Women today hold roughly one-third of senior leadership positions globally.

But Africa presents an especially complex picture. The continent has one of the highest rates of women’s entrepreneurship in the world, yet leadership and funding disparities remain stark.

Women make up a majority of Africa’s self-employed workforce and contribute significantly to economic output. However, studying the flow of the capital that powers high-growth companies tells a different story. Less than 10 percent of venture funding in Africa goes to startups with at least one female founder.

Meanwhile, in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, over 80 percent of women are either business owners or self-employed, running enterprises that range from family-owned farms and market stalls to tech start-ups and film production. This disconnect between participation and capital could be deeply consequential to the next chapter of the ecosystem.

To mark International Women’s Day in 2026, we asked women leaders across our community questions about building today, momentum in the ecosystem, and what it means to “Give to Gain”.

Their reflections offer a grounded look at what progress and its limits currently look like on the continent.

What the Ecosystem Still Gets Wrong

Infrastructure gaps, capital constraints, and fragmented markets mean founders building in Africa must often solve multiple structural problems at once.

For women founders and operators, those challenges can be compounded by structural biases embedded within the investment ecosystem itself.

Across Africa’s startup landscape, the gap is visible in the numbers. Female-founded companies account for a minority of funded ventures, and when they do raise capital, they often secure smaller rounds than their male counterparts.

But statistics alone do not capture the lived experience of navigating those systems.

We asked members of our community:

What do you wish investors, partners, or the broader ecosystem understood about building in Africa as a woman?

Marge Ntambi, Managing Partner, Velocity Digital

I wish the ecosystem was more honest about how much of early-stage investing is still driven by familiarity. People back what they understand, who they’ve seen win before, and networks they already trust. But when the ecosystem has historically been skewed, it can quietly make the path narrower for women, both as fund managers and founders.

As a woman GP, you’re often building two things at once: the fund, and the credibility infrastructure around it. You learn quickly that you can’t rely on assumptions. Your process has to be clear, your underwriting disciplined, and your results easy to evaluate, because your work needs to speak for itself.

For women founders, it’s similar. While there has been improvement, the numbers show that the gap persists. For example, Partech reported that in 2024, female-founded startups in Africa captured about 7% of funding (and 18% of deals).

What I’d like investors to understand is: women aren’t asking for a softer bar. The bar is already high. The unlock is to make underwriting more standardized and evidence-led, so conviction comes from fundamentals, not proximity.

At Velocity, we are hyper-aware that the founders who will transform how Africa’s businesses trade, work, and pay won’t all come from the same circles and the ecosystem gets stronger when capital follows performance wherever it shows up.

Tamara Posibi, Chief Consultant, Irtus Business

First of all, I want to say it is a privilege to be building as a woman right now because there are a lot more resources and opportunities for women now than a decade ago. But I just want to say that women are over-mentored and under-funded. I would really like to see more funding flow to women this year and going forward. Let us be funded on the basis of the excellent and innovative solutions we are building. Our competence, our capabilities. There should be more funding prioritized for women. There are a lot of mentoring programs, and we’re very grateful for them, but now we want to see people putting their money where their mouth is. And that’s really one thing I’d like us to see.

Thandeka Mkhize, Credit Risk Analyst, Public Investment Corporation

It is hard, and Imposter syndrome doesn't make it easier. But I've learnt that walking in courage doesn't mean the fear isn't there, but it means doing it even with fear present. Maybe you can call that confidence.

Signs of Momentum

Across several markets, the share of startups with female co-founders has increased incrementally in recent years. At the same time, women’s participation in senior leadership roles is rising in certain sectors and countries.

These changes are still uneven. Female founders continue to face structural funding barriers, and representation remains far from parity.

But the trajectory matters. Incremental change, sustained over time, is how ecosystems evolve.

So we asked our contributors:

Have you seen signs of progress over the past year that signal real momentum for women leaders?

Folakemi Osho, General Manager, HoaQ

What feels different right now is that more women are stepping into positions where they influence capital and strategy. It’s one thing to have representation, but it’s another thing to have women making decisions about funding, building companies, and shaping industries. That shift is powerful because it changes what gets built and who gets backed. The more women participate in decision-making at that level, the faster the ecosystem evolves.

Louisa Kiwana Olafuyi, COO and Co-Founder, Kunda Kids

Yes, we are seeing progress, but it has not been equal. African women founders still face significant barriers, particularly in access to capital. But the women rising despite this are powerful examples of what is possible, and IWD is a great time to celebrate them. For women and women leaders around the world, let's keep breaking the status quo and creating our own platforms and opportunities.

Marge Ntambi, Managing Partner, Velocity Digital

As a female General Partner in Africa, you’re constantly aware of how few of us there are.

So for me, the shift hasn’t been about headlines. It’s about infrastructure.

Over the past year, we’ve seen continued institutionalization of gender-lens capital in Africa through vehicles aligned with initiatives like 2X Global and DFIs that apply measurable gender criteria. That matters because it moves gender inclusion from narrative to underwriting discipline.

The data still shows women-founded startups receive a small percentage of total VC funding in Africa, often cited in the low single digits for fully female-led teams. That hasn’t magically changed. But what has changed is that gender is now being tracked, reported, and embedded into mandates at multiple levels of the ecosystem.

At Velocity, we explicitly track female-led and mixed-gender founding teams as part of our portfolio construction. Not as a quota but because when you study how African economies function, especially across how businesses trade, how people work, and how money moves, women are central to productivity and household resilience.

The shift I see is this: gender is no longer a side conversation. It’s becoming part of how serious capital defines opportunity.

That’s real progress, even if we still have a long way to go.

Give to Gain

Behind successful founders, operators and investors are networks of mentors, peers, and supporters who helped open doors and provide guidance along the way.

As ecosystems mature, many leaders begin to extend those opportunities outward.

This year’s International Women’s Day theme is Give to Gain, and it highlights the idea that growth is often driven by what leaders choose to invest in others.

Across the startup and investment ecosystem, this can take many forms, including mentoring emerging founders, sharing knowledge openly, backing underrepresented entrepreneurs, or simply creating spaces where others can participate and thrive.

We asked our contributors one final series of questions:

What has giving unlocked for you in your career, and what is one way you are choosing to give in 2026?

Marge Ntambi, Managing Partner, Velocity Digital

I’ve wanted to invest in Africa-focused businesses for as long as I can remember, because I’ve always believed capital can catalyze prosperity. But I didn’t have mentors to point me toward the conventional tracks that lead into venture. I didn’t know the shortcuts, the rooms, or even the language.

So I took the long way. I spent over a decade in corporate finance, used an MBA as a launchpad into early-stage venture, learned the craft by working with U.S.-based emerging fund managers, and then committed fully to the Africa tech ecosystem. I’ve now been in it for over half a decade, and I’ve decided to put my full effort into backing durable Africa-focused businesses.

My way of giving in 2026 is simple: I’m going to make the path less opaque for other people. Through Velocity, that means disciplined early-stage investing and being transparent about what we look for. And through Sati, it means building practical infrastructure on both sides of the table by taking fundraising off founders’ plates and running their processes end-to-end, while also equipping more capital allocators with practical diligence tools so they can underwrite Africa with confidence.

Because when fundraising stops being a black box, two things happen: founders spend more time building, and investors make better decisions faster, which means more strong African companies actually make it to scale.

Tamara Posibi, Chief Consultant, Irtus Business

For most of last year, I was very privileged to have set up a lot of investor relations programs. A lot of meet and greets with founders and investors, with the goal to make access to funding easier for founders. This year, I’m choosing to prioritize a lot more women, a lot more female founders. I’m choosing to give my time and effort to support more women in the ecosystem.

Louisa Kiwana Olafuyi, COO and Co-Founder, Kunda Kids

For me, giving has always meant building things that create opportunity for others.

When we started Kunda Kids, the goal was not only to create great children’s content. It was to create stories in which children could see themselves reflected, and to build an ecosystem where creatives, educators, and families could benefit from that work.

Folakemi Osho, General Manager, HoaQ

For me, giving has always been about creating access. Whether that’s making introductions, sharing knowledge, or helping someone see an opportunity they didn’t know existed. What I’ve learned is that generosity builds real influence. When you consistently show up for people and contribute to the ecosystem around you, you become part of how things move forward. Some of the most meaningful opportunities in my career have come from relationships built through that mindset. Giving doesn’t just build goodwill, it builds ecosystems.

Thandeka Mkhize, Credit Risk Analyst, Public Investment Corporation

2026 for me is about learning to give from my overflowing cup and not from my depleted self. So give to self first & then others, and that will yield far greater gains for those around me that I give to.

What’s next?

Our conversations with builders for IWD 2026 remind us that significant gaps still remain across leadership, funding, and access to opportunity.

But the perspectives shared here reveal something equally important, which is the people building through those challenges every day.

Across venture capital, technology, media, entrepreneurship and the broader creative economy, women are already shaping how Africa’s next wave of innovation unfolds.

They are launching companies, investing in founders, building platforms, and expanding the possibilities for what leadership looks like across the continent.

But if there were one thing that could be shifted about how women founders are supported today, what should it be?

Louisa Olafuyi (Kunda Kids) thinks equity and fair compensation might be the golden ticket.

“The shift should be to create more equitable pathways for women to advance and ensure they are properly compensated when they do.

“I do not only want to see women present in these spaces; I believe we need them at the highest levels of decision-making across media, distribution, investment, marketing, and sales.”

For Folakemi Osho (HoaQ), the one lever to shift would be the level of ambition investors assume women founders are capable of.

“Too often, women are funded for what feels 'reasonable' instead of what is truly venture-scale. But when you look at the companies women are building across the world, the ambition is absolutely there. What needs to change is the lens. Investors need to back women founders with the same level of conviction, capital, and belief in outsized outcomes.”

If the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is “Give to Gain,” the most powerful signal of progress may simply be leaders choosing to invest their time, knowledge, and networks into the people coming behind them.

Because ecosystems grow strongest when success is not only accumulated, but shared.