Tech Herfrica championing inclusion of African women in local communities
African women in underserved communities have long been marginalized in terms of access to technology and its benefits. However, with the increasing availability of affordable smartphones and internet connectivity, there is now an opportunity to use technology to empower these women and create economic opportunities for them.
This is what Tech Herfrica, nonprofit organization is poised to do.The organization was established to advance the growth of female-led businesses in African underserved communities through the use of technology.
The Founder Imade Bibowei-Osuobeni said :”Tech Herfrica is a non-profit established to advance the growth of female-led businesses in African underserved communities through the use of technology. We are working towards a continent where women and girls are enabled to prosper in the digital economy.Currently, Tech Herfrica is championing the inclusion of African female traders and farmers in underserved African communities’ in the digital economy. It does this by providing an e-commerce platform to directly connect rural traders and farmers to domestic and international buyers. To achieve this, It empowers rural women with digital financial knowledge and skills so that they are able to use digital tools and access financial services. It also facilitates access to ownership of internet enabled smartphones so that they can trade online. Pending the launch of the e-commerce platform, trade is being facilitated using WhatsApp”.
On the challenges faced by underserved African women and girls in terms of digital inclusion, Bibowei-Osuobeni said the challenges include lack of access to reliable broadband internet service and high cost of smartphones as well as digital illiteracy, lack of localized content and other cultural and social norms, where rural women are not often the decision makers in their homes.
Speaking further, she said
“Without digital inclusion, young girls and women in rural areas are not able to have access to the same level and quality of education and business opportunities like their counterparts in urban cities have, leading to deepening poverty, digital illiteracy and social exclusion.Also, by being digitally excluded, rural women lose the opportunity to directly access more profitable markets. Thus, they keep selling their goods for pennies to middlemen and they remain in abject poverty despite their hard work”.
On the partnerships Tech Herfrica formed to facilitate digital inclusion for underserved African women and girls, she said:”We recently embarked on technical partnerships with Orbeets Digi-Tech Solution to build the bespoke e-commerce platform to connect domestic and international buyers to female sellers and farmers in underserved communities. Our technical partnership with Visual Earth Group will help to facilitate access and support adoption by Tech Herfrica’s beneficiaries to Visual Earth’s innovative reimagined banking offering, which is an offline wallet banking and affiliated financial services currently undergoing prototype testing in partnership with micro lenders. The reimagined banking offering is being used to achieve financial inclusion access for artisanal cohorts and communities in Lagos and its environs. After the prototype testing it will be refined and launched across Nigeria”.
In addition she revealed that the nonprofit organization’s
partnership with Justan EduTech Solutions will help facilitate community based digital financial literacy programmes in local languages for female traders and farmers in underserved communities in Nigeria.
She added that their partnership with Faslearn Africa, to build, host and manage the “Digital Literacy for All” course, will be accessed by pupils in public schools in underserved communities across Africa.
Imade ended by commending governments efforts towards achieving an inclusive digital economy and she called on all stakeholders to continue to contribute their quota towards the achievement of reduced poverty, social inclusion and economic empowerment for women. At Tech Herfrica’s end, partnership conversations are ongoing with critical stakeholders to ensure that women in rural and underserved African communities are enabled to prosper in the digital economy.
