Africa’s Start-up Gold and the Missing Women
Africa’s fintech sector is expanding rapidly, driven by innovations in mobile money, digital lending, and neobanking. Yet beneath this progress is a persistent gender gap that limits who benefits from the continent’s financial transformation. This visualization project uses data from the Global Findex Database and Africa The Big Deal to examine the relationship between mobile money adoption, the growth of fintech startups, and the stark underrepresentation of women in leadership and funding. While countries with high mobile money penetration lead in fintech activity, women remain largely excluded from decision making and investment opportunities, with only 10% percent of CEOs being female. The framing highlights these disparities and calls for more inclusive leadership and equitable funding within Africa’s fintech ecosystem.