Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in its new report, themed: 'Financing women's digital entrepreneurship: a path to closing Africa's economic gender gap', revealed that women's economic participation in Africa is set to fall 0.6 percentage points below 2022 levels, pushing the region's timeline to reach economic parity from 120 years to about 170 years.
The report is based on BCG's Africa Women's Voice Survey 2025, which surveyed nearly 3,000 women and men across six major African economies – South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Morocco and Egypt – along with data from the WEF Global Gender Gap Report 2025 and Africa's Startup Funding Landscape.
According to the report, the post-Covid economic recovery in Africa has been slow and uneven. Between 2021 and 2024, per capita GDP on the continent is projected to grow by only 1.2 percent annually, less than half the global average of 2.5 percent. With 70 percent of women concentrated in insecure, informal employment, they have disproportionately borne the brunt of this regression.
The survey findings paint a troubling picture beyond the economic data, saying that from 2023 onwards, attitudes towards gender equality have worsened not just among men, but across the region. Women themselves are now less likely to support equal pay, financial autonomy, and equal access to education, pointing to a deepening of internal discrimination.
What should I follow WhatsApp | Linkedin for latest headlines
Analyzing the report, Zeineb Squally, BCG's managing director and partner and global lead for gender equality and women's empowerment, said: “What makes this data particularly worrying is that the regression is not limited to structural barriers. When we see that women are becoming less likely to advocate for their own economic rights, it signals how deeply these failings are being felt at a societal level. There is less and less room for intervention. Is.”
According to the BCG survey, 66 percent of women in the six countries aspire to run their own businesses, with the figure exceeding 80 percent in both Nigeria and Kenya. One in five women surveyed already run an online business and two-thirds are considering starting one; I am surpassing men in digital business ambitions.