This article was produced with the support of Standard Bank Group
In 2025 just 0.9% of the total funding raised by start-ups in Africa was raised by women-only founders or teams, and just 8% by teams that were gender diverse, according to data provider Africa: The Big Deal. In comparison, men-only founders or teams accounted for 91% of startup fundraising in Africa. Despite evidence indicating that women-led startups generate 2 to 2.5 times more revenue per dollar invested than those led by men, women continue to face persistent barriers to access funding necessary for transitioning to more secure employment opportunities. The figures were barely better for funds invested in ventures with a woman CEO. Only 2.2% of funding on the continent went to women-led firms – the lowest registered since Africa: The Big Deal began recording the data in 2019.
But at the G20 Women to Africa event held in Johannesburg in August 2025, hosted by the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities (DWYPD) in collaboration with Standard Bank Group, a dedicated group of leaders and women financiers convened to advance their ongoing efforts to ensure that such statistics become a thing of the past.
The event was a platform for strategic, action-driven dialogue on gender equality and financial inclusion. It recognised key ecosystem players who are vital in shifting institutional power and was a sector-wide call-to-action for commitments and partnerships involving diverse stakeholders from public, private and civil society sectors.
It was at this event, that the African Women Impact Fund (AWIF) – launched to overcome systemic barriers and investor biases in the asset management industry by enabling and promoting women-owned and women-led funds across the African continent – took its message directly to the world’s most powerful policymakers. Launched four years ago with $60m of commitments to drive a gender-inclusive investment environment, the initiative was further strengthened with an additional $10m commitment from strategic partner Standard Bank.
For Lindeka Dzedze, Standard Bank Group’s Executive Head of Strategic Partnerships, Global Markets and chairperson of the AWIF’s executive committee, the event and the “incredible” support from the Bank was a pivotal moment in the ongoing battle for gender parity in Africa’s financial sector.
“The theme was ‘collaborating to build sustainable resilient women businesses’, and it brought together the public sector, the private sector and civil society to engage on how we can develop solutions collectively and ensure we are advancing the same agenda. It was incredible – that coming together for solutions to our local realities. It’s a pan-African initiative, one of a kind.”
Standing on the shoulders of giants
The timing of the event was propitious: 2025 marked the 30th and 40th anniversaries of era-defining United Nations global conferences for women in Nairobi, Kenya and Beijing, China respectively. “40 years ago, gender mainstreaming was introduced as a strategy at the World Conference for Women in Nairobi. A decade later, over 50,000 women from across countries, races and nationalities convened at the Beijing’s World Conference on Women in 1995, where one of the most comprehensive bodies of work focused on financial inclusion for women was produced,” says Dzedze. “In 2025, this global platform reconvened some of these influential women leaders to reflect on progress achieved, to engage a new generation and table challenges of gender agenda in the modern day.”
While the origins of AWIF owe much to those crucial initiatives of the past, its founders are laser-focused on making sure that the future looks very different for African women in finance.
To do that, AWIF directly supports women fund managers and the women-led businesses they invest in. The idea is to create a virtuous circle in which women-led financiers back yet more women entrepreneurs as they build their businesses. According to the International Finance Corporation, female fund investment managers are two times more likely to invest in women-led businesses, which can create a ripple effect and accelerate the financial inclusion of women.
Scaling women-led businesses
AWIF’s work to achieve this has several strands. The Fund provides working and investment capital to help women asset managers to scale their firms. These female fund managers, in turn, invest in women-led high-impact sectors, women-led startups, and women-led small-to-medium enterprises. The Fund hopes to raise $1bn by 2032 to further these goals.
“We have the fund, which is a continuous fundraising platform, and we also have the Foundation which gives them working capital that they use to pay for licences, fees, risk mitigation tools etc. It is there to provide financial support through grants for women to keep their businesses alive and keep the lights on while they’re fundraising, because it’s bruising and takes a long time.”
Equally important – and this is where the G20 event proved critical in lobbying policymakers to ensure they are supporting and enabling women’s advancement in the sector and wider society.
“It’s not just fundraising, it’s policies that inform that work and that supports keeping that agenda at the table,” Dzedze insists. “AWIF plays a critical role in keeping women’s financial inclusion at the top of agenda and all members actively advocate across partner institutions and deliberately create access for women fund managers. We support that by inviting women fund managers to key convenings, expanding their networks and increasing their visibility to capital.
“In a context where capital is increasingly politicised and policy environments are often adverse; we are witnessing a reversal. This means institutions have to integrate gender into their strategy – how they support and fund women. This is not a ‘nice to have’. It is a critical driver of the continent’s GDP and reflects the significant role women entrepreneurs play in creating employment across Africa.”
To date, the initiative has provided capital to ten women-led companies, each committed to advancing gender-lens investing across diverse markets and sectors in Africa.
A passion for mentorship
At the heart of the Fund’s work is creating an enabling environment for women asset managers to thrive and grow. Central to that effort is mentorship. Thobile Finca, Programme Manager of AWIF at Standard Bank Group, says that the AWIF partners with RisCura, an investment manager with decades of experience developing emerging fund managers, to take established women asset managers to the next level – ensuring the sustainability of their businesses.
While asset managers often possess strong investment expertise, many do not have resources and capacity to manage their business operations and ensure they adhere to compliance standards when establishing their own firms. AWIF builds on RisCura’s long-standing programme by providing these practical skills and mentorship, which are invaluable for supporting new women-led asset managers.
A series of quarterly webinars with partner MIDA Advisors is another opportunity for women fund managers to learn from their peers, Dzedze adds. “That platform has evolved into a community rather than a one-off intervention and it gives women consistent exposure to diverse global capital allocators. It gives them insight into what investors are looking for, it’s a space for them to engage, question and learn. There’s a mentoring part in terms of learning from others – we’ll typically have fund managers come and share their stories. We connect with stories.”
A pivotal year
2026 will be a pivotal year for the Fund. With statistics showing that backsliding on gender parity is a real possibility, AWIF’s work has never been more important in driving the transformation of Africa’s financial sector, says Dzedze. “We continue to collaborate, to share platforms and engage in fundraising efforts. At the same time, we are actively exploring additional opportunities, identifying resources that can be leveraged or directed toward grants supporting women. Our main objective is to mobilise domestic pools of capital towards supporting women and youth. Without this commitment, Africa will not realise it’s democratic dividend or reach its full potential of sustainable growth.
“For us inclusion is not a moment on International Women’s Day – it’s a 365-day commitment.”