Women in Tech: Challenges of Nigerian Female Professionals in the Tech Ecosystem
The Nigerian tech ecosystem is growing extensively, as the industry raised $4.9 billion in 2021, with projections of up to $10 billion in 2022. Such growth is astronomical by any standard and deserves all the accolades and recognition the country gets.
However, women in Nigeria’s tech space haven’t fared as well in the industry. In a 2020 survey by ONE Campaign and the Center for Global Development (CGD), it was shown that only 30% of 93 tech firms in Nigeria were owned by women. Out of this number, only 6.5% of these firms had a woman in a top management position, and one-third of the surveyed firms had no female employees at all.
These statistics are shocking because women in the Nigerian tech space have continually been known to add immense value and impact to the ecosystem; people like Dr Ola Brown (Managing Partner, Greentree Investment Ltd., who invested in companies like Paystack and Big Cabal media) and Nichole Yembra (Founder and Principal Partner Chrysalis Capital, funded Helium health and Bamboo), have impacted the tech investment space positively.
On the other hand, women like Odunayo Eweniyi (Co-Founder, Piggytech Ltd.) have built a startup worth backing, while Modupe Odele (Founder, Principal Partner, Vazi Legal) has redefined law in the startup space. These women and many others have been known to add to the tech landscape of the country.
Other statistics also show that over 43% of Nigerian entrepreneurs are women. This shows that women have practical knowledge of running and handling businesses, albeit while running mostly micro-scale operators.
It is therefore clear that women should be prioritized in tech going forward. There is a need to create an environment for growth for female professionals;
Currently, female professionals face various challenges in the Nigerian tech ecosystem. These challenges can range from disparity in promotions to gender wage gap, low level of funding, and work-life balance, just to mention a few.
Regardless of gender, a person should first be evaluated based on their work and the value that they would bring to a company.
In recent times more and more organizations are seeing the need to create more diversity in the workplace and create equal opportunities for female professionals to thrive.
Furthermore, various solutions can also be set aside to tackle the issue of gender bias in the Industry. For instance, there should be a focus on Nigeria’s female talent pool like what She Code Africa is trying to achieve. This company focuses on empowering women to fill in any role in the Nigerian tech space. Similarly, the NSB makes provisions for training, capacity, and development programs to empower more women and have them skilled enough to fit into tech roles.
Another challenge faced by women is the issue of funding. The funding gap for female-led tech companies is relatively low when compared with those of male-led companies as female-led African tech startups are significantly underfunded by venture capitals.
A report by Briter Bridges shows that only 3% of all the investments made into African startups between 2013 and 2021 went to female-led startups. These were due to various reasons that can still be associated with gender bias in the industry, an issue where males are seen as better leaders to run companies. As a result, many female-led companies are usually bootstrapped, and they prefer bank loans because of the difficulties faced when securing funding. This causes most female-led startups to grow and expand at a slower pace than their male counterparts while tackling other challenges like the inability to attract and hire top talent who would eventually build better products.
The ratio of female VC’s to female founders is equally minute and could be linked to why women are less funded or underfunded in the Industry. This proves that the VC industry is still very much a boy’s club as female representation in venture capital continues to lag.
To tackle this challenge, the Nigeria Startup Bill makes provision for a startup portal where startups can engage and access information on ways to benefit from the Startup Seed Fund. This means that the NSB creates an equal playing field for all founders, regardless of gender to succeed.
Furthermore, Odunayo Eweniyi and Eloho Omame recently launched FirstCheck Africa — an investment fund dedicated to backing ‘ridiculously early’ female-led African startups. According to these female founders, fixing capital access for African female tech entrepreneurs needs a more intentional female-led approach, further proving the need for women to rise and take centre-stage in VC funding.
Lastly, the issue of having a work-life balance for many female professionals, especially mothers, seems very bleak. Admittedly, this isn’t just a tech problem but more of a problem most women face in the workplace. Hence the phrase, ‘a woman’s work is never done.’
According to an article by UN women, women do 4 times more unpaid care and domestic work than men, depriving them of valuable time and energy to advance their careers. This challenge can be attributed to being one of the reasons why women are more likely to leave the workforce even before reaching the peak of their careers.
Therefore, if organizations truly want to encourage female participation in the tech space, they must learn to address gender inequalities and create a more welcoming environment for females to thrive. This could be in the form of a remote working option, fully paid maternity leave as well as paternity leave, so that the fathers as well can assist their wives, etc. Countries like Norway have managed to pass laws for organizations to have better parental leave & other benefits.
In a nutshell, while Nigeria’s tech space is growing, there is room for the growth of Nigerian women in tech. To close the gender gap and create an all-inclusive growth in the ecosystem, we must all join hands to equitably provide a bridge for Nigerian female tech professionals and end the bias.
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