Training Was Just the Beginning: How SLA Is Building a Placement Engine for Nigerian Women
A Q1 Year 2 Progress Report on the BoostHer Program, a Partnership Between She Leads Africa and Jobberman By Samson Arowobusoye, Job Matching Consultant | September 2026 Year 1 of the BoostHer Program proved that Nigerian women, given the right skills and the right support, will seize economic opportunity without hesitation. 13,709 women trained. 2,750 income improvements recorded before the year was out. Two pathways, one professional and one entrepreneurial, each delivering measurable results within the same calendar year as training. The model worked. But training alone was never the complete answer. A woman who has been trained still needs a door to walk through. She needs an employer who sees her potential, a business opportunity she can fund, a job opening she can actually find, and a support system that stays with her after the course ends. The central question Year 2 set out to answer was not whether SLA could train women at scale. That question had already been answered. The question was whether SLA could build the infrastructure to place them. Between February and May 2026, the first quarter of Year 2, the BoostHer Program recorded 5,005 placements across all outcome categories. This report documents how that happened, what events drove it, what stood in the way, and what the rest of Year 2 demands. 5,005 Q1 Y2 Placements Recorded 40+ Active Employer Partners 15,000 Year 2 Placement Target Building the Placement Engine One of the most significant structural investments in Year 2 was in the employer partnership network. Where Year 1 focused heavily on training delivery and initial partner onboarding, Year 2 doubled down on converting those relationships into live hiring pipelines. Five new active employer partners were onboarded in Q1, bringing the total count to over 40. Beyond formal onboarding, the more telling development was inbound employer demand. Multiple companies approached SLA directly, requesting access to the talent pool. That shift, from SLA seeking employers to employers seeking SLA’s community, signals a maturation in the program’s market credibility. The placement methodology SLA uses is structured and deliberate. When a role becomes available through a partner, SLA creates a tailored application form, shares the opportunity with the talent community, reviews all responses, and forwards shortlisted candidate profiles to the hiring organisation. Where partners request it, SLA also handles the scheduling and facilitation of first-round interviews, with follow-up maintained throughout and after the hiring process. Partners receive pre-engaged, SLA-trained candidates. Talents receive guided access to verified opportunities they might otherwise never find. The result is a managed talent pipeline, not a passive job board. “We believe your community of talented, ambitious women may include individuals who are a great fit for these positions. Thank you for the incredible work you do in empowering women across Africa.” Saidat Shittu, HR Manager, Chow Noodle Bar The message from Saidat Shittu at Chow Noodle Bar, a pan-Asian dining brand operating across Victoria Island, Osapa London, and Lekki, is illustrative of a broader pattern. Employers are not just tolerating the BoostHer talent pool. They are actively seeking it out, recognising in SLA’s community a concentration of trained, motivated, and professionally credentialed women that is difficult to find through conventional recruitment channels. That is not a coincidence. It is the result of consistent investment in participant quality and community trust. The BoostHer Career and Trade Fair: Placement in Real Time On the 2nd of May 2026, SLA hosted the BoostHer Career and Trade Fair, a live, in-person placement event that brought together recruiters, vendors, and trained talents in one space. The fair was not just a celebration of Year 1 outcomes. It was a working placement mechanism, and the results reflected that. 27 Recruiters Present 260+ Talents Shortlisted by Organisations 24 Gigs Activated at the Fair 16 Vendors from Pool Who Made Sales Twenty-seven recruiters were present on the day, representing organisations actively looking to hire. More than 260 female talents were shortlisted by different organisations directly at the event. Twenty-four gigs were activated by participants during the fair itself, and 16 vendors from the SLA talent pool made direct product or service sales on the day. The outcomes from the fair are included within the 5,005 Q1 placement figures, meaning these were not supplementary results. They were part of the core count, delivered in a single day. The fair demonstrated something important about the placement model SLA is building. When trained, prepared women are placed in the same room as employers and buyers who are actively looking, outcomes happen quickly. The bottleneck in placement is rarely talent quality. It is access. The Career and Trade Fair exists to eliminate that bottleneck in the most direct way possible. The Numbers: Q1 Placements in Full The 5,005 placements recorded between February and May 2026 span five distinct outcome categories, reflecting the dual-pathway structure of the program. Professional Pathway outcomes account for 1,641 of the total: 1,379 women secured new jobs and 262 received promotions or salary increases. Entrepreneurial Pathway outcomes account for the remaining 3,295: 2,400 women recorded revenue increases or sales growth traceable to their BoostHer training, 641 secured paid freelance gigs, and 254 launched new businesses entirely. Taken together, these figures represent 33.4% of SLA’s 15,000 placement target for the full year, delivered in the first quarter alone. The pace is ahead of schedule and the pipeline is active. 1,379 New Jobs Secured 641 Gigs Secured 262 Promotions & Salary Increases 2,400 Revenue Increase / Sales 254 New Businesses Started All placement data was collected through structured participant feedback, meaning the figures represent outcomes that women voluntarily reported and attributed to the program. The true number of income improvements across the talent pool is almost certainly higher. Not every participant responds to follow-up. Not every win gets reported. What SLA tracks is a verified floor, not a ceiling. Beyond Job Matching: A Full Ecosystem of Support Placement at scale requires more than connecting women to open roles. It requires keeping the talent pool engaged, informed, growing, and financially empowered between training
AI Didn’t Take Her Job — It Gave Her a Raise
Okay let’s talk. One girlie to another. Every time AI comes up, someone’s out here doom-scrolling about robots taking over the workforce, and honestly? We get why. It’s a lot. But here’s the thing nobody’s telling you loud enough: AI isn’t the threat you think it is — it might actually be your unlock. Let’s get into it. The stat that should be all over your timeline Workers with AI skills are commanding wage premiums up to 56% higher than their peers who don’t have them. Not “eventually will.” Right now. In 2026. Read that again. Fifty. Six. Percent. That’s not a small bump. That’s the difference between surviving and actually building wealth. And the wild part is — this isn’t locked behind a computer science degree or some elite tech bootcamp you need three years and a small fortune for. It’s genuinely accessible, if you know where to look (more on that later 👀). So why does this feel scary instead of exciting? Because the conversation around AI has been shaped by fear, not by opportunity. Headlines love a good “robots are coming for your job” story. It’s dramatic. It gets clicks. But the real conversation happening in workplaces right now has shifted — it’s not “will AI take jobs,” it’s “how are jobs changing.” That’s a completely different question, and it’s one where you get to decide how you show up. Here’s the truth: the people who lose out aren’t the ones AI replaces. They’re the ones who never learned to work with it. The girls who win here are the ones who get curious early, not the ones who wait until it’s mandatory. What this actually means for you You don’t need to become an engineer. You don’t need to code. What you need is fluency — knowing how to use AI tools to do what you already do, faster, sharper, and with more confidence in the room. Think about it: This is the girlies-helping-girlies economy version of “work smarter, not harder.” And it’s real. This is exactly why SLA exists Because we’re a girls girl. Always have been. We’re not here to gatekeep opportunity or make you feel like you’re behind because nobody handed you the memo on AI early enough. We’re here to make sure you get it now — practically, accessibly, without the jargon and without the fear. If the workforce is shifting (and it clearly is), we want every single one of you shifting with it — not watching from the sidelines wondering if you missed your moment. You didn’t. It’s happening right now, and there’s room for you in it. So no, AI didn’t take her job. She used it, got sharper, got paid more, and kept it moving. Your turn, girlie. 💛 Want to build your AI fluency and stay ahead of the curve? This is what we do. Stay close to SLA — we’ve got you.
The 25-Year-Old Shaping Africa’s Place in Carbon Removal
At 25, Sifa Gakii Kinoti is helping build one of climate technology’s newest frontiers in a field with no map, and in rooms where she is often the youngest person or the only woman. By Charity Wakiuru Mukono At an international conference not long ago, someone approached Sifa Gakii Kinoti and asked if she could help serve the refreshments. They assumed she was the waitress. “I was surprised,” she says. “I even offered to help them look for the waiter.” She wasn’t there to pour tea. She was one of the speakers. And when she walked to the front of the room and began her presentation, the people who had overlooked her leaned in to listen. It is the kind of moment Sifa has learned to move past quickly because there is far more interesting work to be done. At just 25, Sifa is Head of Policy and Partnerships at Octavia Carbon, a Kenyan company developing direct air capture technology machines that pull carbon dioxide directly out of the atmosphere. She also serves on the steering committee of the Carbon Removal Kenya Association and is Vice Chair of the Global South CDR Coalition, roles that place her at the centre of a field still taking shape in Kenya, across Africa and beyond. “There isn’t really a blueprint,” she says. “You learn in the process, and from people who have gone before you.” That uncertainty excites her. It also makes the journey harder. Sifa studied Environmental Engineering at the University of Nairobi. “I’ve always loved mathematics and science,” she says. “I wanted to create sustainable solutions for Africa.” Her path into climate technology was anything but conventional. Unlike medicine, law or accounting, direct air capture is a field few people have heard of, and even fewer have built careers in. There were no clear roadmaps, no long list of professionals to learn from, and few young African women in leadership positions in the field. Instead, Sifa found herself helping build an industry while building her own career within it. “We’re creating something new,” she says. “That means learning constantly, sometimes failing and always adapting.” Sifa regularly walks into meetings where she is the youngest person in the room, the only woman, or the only young African. Sometimes those assumptions are never spoken aloud. She still feels them. “It can be intimidating,” she admits. “The people around you have many more years of experience.” Her response has never been to speak the loudest. It has been to prepare the hardest. Before every meeting, she researches the issues, prepares thoroughly, leans into her strengths and communicates with clarity. The result, she says, is that people stop seeing a 25-year-old. They see someone who knows her work and communicates it with confidence. Working in one of Africa’s pioneering carbon removal companies has also given her something few others have: perspective. “Because we’re building this from the ground up,” she says, “sometimes we bring perspectives that no one else has.” Despite her confidence, there is one habit she is still learning to overcome. Sometimes she hesitates before asking a question. “I worry people will think I should already know the answer.” Then someone else asks exactly the same thing. “And I think … I should have asked that.” It is a small confession, but perhaps the one that makes her story most familiar. Confidence, she has learned, is not the absence of doubt. It is deciding not to let doubt speak louder than you do. Moving into policy analysis demanded that she master entirely new material. There were meetings where she did not feel ready, documents she read repeatedly, and conversations she listened to more than she spoke. But every challenge became another lesson. “You make mistakes,” she says. “You learn. And then you keep going.” Ask Sifa where her determination comes from and she smiles. “My parents taught us that you don’t sit and wait for someone to solve your problem. You wake up and find the solution yourself.” That lesson has stayed with her. “So, with the right mindset,” she says, “nothing is impossible.” She is equally quick to acknowledge the people who continue to support her, her family, her friends, her colleagues and her mentors. “Having a support system is important,” she says. “You need people who walk the journey with you.” So, what would she tell another young woman interested in engineering, science or climate technology? She laughs. “Why not?” She knows the path will not always be easy. Jobs can be difficult to find. The industry is still emerging. Many young women will enter rooms where they wonder whether they belong. Her advice is practical: apply for fellowships, attend workshops, take internships, find mentors and ask questions. “No one knows everything,” she says. “So, reach out. You will make it.” In a field still writing its own future, the young woman once mistaken for the waitress is becoming one of the people helping shape where it goes next.
The Bank She Already Has -Informal Finance in Africa
Every morning, before any bank opens its doors, a woman in a market in Kano is already banking with her Ajo contribution, handed to a trusted collector who will circle it back to her, plus everyone else’s, on a schedule the group agreed to months ago. No collateral. No credit score. No branch visit. Just trust, repeated often enough to become infrastructure. This is informal finance, and for millions of African women entrepreneurs, it’s the primary financial system they operate in. What “informal finance” actually looks like Across the continent, this takes different shapes with the same core logic: Ajo and Esusu in Nigeria, Chama in Kenya, Stokvel in South Africa, tontines across Francophone Africa. Add to that informal moneylenders, supplier credit extended on trust between market traders, and family or community lending that never touches a bank ledger. None of it is regulated. All of it moves real money, at scale, every day. Why women lean on it — and it isn’t about literacy The easy story is that women use informal finance because they lack financial literacy. That story doesn’t hold up in the field. Women running SME businesses in places like Kano and Ilorin are often financially sophisticated, they track margins, manage supplier relationships, and price risk daily. What they lack is access: collateral requirements that assume land or property ownership skewed toward men, documentation demands that formal lenders won’t waive, and, in many Muslim-majority communities, a financing gap where interest-based lending conflicts with Islamic finance principles and few Sharia-compliant alternatives exist locally. Financial literacy training addresses none of that. You can teach a woman to build a cash flow projection, and she still won’t qualify for a loan if the underlying eligibility criteria were never built with her in mind. The barrier is structural, not educational. The double edge Informal finance deserves real credit, not just as a stopgap. It’s flexible, community-governed, and built on trust that formal underwriting can’t replicate. But it has a ceiling. Group savings pools are only as large as the group’s combined savings — they can smooth cash flow, but rarely fund the kind of growth capital a scaling business needs. Informal moneylenders can be predatory. And because none of it is recorded in a way formal institutions recognize, a woman can have a flawless repayment history for a decade and still show up as “no credit history” to a bank. Organisations building the bridge — and how to actually get in The good news: informal finance is increasingly being connected to formal systems, deliberately, by organizations that understand both worlds. None of these require a loan application in the traditional sense — access usually runs through a local facilitator, cooperative, or implementing partner already active in a community, not a branch or a portal. CARE International runs the most widely replicated model, the Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA). Groups of 15 to 25 people meet regularly to pool savings, access small loans, and build emergency insurance, with the model supporting more than 8 million members since 1991, most of them women. Its LINK Up initiative goes a step further — connecting 10,000 VSLAs directly to formal financial institutions in Kenya and Tanzania, turning an informal savings record into something a bank will recognize. Access: through CARE’s country offices, or the local NGOs and cooperatives that implement CARE-aligned savings programmes in a given community. Oxfam runs its own version under different names depending on the country, VSLAs in Nigeria, Saving for Change in Mali. In Nigeria, Oxfam’s VSLAs are self-managed community groups of 15 to 25 people who meet weekly or fortnightly to save and borrow, with savings and earnings shared out after roughly a year, and the model is active specifically in states like Kebbi and Adamawa as part of rural resilience programming. Access: through Oxfam Nigeria’s field offices or the local partner organizations delivering its rural livelihoods and resilience projects. Plan International takes a similar approach with a younger-skewing focus. It supports savings groups across 28 countries so that people, especially young women, can confidently access financial services and build saving and investment skills. Access: through Plan International’s country programmes, usually bundled with youth economic empowerment or girls’ education initiatives already running in a community. BRAC stands out for building a formal pathway on top of the informal one. Its model starts women in community savings groups, then moves them into BRAC’s own microfinance institutions once they’re ready to scale. In its AIM programme, more than 13,000 young women set up 630 savings groups, collectively saving over $230,000, with some going on to become clients of BRAC’s microfinance branches. BRAC’s group-based loans are collateral-free and designed specifically for women micro-entrepreneurs who lack formal credit history, effectively formalizing the trust-based lending an Ajo group already runs on. Access: through BRAC’s country offices in Uganda, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, and Ghana, where its savings-group and microfinance branches operate directly in communities. This is where SLA’s role becomes clear. Digital skills, the kind SLA builds through BoostHer, aren’t a replacement for informal finance, and they’re not positioned as one. They’re the bridge: the ability to digitize records, build a visible transaction history, and present a business in a way that formal capital providers and platforms like ConnectHer can actually evaluate. A woman doesn’t have to choose between her Ajo group and a bank loan. With the right digital tools, her Ajo history becomes evidence a bank can use. The reframe Informal finance isn’t a phase women “graduate out of” on the way to real banking. It’s real banking — proven, trusted, and running at a scale formal institutions still can’t reach in the same communities. The work isn’t to replace it. It’s to build the connective tissue — through organizations like CARE, and through digital skills that make informal financial histories legible to formal systems — so that women don’t have to leave one system behind to access the other.
How Stephanie Chiamaka Madumelu Is Transforming Women’s Health Through Prevention and Education
Recognizing that many preventable reproductive health conditions continue to affect women because of limited awareness, stigma, and unequal access to healthcare, Stephanie founded Maky Bloom to bridge these gaps through community-centered health education and outreach.
The Shege of Work and Business
A few weeks ago, we asked our community to share something about their work or business life that they’ve never said out loud, professionally. We expected a handful of replies. What we got instead was a flood, and once we started reading through them, a few things came up again and again. Enough that we knew we couldn’t just say “thank you for sharing” and move on. These stories deserved a real conversation, not a comment section. Here’s some of what came up. The Boss Who Makes You Question Your Own Sanity The manager who takes credit in the meeting for the work you did alone at 1am. The one who promises a promotion “next quarter” for three quarters running. The one whose mood decides whether the office is safe or unbearable that day. What struck us wasn’t that these stories exist, every working woman has at least one. It’s how often they get minimised. “That’s just how work is.” “Every job has a difficult boss.” Except when you put dozens of these stories side by side, a pattern shows up that’s harder to wave away: a lot of talented women are quietly burning out under leadership that was never held accountable for how it treats people. The Client From Hell (Every Entrepreneur’s Favourite Story) If the corporate stories were about hierarchy, the business owner stories were about disrespect in a different form. The client who negotiates your price down, then expects premium delivery. The one who disappears for three weeks mid-project and resurfaces demanding it “yesterday.” The one who wants “just one small revision” for the fifth time, still within the original budget. Running a small business in this economy is hard enough without also having to manage clients who’ve never once considered that your time, materials, and expertise cost something. Several women told us they’ve started undercharging just to avoid conflict, and then resenting the work because of it. Business Partnerships That Don’t Survive the Money Conversation This one came up more than we expected. The co-founder who quietly checked out once the business started making money. The “50/50” partnership that was never actually 50/50 in effort. The friend-turned-business-partner situation that ended the friendship too. Nobody warns you, when you’re excited to start something with someone you trust, that the hardest conversations will be about money, contribution, and who’s actually doing the work. A lot of the women who wrote in said the business itself wasn’t the hard part, the partnership was. The Real Shege Put together, what we heard wasn’t really about any one bad boss or one difficult client. It was about how much invisible labour goes into simply surviving work and business as a woman in Africa right now, managing other people’s egos, chasing payments that should never have needed chasing, staying professional while being disrespected, and rarely having anywhere to say any of it plainly. That’s what we want to give the community now: a real space for that. Not to name anyone, not to drag anyone, just to name the patterns clearly enough that when you read them, you think “wait, this happened to me too.” Come Talk to Us Over the next few weeks, we’re opening this conversation up properly across our social pages, real (anonymised) stories, audio conversations, and a few live sessions where you can join in and share your own experience. Toxic bosses, difficult clients, business partnerships gone sideways, the interview process that ghosted you, the job that wasn’t what the description promised, we’re covering all of it, one week at a time. If any of this sounds familiar, you’re exactly who this is for. Follow the conversation and add your voice here This is your platform as much as it is ours.
Restoring Landscapes, Restoring Lives: How Thembisa Ntisa is Using Conservation to Create Opportunities in South Africa
Environmental degradation and unemployment are two of South Africa’s most pressing challenges. For entrepreneur and conservation leader Thembisa Ntisa, these issues are deeply connected, and solving one can help solve the other. As the founder and project leader of Ntisa Enviro Projects, Thembisa has built a business that combines ecological restoration with social impact, using environmental conservation as a pathway to employment, skills development, and community empowerment. Turning a Challenge into a Purpose Thembisa’s journey began with a simple but powerful realization: degraded landscapes and unemployment both deplete communities of hope and sustainability. Invasive alien plant species continue to threaten biodiversity, reduce water availability, and increase fire risks, while many young people and women struggle to access meaningful employment opportunities. Rather than seeing these as separate challenges, she saw an opportunity to address both. This vision led to the establishment of Ntisa Enviro Projects, a company dedicated to restoring ecosystems while creating jobs and building skills within local communities. Through structured environmental restoration projects across the Western Cape, she has empowered local youth and women through employment, skills development, and practical environmental training. Her work demonstrates that conservation is not only about protecting nature—it is also about restoring dignity, creating livelihoods, and building stronger communities. Restoring Ecosystems Through Practical Action Ntisa Enviro Projects specializes in invasive species management, environmental rehabilitation, and ecosystem restoration across the Western Cape. The company works to remove invasive species such as Gum, Pine, Port Jackson, and Blackwood, helping restore natural ecosystems and protect valuable water resources and biodiversity. The work often takes place in challenging landscapes, requiring careful planning, strict safety standards, and close collaboration with municipalities and conservation stakeholders. Beyond invasive species management, Ntisa Enviro Projects actively implements interventions that support the long-term recovery of ecosystems. These interventions help direct water flow, reduce erosion, protect riverbanks, and create stable conditions that allow indigenous vegetation to develop strong root systems and recover naturally. The philosophy is simple: Clear. Rehabilitate. Protect. Regenerate. By combining invasive species management with active rehabilitation, the company ensures that restoration extends beyond the removal of invasive plants and contributes to the long-term health, resilience, and balance of natural ecosystems. Creating Opportunities Through Conservation At the heart of Ntisa Enviro Projects is a commitment to people. Through its environmental restoration initiatives, the company has created employment opportunities and provided practical training in areas such as herbicide application, chainsaw operation, and health and safety management. These experiences equip participants with valuable skills that improve confidence, employability, and long-term opportunities. For Thembisa, conservation is not only about protecting nature—it’s also about restoring dignity and creating pathways for people to thrive. Leadership Rooted in Service As a founder and project leader, Thembisa remains actively involved in field operations, mentoring teams, ensuring environmental compliance, and supporting workers as they grow personally and professionally. She also documents project progress meticulously, tracking both environmental and social outcomes to demonstrate accountability and measurable impact. Her leadership philosophy is simple: “When we restore the environment, we also have an opportunity to restore hope, dignity, and livelihoods.” This belief continues to guide every project undertaken by Ntisa Enviro Projects. Looking Ahead The vision for Ntisa Enviro Projects is to become a leading force in environmental rehabilitation and community empowerment, demonstrating that conservation and socio-economic development can go hand in hand. Every hectare restored represents more than environmental progress—it represents opportunities created, skills developed, and communities strengthened. As the company continues to grow, its mission remains clear: To restore degraded landscapes, protect natural ecosystems, and create meaningful opportunities for people while building a more sustainable future for generations to come. Partner with a restoration team delivering measurable impact on land and livelihoods. Website: https://ntisaenviro.co.za/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ntisa-enviro-projectsEmail: info@ntisaenviro.co.za
Why African Women Entrepreneurs Are Undervalued by Investors — And How to Change the Narrative
By She Leads Africa | 22nd June, 2026 Here is a number worth sitting with: in 2024, female-led startups across Africa raised just $48 million. Their male counterparts raised $2.2 billion. That’s not a gap. That’s a canyon. And it’s getting worse. Women-led startups received only 2% of total venture capital deployed across Africa in 2024 — the lowest share recorded since data collection began. A year later, despite a 40% rebound in overall African startup funding, the situation barely moved. Less than 10% of all venture funding in 2025 went to companies with even one female founder. If you are a woman building a business on this continent, these numbers are not news to you. You have felt this. In the rooms you weren’t invited into. In the pitch feedback that focused on your risk rather than your runway. In the investor who asked who else was backing you before deciding if he should. The question isn’t whether the gap is real. The question is: what do we do about it? First, let’s name what’s actually happening The funding gap is not an accident. It is the output of a system that was never designed with African women entrepreneurs in mind. Bias shows up before you even walk in the room. Research consistently shows that investors — the majority of whom are men — tend to back founders who look, sound, and network like them. This “homophily” effect means women-led ventures are evaluated through a narrower lens, often before a single slide is reviewed. The sectors women dominate are undervalued. Women-led startups are disproportionately concentrated in education, health, agriculture, and social impact — all sectors that attract lower valuations and smaller check sizes than fintech infrastructure or enterprise SaaS, where male founders dominate. It’s not that these sectors matter less. It’s that the ecosystem has decided to value them less. The “market potential” question is rigged. Women entrepreneurs frequently report being questioned about the size of their addressable market — even when they are explicitly serving African women consumers, one of the fastest-growing and most underserved economic groups on the continent. A $2.5 billion funding gap has accumulated over five years while investors simultaneously missed the explosive growth of women-driven markets in e-commerce, mobile finance, and agri-food. Grant dependency is a trap, not a solution. Women receive around 52% of Africa’s grant funding — which sounds like progress until you realise that grants don’t build the equity runway needed to scale. Overreliance on grants keeps businesses in a perpetual “startup” phase and reinforces the perception that women-led ventures need charity, not capital. What this costs all of us This is not only a women’s issue. It is an economic one. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that closing the gender funding gap in Africa could unlock $316 billion in additional economic growth. The $42 billion financing gap for women entrepreneurs isn’t just a missed investment opportunity — it is economic value being left on the table, every single year. Women in Africa represent one of the highest rates of entrepreneurship in the world. They are already building. They are already selling — On the Jumia platform, over half of sellers in Kenya and Nigeria are women, according to IFC research, a signal of just how actively African women are driving digital commerce. They are already creating employment, driving household income, and sustaining local economies. The infrastructure of care, food, learning, and trade in this continent runs largely on women’s labour and ingenuity. Choosing not to fund them is not a neutral decision. It is a choice — and it has compounding consequences. What you can do — right now, as a woman entrepreneur If you’re building and you’re frustrated, you have every right to be. But here is what we know works. Get clear on what kind of capital you actually need. Not every business needs venture capital, and chasing VC before you’re ready — or when it’s the wrong structure for your model — can cost you equity and momentum. Revenue-based financing, development finance institutions (DFIs), blended finance instruments, and targeted grant programmes are growing. Know your options before you walk into any room. Build your evidence base obsessively. Investors claim to be data-driven. Give them data that’s hard to argue with — unit economics, retention metrics, market size research, customer testimonials. Don’t let anyone tell you your market is too niche when you can show them exactly who your customer is and how much she’s willing to pay. Invest in your investor network before you need it. The single biggest predictor of who gets funded is who already has warm introductions to the right people. This is unfair — and it is also true. Find the female angel networks, the gender-lens funds, the investors who have a track record of backing women founders. In Kenya, for example, a robust network of female angel investors has measurably increased funding rates for women entrepreneurs. That’s replicable. Document your story with precision. Your impact, your growth, your team, your vision — all of it needs to be articulable in three minutes and defensible in an hour. Work on your pitch the same way you work on your product. Ruthlessly. Find your community and stay in it. Isolation is the enemy of ambition. Connect with other women who are at the stage you’re trying to reach. They will open doors, share intelligence, challenge your assumptions, and remind you — when the ecosystem fails you — that the failure is not yours. What needs to change at the system level Individual preparation matters. But let’s be honest: the burden of fixing a structural problem should not fall entirely on the people being excluded by it. The ecosystem needs to move. Specifically: Gender-disaggregated data must become standard. You cannot address what you do not measure. Every fund, accelerator, and DFI operating in Africa should be required to track and publish funding flows by gender. More women need to be in investment decision-making roles.
The Investment Society, UNILAG set to host ‘The Colloquium 2026’ this June in Grand Style
The Investment Society, UNILAG (TISUNILAG) has announced this year’s edition of its flagship student conference, The Colloquium 2026, set to drive deep conversations on the future of the financial markets, renewable energy and infrastructure development in Nigeria. The event would be held on Thursday, June 18th of June, 2026, at the J.F. Ade Ajayi Hall (Main Auditorium), University of Lagos, with over 2,500 expected attendees including students, finance professionals, industry leaders, energy change makers, and innovators.The narrative of Nigeria’s infrastructure failure has been the same for decades. The same old story of electricity blackouts, potholed roads, and unmet budget deficits, told over and over again in different languages across different generations. This timeless tale of our infrastructure performance is not just a favourite bedtime story; it’s a fact. In 2020, the World Bank estimated that Nigeria needs $3 trillion in investment over the next 30 years (approximately $100 billion annually) to tackle its infrastructure deficit. As unrealistic as the math seems, it is the reality, and when the state retreats from stepping up, a new set of players emerges. A private crop of builders, independent power producers, and digital innovators are rewriting the story of Nigeria and its financial markets from the ground up. The conversations at The Colloquium 2026 are designed to discuss the key sectors in this emergence. The theme: “Unlocking A New Era: The Future of Nigerian Financial Markets, Renewable Energy, and Infrastructure Development” reflects the sharp, crucial redefinition of Nigeria’s most chronic deficits as its most explosive opportunities, and a direct invitation to the next generation to participate in the unfolding of the new era, rather than standing back and spectating. The Colloquium 2026 is not built for passive attendance. The panel sessions go beyond theory, putting industry intelligence into the hands of students, equipping them to diagnose real-world problems, pressure-test ideas, and leave sharper than they arrived. Aside from these sessions, there will be entertainment and side events to ensure optimal engagement and absolute audience satisfaction. Last year, we had some of the sharpest minds and biggest voices on the continent at The Colloquium 2025. Industry leaders like Mrs Adenike Ogunlesi, the founder and CRO of Ruff ‘n’ Tumble, and Mr Banji Fehintola CFA, an Executive Board Member and the head of financial services at Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), led conversations on the future of capital and independent thinking. Conversations like this are what we champion annually at The Colloquium. It’s the bar. It’s the legacy. The Colloquium 2026 raises the bar with a new roster of industry giants and thought-leaders prepared to tackle this year’s theme with the urgency it requires. Bolstered by the support of institutions like Aradel and FCSL Capital, and featuring a formidable lineup including Shola Carrena, Odunayo Ojo, and Dapo Olagunju, regardless of if you are strategizing your professional debut within the financial sector, a young founder stress-testing your thesis against real market intelligence, or a professional looking to stay ahead of the curve, The Colloquium 2026 is where your next big connection, idea, or opportunity is waiting. To create a sense of expectation, the livestream of The Colloquium 2025 is on YouTube. You can also follow The Investment Society on social media for updates, speaker announcements, and everything building up to June 18th. WhatsAppInstagramX (fka Twitter)LinkedIn Nigeria’s next era is not a prediction. It is a project, and it needs architects. Will you be in the room? Register for The Colloquium 2026.
From Classrooms to Careers: What Nigeria’s 13,709 Women Taught Us About Workforce Development
By Samson Arowobusoye, Job Matching Consultant, She Leads Africa | June 8, 2026 A Year 1 Impact Report on the BoostHer Program, a Partnership Between She Leads Africa and Jobberman In Nigeria, being a young woman with an education is no guarantee of economic independence. According to the World Bank’s 2025 Gender Data Report, only 10.5% of employed Nigerian women hold formal wage or salaried positions, compared to 17% of their male counterparts. Meanwhile, 13.4% of young women are classified as NEET: not in education, employment, or training. And for women in the most underserved communities, including internally displaced persons living in camps, this figure is far worse. The gap between education and economic inclusion is not a skills problem alone. It is a structural one, compounded by access, geography, confidence, and the near-total absence of opportunity. It was into this reality that the BoostHer Program was launched in May 2025, a partnership between She Leads Africa (SLA) and Jobberman, under the broader Young Africa Works initiative. The program was designed to meet women where they were, offering both digital and practical livelihood skills. For women in displacement camps, this included hands-on training in soap making and financial literacy, skills with immediate income-generating potential that required no device, no internet connection, and no prior technical background. For women with digital access, the program offered professional and entrepreneurial training across a range of high-demand fields. The goal across all tracks was the same: equip Nigerian women with market-relevant skills and translate that training into measurable economic outcomes. By January 2026, when Year 1 closed, 13,709 women had been trained. 2,750 had recorded income improvements through new jobs, promotions, freelance gigs, or product sales, all directly traceable to skills acquired through the program. This is what SLA learnt. 13,709Women Trained 2,750Income Improvements Recorded 30,000Target for Year 2 The Women We Set Out to Reach The BoostHer Program targeted Nigerian women between the ages of 18 and 35, but from the outset, SLA resisted the temptation to define that group narrowly. Formal education, as understood within the program’s eligibility, begins from the secondary school certificate. Participants did not need to be university graduates or current tertiary students to qualify. The program was designed for any woman who had completed at least a secondary school education, whether she had gone further into higher education or not. Within that broad eligibility, participants came from three distinct starting points. Some were graduates navigating a difficult labour market. Some were students still in school, building skills ahead of graduation. And some were active business owners, whether graduates or not, who needed digital and practical tools to grow what they had already built. The program was structured to serve all three. This led to a deliberate two-pathway structure at the heart of the BoostHer Program. The Professional Pathway served women seeking new employment, career advancement, or promotion within formal organisations. The Entrepreneurial Pathway served women running or building businesses, who needed practical skills to expand their reach, grow their revenue, and compete in an increasingly digital marketplace. Both pathways were equal in design priority. Neither was treated as secondary. Jobberman, as the program sponsor and convener under the Young Africa Works mandate, brought its deep understanding of the Nigerian labour market to the partnership. SLA, as the implementation partner, brought its expertise in reaching and training young African women, particularly those who are ambitious and hungry for opportunity but structurally underserved by mainstream workforce development programs. Courses Built Around Real Needs One of the deliberate design choices in Year 1 was to resist the temptation of a one-size-fits-all curriculum. The BoostHer Program offered a suite of courses calibrated to the actual economic activities of the women it serves, organised around the two core pathways, with a dedicated track for women in underserved and displaced communities. Under the Entrepreneurial Pathway, participants could enrol in Digital Marketing and Content Creation, designed for business owners seeking to grow their brands online; Smartphone Video Editing, which enabled participants to produce professional-grade content without expensive equipment; E-Book Creation, targeting authors and content creators looking to monetise intellectual property; and Brand Design, equipping women building personal and business identities in a competitive visual economy. Under the Professional Pathway, participants could enrol in Executive Virtual Assistance, one of the highest-demand remote work skill sets in today’s economy, and Data Analysis covering Excel, SQL, and Power BI, opening doors into the data-driven sectors of finance, technology, and business. For women in IDP camps and other underserved communities, the program delivered soap making and financial literacy training, practical livelihood skills that could generate income immediately, without a smartphone, a laptop, or an internet connection. These courses were not an afterthought. They were a recognition that workforce development, to be truly inclusive, must speak the language of the community it is trying to serve. Across all tracks, the shared principle was the same: every course was a direct pathway to a specific income-generating opportunity that participants could activate immediately after completion. What the Data Revealed Of the 13,709 women trained between May and December 2025, follow-up reporting before year’s end captured 2,750 with verifiable income improvements. This 20.1% documented outcome rate, achieved within the same calendar year as training, is a significant indicator for a program of this scale and reach. When broken down by pathway, the outcomes tell a rich story. Of the 2,750 recorded improvements, 817 came through the Professional Pathway. Of those, 663 participants secured new jobs and 154 recorded promotions within their existing organisations. The remaining 1,933 outcomes came through the Entrepreneurial Pathway: 1,561 participants recorded direct product or service sales traceable to skills gained through the program, while 372 secured paid freelance gigs. Together, these figures confirm that both pathways delivered real, measurable economic value within the same year of training. The program’s reach also reflected geographic and demographic breadth, with participants drawn from across Nigeria with varying levels of prior education and digital exposure. Professional Pathway817 outcomes (29.7% of total)663 new