the weaker that fabric. And I think if you say that to people, then they see themselves in the fabric. It&#8217;s not you against us. And that&#8217;s what really draws me to the Arch [Desmond Tutu]. Because I think he really taught us how to respect what&#8217;s behind our skin. It&#8217;s us, it&#8217;s human beings. And as you&#8217;re born, you&#8217;re incredibly free of everything, and depending where you land, is what shapes you.



Q: You spoke about this at the lecture with your vision for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in light of all of the global and local conflicts. You termed it the ‘world in crisis’, how do you think Africa can move forward?



A: I think essentially, we&#8217;ve got to have a few conversations with ourselves. And there has to be a huge amount of courage that what you&#8217;re doing is shaping the future. I mean, concretely, shaping that future for your people with what you know is the right thing. And this is our leaders, and I&#8217;m saying leaders at different levels, because the leaders that we point to and look to as inspirations and heroes, they&#8217;re all gone now. And I don&#8217;t know who we point to, to replace them. Because today, we&#8217;re so critical of the person, we&#8217;re so judgmental of the person, and we miss the message that that person carries.



I think people like the Arch and Madiba [Nelson Mandela] always recognized their failings. And so people didn&#8217;t have a chance to throw any stones at them. What came out was ‘okay, I&#8217;m not perfect, I&#8217;m not God, but these are the things that I believe in, these are the things that I will fight for’. So as human beings, what we look to is what they stood for. And I&#8217;m not sure today that we give so much grace to leaders. And I think that we have to think and listen to what the leader is saying and doing, rather than judge what&#8217;s in the closet. Everybody&#8217;s got a closet, and some worse than others. But if that person takes a good message that does no harm, that brings people together, that forwards Africa, we need to find that community.



We have a responsibility as followers to get behind them to do the right thing. So conversation, really serious conversation. Whether it happens in the African Union [AU], and I have to tell you that in the AU, when leaders try to get together to have a closed-door meeting, the international community wants to be in on it. Even I, as an African, say to people, ‘oo, I&#8217;m the United Nations’. That&#8217;s their conversation they need to have. I can have a private one as well, as a brother or sister conversation to them. But in this piece here, give them space, because every one of them has baggage, and that baggage is colonial. And many of them are tied to it inextricably, and it&#8217;s hard.



So what common ground can they come together on to move us forward? And I think that the fact that we&#8217;re seeing no solidarity with Africa right now has actually empowered a conversation. I think the United Nations has been helpful for a sanguine Economic Commission for Africa that did a lot of work with the Minister of Finance. So they were able to take the issues in an international arena and argue them, and it&#8217;s quite difficult for our people to do that because essentially, they&#8217;re in their own bubble, fighting the day-to-day challenges of broken democracies and an incredibly different set of difficult situations, conflict, etc.



Q: At the lecture, you were also speaking about the need for self-determination; what does Africa need to do for that?



A: I think we&#8217;ve been told what to do and what&#8217;s good for us. And we have to come back and determine what is good for us. That&#8217;s why I said for education, it&#8217;s really important we think about that. And we think about what skills are going to put a kid, from when they get into school for 15 years, to the workplace? Is it the skills of tomorrow?



Then you hear what&#8217;s going on in South Africa with AI, and you&#8217;re thinking, ‘okay, what is the transition going to look like? How do we build that capacity? How do we look at the financial architecture, which was really built for another era, and not for our development – [what about] access courses or even profiting from the natural resources that we have, so that we can build?’ And so it&#8217;s going to be complex, because we are many, and our issues are very complex.



We need to think, ‘what is the low hanging fruit for a politician that is bound by a four or five-year cycle of democracy and elective office, to one that is longer?’ Longer term means you need institutional memory; that means that the services the institutions need to be able to carry us through these different cycles of elections.



The policy somersaults that we are feeling right now, I guess they feel them in the United Kingdom, they feel them in countries in Europe now that are going so far right from being so far left. So, it’s important, and then I think that, the more we educate people, the better constituencies we have for engaging. You can&#8217;t engage with one person, one vote, when there is quite frankly, a lack of education as to understanding why the vote, and what&#8217;s my vote worth? Is it $5? Or is it educational reform, and health services, and things that are my rights, that&#8217;s what my vote is. So it&#8217;s a little bit of a journey, as you know, the long road to freedom – the road is still being tracked.



Q: Is there anything else you&#8217;d like to anecdotally share on the issues you spoke about either in the lecture or about achieving the SDGs?



A: There are so many. Climate for me is the biggest challenge that we have, and opportunity. So when a farmer says to me that this is not about a flood, or temperatures, it&#8217;s about ‘I wake up in the morning



and my crop is gone because of a dust storm, and that dust storm has come because of drought, and my farm is gone, my livelihood is gone’. And then the livelihoods of all these Maasai women and men that I met, their livelihoods, their cattle have died. You see the carcasses on the road. And we don&#8217;t want to talk about that much. But that&#8217;s assets that have just been taken away. And so when Kenya is dealing with that, they&#8217;re saying, ‘okay, right now, the private sector is coming in, and we&#8217;re asking them to put a fund together, so they buy the cattle before they die’. So there are resources for that community, for the hard times, and they can replenish stock. Then we have put things together that will help us to build back with a level of resilience.



Those are real stories. They are real situations that have to sometimes find their way into the media, into the headlines. Not so much the misery of it, but the way that we can prevent it and then link that to the 1.5 degrees. I think there&#8217;s a disconnect between science, the 1.5 degrees and the reality on the ground. We need to link it, we need to say a third of Pakistan is underwater, because we&#8217;ve just had floods that are melting glaciers, and we can tie that to China, and it&#8217;s industrial pollution. We can do all this. So how do you tell the story?



I listened to an elder just three days ago, and his eyesight had gone. And all he said was ‘we&#8217;re very grateful for what you&#8217;ve been able to give us here, but there&#8217;s a lot of people you can&#8217;t see that haven&#8217;t been able to get to this’. And the first thing he said was women and people with disabilities. And it just made me think, ‘wow, this person right now is not talking about can we have more for me and my tribe’, which is what generally gets into a story, he’s been very specific about the people that are being left behind, that we don&#8217;t see.



I think he&#8217;s given me fodder for my advocacy. Because when I go back into those sterile rooms, that somehow craft language that I don&#8217;t understand, and many people don&#8217;t understand, we can break it down. And this is where I think the partnership with the media is so important. This is a new partnership that we need to have.

Batet Receives Un Deputy Secretary-general, Amina J. Mohammed

‘What We Need To See Is Healthy Respect, And These Are The Threads Of Our Human Fabric’: Amina J Mohammed On Diversity, SDGs, Climate Change and Africa Moving Forward

Onyinye Anyaegbu, the London-based co-founder and CEO of African art trading platform ARTSPLIT, sees art as an alternative investment.



The global art market is estimated to be worth a staggering $65.1 billion according to the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2022 and Nigerian artists are finally gaining praise. With paintings of renowned artists like the late Ben Enwonwu, considered by most collectors to be the father of Nigerian modernism, fetching over $1.4 million at Sotheby’s and another going for $1.5 million at Bonhams, Nigerian art is in high demand globally and collectors and investors are actively acquiring works with the view of cashing in on the increasing demand.



According to figures from Bonhams, about 90% of the value of their auction sales in 2017 came from Nigerian artists. And poised to disrupt this new art economy is ARTSPLIT, a trading and social app providing users with an interactive space to participate in live auctions, bids, trades, portfolio management as well as access to invest and lease African artworks. According to the London-based co-founder and CEO of the platform, Onyinye Anyaegbu, this solution is a timely answer to an issue most collectors face.



“My brother came to me with this idea about Art. He just started his art journey and got introduced to being a collector and he was really enjoying it and he started collecting art as a great investment. And I was really fascinated by the whole African art space because of him. He told me the problem he had was that right now, as a collector even though you may have about $300,000 worth of art sitting at home, when you take it to the bank, you cannot leverage the art for anything financial,” says Anyaegbu.



“If you ever wanted liquidity you have to sell it out completely. As we spoke we realized that this is such a big collector problem and as Nigerian collectors are probably a bit more sophisticated and really that’s where it started from. As a collector, you collect all this amazing work and you don’t even have enough space for it and you cannot leverage the art for any financial instrument.”



The art trading platform for African art is providing collectors a way to get more out of their work by providing the opportunity to own shares also known as splits of prestigious African artworks that can be traded by collectors in real time.



“So, we figured what if you create a platform where you don’t lose your work but you get other people to invest in your platform and ARTSPLIT was born. The first milestone was the beta testing and seeing all our thoughts come to life in terms of the app technology. We spent a lot of time talking and mapping processes and experiences of how it should feel for a user. How do you trade, where do you trade from, and having a tech partner come in and take that and flip it into an app was amazing and that was a huge milestone for us,” avers Anyaegbu.



The app offers the community of collectors the flexibility of either co-ownership or full ownership with further opportunities for actual tangible ownership of these art works for a period of time.



“It does not end there. ARTSPLIT also provides opportunities for owners of investment grade African art to list their works, have them evaluated and sold to members of our community. You can decide to sell your work in full, or in splits (minimum of 10%) which will enable you to keep the ownership of your work and still benefit from trade of your work,” says Anyaegbu.



Five Nigerian artists took part in ARTSPLIT MOCONA, their split-and-lease online contemporary arts auction in July with bids amounting to $57,000 and with an average growth value of 14%. The auction profiled prominent Nigerian artists paving their way in the contemporary art scene including the likes of Abiodun Olaku, Duke Asidere, Edosa Ogiugo, El-Dragg Okwoju and Oliver Enwonwu.



Anyaegbu and her team are already on their fourth round of funding raising $2.5 million against a $5 million benchmark. ARTSPLIT with its team of art lovers is on a mission to raise the global profile of African art by building a community of collectors and investors as well as providing advisory and management services for art collection.

Screenshot 2022-11-01 at 07.59.31

App For Art’s Sake: Building A Community Of Collectors And Investors In Nigeria

The word ‘multi’ comes up many times in a conversation with 28-year-old Dubai-based Nigerian businesswoman Gbemi Giwa.



“I am a multi-passionate entrepreneur with a knack for turning ideas into creative impactful brands…. I am a multi-hyphenated person…” she says in a Zoom interview on a hot summer day in August from her abode in the sunny city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.



Although Giwa started out as an influencer and launched several businesses in the glistening Middle Eastern emirate by the time she turned 26, she is wary of calling herself ‘a serial entrepreneur’.



Now making a conscious effort to focus solely on her core competence – the food business – she says her passion project remains Catfish, an online restaurant serving “a healthy twist on African dishes” that she launched in Dubai in 2018.



The realization to hone in on one serious endeavor came after a few “bold moves” and the twists and turns that the Covid-19 pandemic brought when Giwa was forced to close down Gbemi’s Kitchen, the physical restaurant she started in 2019 at the Jumeirah Lake Towers in Dubai serving authentic Nigerian food.



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“In 2020, Covid hit and for the first time, I navigated a big loss with the shutting of my restaurant concepts, forcing me to start afresh with a larger focus on building a Covid-proof business with a deeper focus on digital,” she says of those tough months.



She started by launching a consulting company called Digiboss to help women in business build their online profiles to establish themselves as thought leaders, whilst consistently attracting profitable partnership opportunities.



“I help millennial women build an impactful personal brand and commit to taking action by teaching them profitable action steps to validate their creative ideas, craft them into polished concepts and launch them into the real world,” says Giwa.



“Using the same method I teach my clients, I was able to secure funding to relaunch my restaurant Catfish just at the end of the pandemic. I’m currently navigating our redirection into the e-commerce space and retail by taking a piece of the growing ready-to-eat industry.”



The food business is not new for her. It was while at design school in 2014 that she launched Dubai Fit Foodie, a wellness blog she calls her “longest-paying side hustle”. Her growing years shaped her early love for African food and she wanted to give it the respect it deserved.



A year later, she turned her love for dancing by launching dance classes in Dubai, teaching Afrofit, which she calls her “second longest-paying side hustle”.



In 2016, she specialized in creating impactful digital campaigns for local and international brands in the Middle East. A year later, yet again foraying into the business world, she launched a boutique agency specializing in branding and content creation for F&amp;B concepts.



‘A good idea is nothing without action’. 



Even when she was 16, on a plane to Dubai from Lagos to enrol at the American University of Sharjah, she was already harboring ideas of creating content and an impactful career. Even if at times, this meant going against the norm and using the word ‘no’ multiple times to her now-late father, also a businessman, who took a keen interest in her professional journey.



“I am from a classic African family that says ‘either you become a doctor or a lawyer, or you are nobody’.



“But ever since I went to design school, I’ve been obsessed with ideas. I believe good ideas come when you explore and exhaust several bad ideas, but a good idea is nothing without action.”



Luckily, she was glad to find herself in Dubai.



“It’s one of the easiest places to do business in, especially if you know the right people and have the money… I always tell youngsters it’s better to partner with the right mentor, as they have the experience and you can keep learning from them.”



Where there’s hustle, there’s also heart.



“My passion will always be around creating content, product, and brands that reflect my African roots and help people embrace wellness in order to feel like their happier healthiest selves,” says Giwa.



Currently catering for events and working towards moving Catfish into the e-commerce space, she will also be seen at The Ripe Market, a farmers’ market in Dubai, from October.

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Hustle And Heart: The Nigerian Entrepreneur Promoting African Food In Dubai

Nigerian creative Mo Abudu is bringing Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman as a film, directed by Biyi Bandele, who passed away early this month.



EbonyLife Group CEO, Mo Abudu, is bringing Professor Wole Soyinka’s 1975 stage play Death and the King’s Horseman as a feature adaptation, in a project with streaming service Netflix.



Nigerian playwright and iconic novelist Soyinka is the first Black winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature — and its first African winner.



The film, set to be the first Yoruba language movie ever to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 2022, is based on actual historical events that took place during British colonial rule in Nigeria.



“Our goal whenever we tell African stories is to be truly authentic and stay as close as possible to the original work. In this case, it was especially important because Professor Soyinka’s work is already well-known globally and he is one of the greatest literary talents of our time. It is a great honor to be trusted with telling this compelling African drama steeped in our local traditions,” says Abudu in an interview with FORBES AFRICA.



Soyinka’s play was adapted as a feature film by famed Nigerian playwright and director Biyi Bandele, who passed away on August 7, the month before its premiere.



The filmmaker had grabbed global headlines with his directorial work of the best-selling Chimamanda Adichie book Half of a Yellow Sun and the most recent Netflix series Blood Sisters.



“Biyi’s death was a complete shock and unexpected. We were all planning to make it to the TIFF and he was over the moon. He poured everything into this depiction and it is a real loss to the industry,” says Abudu, reportedly the first African to sign a multiple deal with Netflix in 2020.



Death and the King’s Horseman is expected to air after its screening at TIFF.

Mo Abudu, image supplied by EbonyLife

Iconic Nigerian Nobel Laureate’s Play To Come To Life

<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large">“But the business side, you have to learn about it…..we’re not born with that knowledge, you need to learn it.&#8221; <cite>Tiwa Savage, Award-Winning Nigerian singer</cite></blockquote>

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AT THE FOREFRONT OF THE FIGHT FOR BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS for the people of Cameroon is Cameroonian Maximilienne C. Ngo Mbe, recently honored with the prestigious 2022 Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Human Rights Award.



In an interview with FORBES AFRICA, Ngo Mbe speaks of her early motivation to take to defending human rights: “My father, being a teacher, saw his rights regularly besmirched and violated… He received a miserable salary and on top of that he had to wait months to receive it. What’s more, the working conditions were difficult. It is all this situation that pushed me to fight since my childhood for the respect of teachers’ rights.” Ngo Mbe, Executive Director of the Central Africa Human Rights Defenders Network (REDHAC), says receiving the award feels like a dream.



Since 2010, she has led REDHAC in its efforts to promote civic spaces and protect fundamental freedoms throughout Central Africa through investigations of human rights abuses, advocacy before regional human rights bodies, monitoring of democratic processes, and demanding state accountability. She was also named an International Woman of Courage in 2021 by the U.S. Department of State.



“The empowerment of women has always been of paramount importance in so far as their contribution to the management of the household is undeniable,” she says, sharing her thoughts on the importance of uplifting women on the continent. “Is it not women in rural and urban areas who make sure that daily meals are cooked and that children receive an education? If, for any number of reasons, the father of the family is unable to play his role fully, it is the woman who does so effectively. We have seen this during the crises that have shaken the world.”



With over 30 years of experience, Ngo Mbe is sure about her mission going forward.



“I know one thing – I am leading a legitimate and laudable fight for the defense, protection and promotion of human rights. Many people benefit from it in Cameroon and in the Central African sub-region. I receive threats, dirty tricks, but also awards. This is how my life goes and I assume it is a long-term struggle, at the same time exhausting, arduous and exhilarating. How far and when? Only God knows.



“In order to move forward in life, you have to look in the rear-view mirror. I realize that beyond the threats and blows that we take at REDHAC, from afar, we are seen, and we are appreciated.”

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‘Leading A Legitimate And Laudable Fight’ -Cameroonian Human Rights Activist

Temilade Openiyi has had a slew of recent successes and is one of the few female producers in the Nigerian music scene grabbing the attention of global stars.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large">“I would just sit and write about how I was feeling and the things I was going through. It could be about anything and it just came out in a poetic way. That is when I found out I had a passion for music and soon those poems became lyrics.”</blockquote>



In October 2021, Nigerian Afrobeats chart-topper Wizkid released Essence, which would go on to become one of the biggest Afrobeats’ songs also dominating global streaming charts. One of the magical components of Essence was the sultry vocals of Nigerian emerging artist Temilade Openiyi, known professionally as ‘Tems’.



This winner of the Best International Act at the 2022 BET Awards hails from the new movement of artistic expression in the Nigerian music scene known as Alté, meaning alternative, which is a fusion of Afrobeats, dancehall, reggae, hip hop and alternative R&amp;B. After gaining worldwide recognition with her hit singles Mr Rebel and Try Me, Essence’s success, which was further ignited by Canadian singer Justin Bieber jumping on the remix, made Tems a household name globally.



“I had no idea my life was about to change when I did that song. Every day since then is like a dream and I am super thankful for the opportunity I have for people to hear my work on a global scale,” says Tems to FORBES AFRICA.



The 26-year-old honed her musical prowess in Lagos, Nigeria, where she was born. She moved to the United Kingdom with her parents as a child but returned home after their divorce. With no friends and a solitary existence, Tems took to writing poems as an escape.



“I would just sit and write about how I was feeling and the things I was going through. It could be about anything and it just came out in a poetic way. That is when I found out I had a passion for music and soon those poems became lyrics,” avers Tems.



With no money, Tems broke barriers by producing her own beat making her one of the few female producers in the Nigerian music scene and soon started getting the attention of global music stars like Chris Brown, Alicia Keys and Adele.



Her track-record has led to other collaborations like the recent hit single Fountains by Drake and Future as well as most recently, being featured on the official EP of the new Black Panther: Wakanda Forever movie where she sings the cover of Bob Marley’s No Woman, No Cry, which got over 172 million views in just 24 hours.

Category: Woman