Building resilient women in engineering bodies is critical to amplify advocacy and action across the continent.
Africa Catalyst: Capacity Building for Women in Engineering Bodies in Sub-Saharan Africa
In 2018, WomEng, as a recipient of a grant from the Royal Academy of Engineering Africa Catalyst programme, initiated Capacity Building for Women in Engineering Bodies in Sub-Saharan Africa as a response to the low participation levels of women in engineering across the continent.
This report is a culmination of learnings and insights from working with Women in Engineering (WIE) bodies in eSwatini, Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe between January 2018 and September 2020 building on 15 years of experience in diversity and inclusion in engineering. The key focus of this project was to improve the capacity of engineering bodies to promote gender diversity, inclusion and relevance within engineering and among engineering professionals in the selected countries.
Developing Best Practice.
It is estimated that women make up less than 10% of the engineers in sub-Saharan Africa. Engineering is a key driver for sustainable development, growth and economic development, yet the continent’s full workforce potential is not being utilised. Most professional engineering institutions are committed to developing gender diversity and inclusion by establishing dedicated Women in Engineering chapters/committees/bodies (hereon referred to as “bodies”), however progress has been relatively slow. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the need for engineering innovation across sub-Saharan Africa; making our mission to build diverse and inclusive engineering talent pipelines even more vital and supporting the transformation of the engineering industry around the world.
The focus of the project was engaging with the entire engineering institution around diversity and inclusion, developing core leadership capabilities for women in the engineering bodies, building local capacity and support for our pipelining future women in engineering. As such, a series of gender diversity workshops, leadership development and capacity building for WIE members and outreach initiatives for secondary school and tertiary level engineering students were conducted with the respective WIE bodies.
The project objectives:
Strengthen institutional capacity of relevant stakeholders by building capabilities within Women in Engineering bodies.
Increase understanding of the engendered challenges and barriers to entry women face in the engineering industry and develop pro-active support.
Support development of women in engineering pipelines.
Advance leadership capacity of women in engineering chapters to attract, develop and retain girls and women in engineering.
Increase knowledge among Women in Engineering bodies about effective practices for improving gender diversity and inclusion in engineering.
Build on scarce data on women in engineering in Africa
Provide a roadmap and best practice guideline to develop and support diversity and inclusion within engineering bodies.
While the diversity and inclusion challenges in engineering is global, there is no one-size fits all solution for transformation of engineering bodies in sub-Saharan Africa. Partnering with global organisations like WomEng however amplifies impact for local Women in Engineering bodies across the continent by thinking global, acting local. Our key learnings provide a framework for scaling impact across the continent by identifying commonalities, key lessons learnt and experiences on the ground in developing and strengthening Women in Engineering bodies. This is built on the understanding that the challenge is layered. There are global commonalities around the barriers to entry for women in engineering as well as local nuances that have to be considered when developing and implementing diversity and inclusion strategies to transform the engineering industry.
Recommendations
Based on the findings in this report, we believe there are three (3) priority actions that if tackled by women in engineering bodies, will achieve sustained growth in changing mindsets, ways of working and culture, namely:
Build stronger communities: We need to rethink how we support our communities across the continent to share and connect with each other; to find mentors and become mentors; to document experiences and lessons.
Develop collaborative industry partnerships: Women in engineering bodies need to leverage the business case for gender diversity and inclusion in engineering to develop strategic industry partnerships which could lead to a sustainable source of funding.
Drive policy change: Women in engineering bodies need to driving policy change globally in order to lobby governments on the ground.
This project, Capacity Building for Women in Engineering Bodies in Sub-Saharan Africa has successfully highlighted the positive impact created when champions at all levels work together. WomEng will continue to create global advocacy and support for a diverse and inclusion engineering industry, while empowering local women engineers on the ground to develop the next generation of women engineers and truly transform the sector.