Africa’s development in the spotlight at G7 Biarritz

The recent G7 summit in Biarritz was certainly full of surreal moments. There was Donald Trump’s bizarre press conference, which the U.S. president mostly used to hawk his Miami resort; Emmanuel Macron’s surprise invitation of the Iranian foreign minister; and the escalating diplomatic feud which saw Brazilian strongman Jair Bolsonaro lob insults at Macron’s wife and turn down a $20 million aid package the G7 had put together to fight the fires raging in the Amazon.

Amidst this sound and fury, however, some of the summit’s greatest accomplishments have been overlooked. For the first time, five African leaders were invited—a concerted effort to put Africa front and center at the G7. The five heads of state—Senegal’s Macky Sall, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and Burkina Faso’s Roch Marc Christian Kaboré—spent the weekend focused on a number of the continent’s most pressing issues.

Inequality, concerning both geography and gender, was a key theme throughout the talks. While the G7 powers made pledges to fund disease prevention and renew their economic partnership with Africa, they also stressed the importance of female education (a cause to which the UK pledged £90 million) and heard speeches from Nobel laureates Nadia Murad and Dr. Denis Mukwege on the need to repeal sexist legislation.

Yet perhaps the most notable outcome was the G7’s pledge of $250 million to promote female entrepreneurship via an African Development Bank program. Described as the “most significant” funding drive ever created for African women, the campaign is designed to unlock credit for female business owners, as well as providing them with training.

Such schemes could be a game-changer for Africa. Entrepreneurship is widely seen as the answer to its alarming unemployment rate, and women represent an often-untapped talent pool. Although the sub-Saharan region already boasts the world’s highest rate of female entrepreneurs, many of their businesses are one-woman operations with little growth prospects. Particularly few women are venturing into the technology industry, held back by insufficient training and a chronic lack of funding. According to the African Development Bank, women across the continent face a financing gap of $42 billion.

Positive steps

Some African leaders are already taking decisive steps to unlock the potential of female entrepreneurship. None has pursued the agenda more vigorously than Senegal’s Macky Sall, whose appearance at the G7 summit consolidated his reputation as one of the continent’s most progressive statesmen.

Sall wants to turn Senegal into a haven for high-tech entrepreneurs, a place where you can set up a company in just 48 hours and young digital dynamos don’t have to migrate to Europe or America. Women are a crucial part of this vision, and to encourage them Sall has established a committee to repeal discriminatory legislation. He’s created an action plan for female leadership and a fast-track entrepreneurship program, extending lines of credit to young women in business. In December, Sall announced a $50 million start-up fund, focused primarily on young women.

This is no small investment in a country whose public debt equates to around 65% of GDP, but the soaring number of female-focused innovation hubs, start-up weekends and coding camps provide clear vindication. Senegal now has one of the highest percentages of female entrepreneurs in Africa, at nearly 37%; what’s more, a posse of charismatic champions, such as computer engineer Binta Coudy Dé, are helping inspire the next generation.

Sall has endeavored to promote this vision not only at home but throughout the continent in his capacity as the leader of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). NEPAD has backed a number of initiatives designed to empower African women, such as the Network of African Business Women (NABW), which brought training and mentoring to female entrepreneurs in Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, Angola, and Kenya. The agency has also organized conferences on women in agribusiness, one of Sall’s particular priorities.

Among Sall’s fellow G7 delegates, Paul Kagame has made significant strides in his native Rwanda. Women now control an estimated 42% of the country’s enterprises; their advances are particularly significant in the field of ICT, where Rwanda is becoming a regional leader. The president has cheered this progress, arguing that “empowering women and ensuring gender equality ultimately enriches communities and entire nations.”

Since taking office in 2000, Kagame has consistently encouraged women to go into business and backed them up with a string of headline policies. He’s rewritten the constitution, both to bolster women’s education and provide greater representation for women in high-profile roles, and his government’s Business Development Fund provides credit for those women who can’t get a bank loan. Now he’s planning fresh investment focusing specifically on the technology sector.

Some Rwandans complain that Kagame’s gender policies are little more than PR spin. They say his reforms are hamstrung by high taxes, not to mention red tape. However, it is hard to dispute the fact that women now play a key role in the booming Rwandan economy, which is growing at a rate of 7% per year.

Challenges ahead

Despite the progress Rwanda and Senegal have made, more can still be done to empower Africa’s women and allow the continent to take advantage of this crucial lever of development.  

Fortunately, it appears that the conversation is only just getting started. Last week 20 African leaders - including four of the five present in Biarritz - headed to Japan for the Tokyo International Conference on African Development. During the event, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to provide “limitless support” for Africa’s entrepreneurs, while vowing to surpass the $20 billion Japan’s private sector has invested in Africa over the next three years.

With Abe’s backing on top of the support already agreed upon at the G7, Africa is set to make global headlines for its entrepreneurship—and hopefully repairing the divides which stretch across both geographical and gender lines.