Busting the gender gap in manufacturing in Africa

Africa has an urgent need to develop a strong value-add manufacturing base and to address the under-representation of women in manufacturing on the continent. This is one of the key topics for discussion at this week’s Lionesses of Africa Conference which welcomes a high profile panel of 5 pioneering women manufacturers who are tackling this challenge head on. They have built their businesses against the odds, taking on previously male dominated industries, and are succeeding in creating great manufacturing companies that are an example for others to follow. Yet these women trailblazers remain in the minority. Africa’s manufacturing sector is not fully capitalizing on a critical talent pool, which could aid in closing the skills and opportunities gap. And particularly, women entrepreneurs who have the potential to create significant, high growth companies that create products for sale at home and abroad, and importantly employ local people in the process. So the question has to be, how can the historical gender bias that has tended to exclude or deter women from entering into the manufacturing sector when it comes to starting a business be addressed? Perhaps it starts with the need to reframe perceptions of traditional manufacturing as unprogressive and male-dominated, to high-tech and high-paying opportunities, in which women entrepreneurs can thrive. Follow this with inspirational examples of women manufacturers who are building genuinely significant businesses, and you have the start of a solution to addressing the manufacturing gender gap in Africa.