Despite ongoing efforts to empower more African women to join the tech sector, and some promising recent signs of a surge of female-led businesses, the digital health sector in Nigeria, like the digital health sector globally, is still largely dominated by men.
The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics recently found that women make up just 30% of the total number of tech jobs in the country, and according to the Financial Institutions Training Centre just 22% of graduates from Nigerian universities majoring in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are female.
In mid-2021, the Data for Implementation (Data.FI) team in Nigeria was increasingly concerned about the lack of gender diversity they witnessed. In response, the team began to design?an internship program to hire and upskill female applicants, with the eventual aim of transitioning successful candidates into full-time employment, either at Data.FI or another organization in the sector.
With two cohorts past and a third currently ongoing, the impact of the program?is?promising and?has led?to greater gender balance within the Data.FI/Nigeria team, improved overall project culture and effectiveness, and contributed to improving gender equity within the wider sector.
Join us for a panel discussion?to learn how this program has put?locally led, gender-transformative?programming in action. We will hear from current interns, past interns who have since transitioned into full-time roles, and two?of the Data.FI/Nigeria supervisors who helped steer the program.
The will cover:
- A brief explanation of the gender digital divide in Nigeria.
- The importance and impact of gender-transformative programming in international development.
- The origin story and design and implementation phases of the internship program.
- A panel discussion with three pairs of panelists to understand their experiences and perspectives on the internship as well as on the state of digital health in Nigeria.
