Amid predictions of Africa’s growth and the potential of its youth, one inconvenient statistic tells a different story. Africa has the highest rate of femicide worldwide [2.9 victims per 100,000 in 2023] – around 22,000 women and girls are killed every year by an intimate partner or family member.
I spend a lot of time tackling this inexcusable epidemic through the organisations, brands and companies I work with. This week I am at the United Nations General Assembly in New York trying to keep this overlooked issue on the agenda. The single most powerful accelerator for Africa’s progress is not another flashy tech or mining infrastructure project; it is the autonomy of our girls and women. Quite simply, we make it too hard for a girl to become a woman. Until we confront this, we limit our potential.
It is not hard to imagine this risk, given that in Kenya over 40 percent of women aged 15-49 have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime, BioMed Central And nearly one in three Kenyan girls experience sexual violence before the age of 18. According to wangukanjafoundation.org Young, orphaned girls, women with disabilities, unmarried women, and sex workers are the most vulnerable.
In Kenya, many girls are trapped in a cycle of early marriage (23% are married before 18), early pregnancy, and dropping out of school, leading to devastating consequences for their economic empowerment, health and wellbeing, and their rights to live a life free of violence, according to Citizen Digital
How can we build the continent and workforce of the future while 1 in 3 schoolgirls miss school monthly because of their period? Across sub-Saharan Africa, 55% of girls face the monthly fear of people seeing their menstrual blood. We cannot be squeamish about this; it’s a fact of life. Period. Millions of girls and women are menstruating right now. They need acceptance, education and products to manage it. How can businesses and society claim ‘inclusive growth’ when half our population’s needs are systemically ignored? There is silence around safe sex in most African schoolrooms. Women risk violence for seeking contraception. Safe abortion is a taboo topic. Unplanned pregnancy causes thousands of deaths each year. Yet despite the evidence, governments underfund it, communities stigmatise it, and businesses shy away from it. The result? Preventable pain and suffering; preventable losses in productivity and growth. Where would Africa be without its women?
Businesses have huge influence across the media and plough millions into marketing their brands to women and families yet remain silent – scared and squeamish – on sexual and reproductive health. To me, it’s bad business. Women grow Africa’s economies as both consumers and entrepreneurs. Their unmet health needs are unmet business opportunities.
The private sector has the creativity and influence to act differently. We see glimpses of this affordable sanitary product innovations designed for low-income communities, confidential access to contraception and counselling through telehealth platforms and the taboo-breaking campaigns from unlikely brands from soap to beer showing that what is good for women is good for business and society.
The lesson is simple: when companies put women’s needs at the heart of their strategy, they don’t just sell more products – they earn trust, loyalty and long-term growth. I make the case for this in my recent global TED Talk and call for a new kind of business leadership. I mean someone using their influence to change cultural norms, to stand up for those they sell to. Normalising periods, contraception, and sexual health through education, product design and campaigns that dismantle barriers and break taboos. Let’s stop whispering about women’s bodies and start designing for them.
This is not philanthropy. It’s smart, strategic and inclusive growth. Because the inconvenient truth is, you cannot build strong markets on the backs of disempowered women. Africa’s girls and women form half of this magnificent continent: half of its potential workforce and its most powerful consumers. Governments, philanthropists, and businesses must join forces for and with women – not because it’s ‘nice to do’, but because it’s the most impactful unlock for an unstoppable Africa.
Until then, every promise about Africa’s future is just empty words. Will leaders continue to tiptoe around women’s health, or will they step up to drive the change our continent needs?
By Professor Myriam Sidibe
