Conferred. "Closing the loop: The quest for gender parity in African tech"

The recently published McKinsey & Company study called Closing the loop: The quest for gender parity in African tech by Mayowa Kuyoro, and Umar Bagus with Krutika Dharmadhikary reminded me of the first time I met Amina in a small co-working space in Waverley, Johanneburg. She was full of energy with a contagious drive to succeed. She had just launched an Edtech startup aimed at helping students in rural Eastern Cape access study material remotely during the COVID pandemic. Her product was smart. Her mission was powerful. Yet when she pitched, she shared that a few investors asked her to team up with a male co-founder “just for optics.” Amina’s story is powerful but not unique. It echoes the findings of the McKinsey study. The report reveals what many of us already see in our day-to-day work. Africa starts strong, with women making up nearly half of STEM graduates but somewhere between school and the corner office, that representation falls through multiple gaps. Only about 23–30% of tech roles are held by women, and less than 10–12% of tech leadership positions (including CEOs of startups) are occupied by women.

The Drop-Off Points We Can't Ignore

The study outlines three critical leak points:

• From education to employment: Women graduate in STEM but don’t enter tech roles at the same rate.

• From tech roles to leadership: When they join, women face biases, lack of mentorship, and caregiving burdens that slow promotions. Only 52 women are promoted to manager for every 100 men.

• From startup to funding: Women-led ventures receive only around 1% of all tech funding in Africa, an astoundingly low figure.

When Amina told me she'd raise pilot capital from a female fund and still was asked to verify her coding credentials twice, her excitement turned into frustration. These drop-offs aren’t just stats, they’re daily storylines across the continent.

Gender parity isn’t just a social good, it’s good business. The Mastercard Foundation, alongside McKinsey, estimates that closing participation gaps and reducing care burdens could unlock $287 billion in GDP for Africa by 2030, a 5% economic boost. That’s not just growth, it’s generational potential.

What We Can Do. Right Now

At Confer, we’ve spent countless hours helping tech brands tell their stories through marketing and communication efforts that drive impact. From that vantage point, three approaches stand out:

a) Narrate real impact

Find the stories of female founders like Amina. Share them authentically, not just to check a diversity box, but to connect deeply with audiences and investors who want real, meaningful innovation.

b) Inject equity into systems

Bias isn’t always loud, it can be structural. Offer mentorship, spell out inclusion in job postings, and build policies like flexible hours or parent-friendly schedules. Small changes that don’t just attract women but keep them.

c) Champion funding strategies that work

Women-led startups don’t need handouts, they need access. By spotlighting female founders with strong use cases and metrics, we can build trust and establish them as fundable, not just feel-good.

We need to intentionally create a future where an ambitious female developer in Johannesburg or a visionary founder in Lagos can walk into a pitch meeting and speak about their startups without having to explain why they shouldn’t “just work in product management”. A future where funding flows based on ideas and impact, not gender or geographical bias. That’s the tech future we should and can build because gender parity in African tech isn’t just equity, it’s exponential.