Rise African Woman Magazine

RISEAFRICAN WOMAN ISSUE 01 OCT–DEC 2026 QUARTERLY FUTURE SKILLS • LEADERSHIP • OPPORTUNITY BESS KANKOLONGO Founder/Chair, GWFSN YOLANDA CUBA Speaker RSaW2026 LENHLE KHOZA Compere, RSaW DR NTOMBI MHANGWANI Speaker RSaW2026 VERONICA MOTLOUTSI Speaker RSaW2026 KAGISO MALEPE Founding Member, GWFSN FROM RISE SOUTH AFRICA TO RISE AFRICA How GWFSN’s flagship women’s platform is expanding from South Africa into a pan-African vision for 2027. FEATURING VOICES FROM THE 8 AUGUST 2026 EVENT JOHANNESBURG • GLOBAL WOMEN’S FUTURE SKILLS NETWORKADVERTISEMENT Your next step starts with you. Explore learning and work opportunities through SA Youth, the network managed by Harambee. Explore SA Youth harambee.co.za/work-seekers Illustrative photography: RDNE Stock project / Pexels. 2RISE AFRICAN WOMAN IMPRINT RISE AFRICAN WOMAN / OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2026 03 RISE AFRICAN WOMAN ISSUE 01 OCT–DEC 2026 QUARTERLY FUTURE SKILLS • LEADERSHIP • OPPORTUNITY GWFSN MANAGEMENT BOARD EDITORIAL AND PRODUCTION TEAM Bess Kankolongo Founder/Chair Kagiso Malepe Executive Member Gladys Manqele Member Dr. Charles Wirsuiy Snr. Editor-in-Chief Pastor Matete Teboho Production Executive Global Women's Future Skills Network Email: [email protected] Tel: +27(0)832091905 Eye of African Golf Estate, 33 Cayman Rd. 1872 Johannesburg GWFSN.ORGGWFSN PRESENTS FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT SAVE THE DATE RISE AFRICA WOMAN 2027 The next chapter. A wider African horizon. 08 AUGUST 2027 Future Skills • Leadership • Opportunity ROYAL MAJESTIC HOTEL Rosebank, South Africa OFFICIAL REGISTRATION OPENS 30 January 2027 Global Women’s Future Skills Network gwfsn.org 4RISE AFRICAN WOMAN CONTENTS RISE AFRICAN WOMAN / OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2026 05 Inside RISE ISSUE 01 Dr Ntombi Mhangwani and Kagiso Malepe at RSaW2026. Supplied photograph. 07 FUTURE SKILLS BAROMETER ISSUE ZERO 15 FUTURE SKILLS BAROMETER Barometer Companion: Data Literacy & Reader Action 17 THE GWFSN FOUNDER’S FILE From RISE SA to RISE Africa 20 EDITOR’S DESK A Magazine for the Future Africa Must Build 23 THE FUTURE FILE Who Gets to Build Africa’s Next Economy? 29 THE FUTURE FILE Africa 2035: Three Futures, Three Choices Selected highlights. All articles and RISE Living are available through PDF bookmarks.RISE AFRICAN WOMAN CONTENTS RISE AFRICAN WOMAN / OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2026 06 Skills, work and opportunity Yolanda Cuba, Speaker RSaW2026. Supplied photograph. 34 SKILLS STUDIO AI Literacy That Starts With a Question 42 TOMORROW’S WORK Beyond the Coding Stereotype 51 BUILD & EARN The Small Business as a Learning Laboratory 58 FUTURES ON THE GROUND The Farm Is a Technology Story 68 GIRLS FIRST Before We Teach AI, Can We Teach Reading? 78 WOMEN WHO MOVE TOMORROW The Work Behind the Breakthrough 90 OPPORTUNITY COMPASS Your Next Skill Has a Starting Point 95 RISE LIVING Food, beauty, style & wellbeing Selected highlights. All articles and RISE Living are available through PDF bookmarks.RISE AFRICAN WOMAN GWFSN African Women’s Future Skills Barometer RISE AFRICAN WOMAN / OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2026 07 GWFSN AFRICAN WOMEN’S FUTURE SKILLS BAROMETER ISSUE ZERO An evidence-led starting point for measuring women’s future readiness. FOUNDING EVIDENCE REVIEW Existing research. A proposed framework. No original GWFSN survey or country ranking. What would it take to measure whether African women are becoming more prepared for the future? The answer begins with a warning: a short-course completion count is not the same thing as digital competence, a mobile network signal is not the same thing as affordable access, and a new job title is not proof of decent work. GWFSN's proposed African Women's Future Skills Barometer starts here, with an honest inventory of the evidence we do have, the gaps we cannot paper over and the safeguards needed before any original score or country comparison can be published. But it would be misleading to publish a colourful ranking and call it a baseline before GWFSN has collected comparable evidence and tested a methodology. This inaugural instalment has a deliberately different purpose. It is Issue Zero: a transparent, curated evidence brief using existing research, accompanied by the proposed architecture for an original GWFSN measurement programme. That distinction is a matter of trust. We can begin the conversation now without pretending that our own survey exists. Our responsibility is to tell readers who gathered each figure, what it measures, which population it describes, what period it covers and how confident we should be in comparing it with another figure.RISE AFRICAN WOMAN GWFSN African Women’s Future Skills Barometer RISE AFRICAN WOMAN / OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2026 08 SIGNAL 01 / ACCESS Who is connected? Internet use by sex ITU Africa region | 2025 | percentage of each population 0 25 50 75 100 Women 31.2% Men 40.3% ITU DataHub, 2025 estimates. [B2-S03] Source. The first signal: not all women are connected ITU reports that, in 2025, 31.2% of women and 40.3% of men in its Africa region used the internet. The difference is 9.1 percentage points; it is not a 9.1% relative gap. Nor is it a measure of smartphone ownership, connection quality or digital skill. The Barometer records this as one limited indicator of participation. [B2-S03] GSMA’s Mobile Gender Gap Report 2026, using data from 2025, estimates that women across lowand middle-income countries were 12% less likely than men to use mobile internet. It also estimates a 26% mobile-internet gender gap in sub-Saharan Africa. These measures differ from ITU’s internet-use indicator in population, method and type of access; they should be displayed separately, never added or averaged. GSMA identifies handset affordability, literacy and digital skills among important barriers. [B2-S07] Why does this distinction matter? Because the headline 'women are less connected' can hide different failures. A woman may own a basic handset but not a smartphone. She may have a device but not enough data for a course. She may use messaging daily yet have little chance to practise spreadsheets, research or digital security. She may be online but avoid public professional platforms because of harassment. Policies aimed at only one of these obstacles can leave the others intact. The Barometer should therefore treat access as a sequence—availability, affordable ownership or use, dependable connection, safe participation and meaningful capability—not as one checkbox labelled 'connected'.RISE AFRICAN WOMAN GWFSN African Women’s Future Skills Barometer RISE AFRICAN WOMAN / OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2026 09 SIGNAL 02 / CAPABILITY Skills make the difference SPREADSHEET PROFICIENCY 100 : 40–44 MEN WOMEN UNESCO’s comparison for sub-Saharan Africa. A ratio among people with spreadsheet skills, not the share of all women with those skills. The second signal: a skills divide UNESCO reports that in sub-Saharan Africa, for every 100 men with spreadsheet skills, only about 40–44 women have comparable skills, based on the source data used in its Africa digital-inclusion work. This is a comparative skills indicator—not the percentage of all women who can use spreadsheets—and it does not describe every country identically. UNESCO also highlights teacher and student initiatives in Ghana and Tanzania. [B2-S08] The editor's task is to ask what 'skills' means in any dataset. Does an indicator record self-reported confidence, a classroom assessment, completion of a certified course, or a practical demonstration? Each has value, but they are not substitutes for one another. Confidence can be high without competence; competence can exist without a credential; a credential can be achieved without a clear route to application. Future GWFSN research should include performance-based measures where feasible, even if simple: identifying a phishing attempt, interpreting a table, evaluating an AI answer against trusted evidence, or organising a set of records responsibly. The test should not reward expensive equipment or mastery of one brand when the relevant skill is broader. UNESCO digital-divide project page, updated 4 August 2025. Observation year not specified on page. [B2-S08] View source.RISE AFRICAN WOMAN GWFSN African Women’s Future Skills Barometer RISE AFRICAN WOMAN / OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2026 10 SIGNAL 03 / TRANSITION Beyond the classroom Young people outside work and learning Sub-Saharan Africa | ages 15–24 | 2023 | NEET rate 0 25 50 75 100 Women 27% Men 16.9% ILO, GET Youth regional brief, August 2024. [B2-S02] Source. The third signal: education-to-work transitions remain unequal According to the ILO’s 2024 sub-Saharan Africa youth brief, 27% of young women aged 15–24 were outside employment, education and training in 2023, compared with 16.9% of young men. Nearly three in five young people in that category were women. These are regional, modelled estimates; country outcomes can differ substantially. [B2-S02] This measure is important, but it is not interchangeable with unemployment. Someone who is not seeking work may be outside the unemployment definition yet still lack access to education or training. Nor does the rate explain why someone is out of both work and education: care responsibilities, household finances, mobility, safety, illness, discrimination and lack of local opportunities may all require investigation. The ILO also noted that insecure work was widespread among young adult workers. That should shape the Barometer's employment dimension: the question cannot stop at whether a person earned something last week. We need to ask whether employment is reasonably safe, stable and capable of supporting progression. We need to ask whether employment is reasonably safe, stable and capable of supporting progression. FROM THIS ARTICLE