UN ECA Launches Women's Digital Entrepreneurship Initiative

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UN ECA) is now embarking on a new regional action program to promote women's engagement in the digital economy in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Namibia and the Republic of Congo.

The four-year initiative, called Fostering Digital Entrepreneurship among Women in Africa, aims to fight persisting structural obstacles to women's access to digital skills, financial services, technology and online markets and at the same time to help governments create more inclusive digital policies.

It is being implemented under the auspices of UN ECA's Technology, Innovation, Connectivity and Infrastructure Development Division (TICID), which is expected to implement it until 2029. It is a mix of supporting women entrepreneurs and efforts to enhance national policy and regulatory frameworks, thereby providing a conductive environment for women-led digital businesses.

Women in Africa continue to suffer from the lack of access to digital technologies, financing, business networks and entrepreneurial training, according to UN ECA. While there has been a significant growth of digital services and ecommerce throughout the continent, there has been a persistent gender gap in the digital economy, which this barrier has helped to create.

Key Highlights:

• UN ECA launches a four-year women's digital entrepreneurship program
• 1,000+ women and 200 policymakers will receive training
• The initiative promotes inclusive digital growth across Africa

The new program aims to address this gap by delivering hands-on training to women entrepreneurs on digital and financial literacy, as well as support institutional players for inclusive digital transformation.

It will train 1000+ female entrepreneurs in digital literacy and financial management skills in the next four years in the four participating countries. The program will also help develop capacities of more than 200 policymakers and government officials through workshops and regional policy dialogues on developing gender-responsive digital policies and regulatory frameworks.

The Program will feature eight national workshops, a regional training program, an online learning platform and study tours as a means of disseminating knowledge between the countries in the Program. These activities are designed to enhance the efficiency of the entrepreneurial ecosystems, foster cross-country cooperation and build the capability of entrepreneurs and policy makers.

One of the important steps being taken to implement the program was the formation of a multi-stakeholder coordination task force at a virtual kick-off meeting on 18 May 2026. The task force will ensure that implementation takes place that governments and UN agencies work together, that knowledge is shared and that program activities are connected to national development priorities.

In another technical meeting, the members of the taskforce agreed that the interventions should be adapted to each of the participating countries socio-economic context, and also include gender equality and youth inclusion as part of the interventions. The taskforce saw the first priority as the need to prepare detailed assessment studies by the end of the six month period in each country. The studies will cover local challenges, opportunities for digital entrepreneurship and gaps in policy, to guide country action plans.

The initiative contributes to the African Union's Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa (2020-2030), which seeks to harness digital technologies to facilitate inclusive economic growth and increase access to opportunities in Africa. It is also linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure).

UN ECA seeks to increase women's participation in Africa's burgeoning digital economy by enhancing their digital and financial skills and strengthening the digital environments of governments, all of whom are committed to more inclusive digital economies.

The commission hopes that the program will "make a positive contribution to the creation of more entrepreneurial opportunities, to the expansion of economic inclusion, to the development of more innovative digital ecosystems and to the socio-economic sustainable development of the countries involved.