Women empowerment through skills training

Statement of Needs

Women have the potential to change their own economic status, as well as that of the communities and nations in which they live. However, barriers to women’s equal economic participation are still a reality in many Sub-Saharan countries.

There is increasing recognition that women entrepreneurs and professionals alike are the new engines for inclusive and sustainable economic growth. Yet, despite this, professional women continue to struggle to take their rightful place in African economic life.

The lack of capacity such as limited marketable professional skills prevents African women from fully driving change in the economy of their country. In order for women to compete with equal conditions to those of their male counterparts, they need access to appropriate skills so that a foundation can be made for solid professional opportunities.

Digital skills are among the top seven skills required for the future of the workforce. However, the current labour force lacks a sufficient supply of these. The shift from traditional ways of working to a more digitally focused workplace is clear, and is posing a considerable challenge to employers, who face a widespread shortage of specialist digital skills. According to the World Bank, 230 million jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa will require digital skills by 2030, translating in 650 million people requiring appropriate education and training by then. The digital gap is wide. Compared to men, around 250 million fewer women are online. And, unfortunately, the divide has been growing, not shrinking.

While efforts to plug the gap are therefore needed, equal attention must be given to helping women navigate the new opportunities so that they are prepared to compete in the digital economy.

Program Background and Lessons Learnt

The first delivery of the Empowering African Women with Professional Skills was a pilot program that took place in April 2015. The program run in multi-partnership agreement between the UNESCO (Regional office for Southern Africa), Digitally Smart (UK), the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (Tanzania) and the Bindura University of Science and Technology (Zimbabwe).

The pilot was delivered to 43 female students from Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. Participants were seasoned professionals as well as higher education students. These were completing bachelor’s degrees, Master’s degree or PhD programs.

The impact of the program was measured via analysis of the 2 first levels of Kirkpatrick’s evaluation model. Level 1: Program Reaction showcased a phenomenal response from participants: 96% felt they were able to apply learnings to their current or future jobs and 100% found the program highly informative. Level 2: Learning analysed the degree to which participants acquired the intended knowledge, skills and attitudes as a result of the training, which was reflected through the course final scores. The program provided remarkable results with 72% of participants achieving scores above 81%.

The second delivery of the EAWPS is set to expand the program evaluation to include Level 3 & 4 of the Kirkpatrick evaluation Model. This will evaluate the extent to which participants apply their new knowledge and skills back to their work and which are the results, that is, the degree to which the targeted outcomes occur.

Get Involved

If you are a higher education provider and are interested in joining the Empowering African Women with Professional Skills program please contact us:

Martiale Zebaze Kana ~ m.zebaze-kana@unesco.org
Judith Bijeri ~ judith.bijeri@digitally-smart.com