On August 29, 2025, South Africa hosted the G20 Women to Africa dialogue, part of the Empowerment of Women Working Group (EWWG), on African soil for the first time. As Advocate Mikateko Maluleke noted in her opening address, the event was designed to turn principles into pipelines and commitments into capital that moves.
Esteemed contributors
The program brought together an accomplished lineup: Sindisiwe Chikunga, Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities; Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, former Chairperson of the African Union Commission; Narnia Bohler Muller, Chair of the G20 W20; Dr Vera Songwe, Chair and Founder of the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility; Nardos Bekele-Thomas, Chief Executive of the African Union Development Agency (AUDANEPAD); Maluleke, Director-General of the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities; and Luvuyo Masinda, Chief Executive of Standard Bank Corporate and Investment Banking.
The G20 South Africa 2025 program was directed by broadcaster, Nzinga Qunta. The panel was framed by Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi and moderated by Namhla Mniki, with contributions from Dr Nomfundo Xenia Ngwenya, board member at African Development Bank, André Ross, Head of Global Corporate Banking for sub-Saharan Africa at J.P. Morgan, Aymeric Saha, CEO of MiDA Advisors, and Lincoln Mali, CEO of Lesaka Technologies.
The economic case is unambiguous
The data points shared were stark. African women entrepreneurs face a substantial financing gap. Women-led businesses in Africa consistently secured only 2% of venture capital funding in 2024. That is opportunity foregone in jobs, income and productivity. Closing these gaps is not charity; it is macroeconomics.
Women produce a significant share of sub-Saharan Africa’s food and account for half of the agricultural workforce yet remain constrained by land tenure, collateral and product fit. Meanwhile, vast value pools in textiles, cocoa, critical minerals and the ocean economy continue to be exported largely as raw potential. Women empowerment in Africa to localize value chains is one of the fastest routes to industrialization.
Three priorities for systems change
Across interventions from government, multilaterals and business, three priorities kept returning.
1) Recognize and invest in the care economy: When care is invisible, women’s time is taxed, and productivity is suppressed. Recognizing, valuing and industrializing care through products, services and technology unlock growth and labor force participation.
2) Expand women’s access to finance and formal opportunities: From product design to risk metrics, we need gender-intelligent finance at scale. That includes strengthening pipelines for women asset managers and founders, and derisking where markets have failed to price women’s creditworthiness accurately.
3) Confront gender-based violence (GBV) as an economic issue: The scourge of GBV reduces productivity and keeps women out of work and enterprise. Treating it as a growth constraint in addition to being a critical moral obligation is essential.
These are not standalone tracks. They are mutually reinforcing levers for inclusive growth embedded in the G20 ministerial process and aligned with the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
What we put on the table
At Standard Bank, financial inclusion in Africa is a growth strategy. This year we committed $10 million to the African Women Impact Fund (AWIF) and highlighted progress to date, including capital raised and managers supported through incubation. Standard Bank women initiatives are at the heart of this work.
We also presented alongside partners to showcase how AWIF is de-risking allocations to South African womenowned businesses and widening the aperture for institutional investors. This sits within a decadelong ambition to crowd in $1 billion for women asset managers.
Beyond capital, we noted the African Development Bank’s gender marker system, which tags every project for its contribution to women’s development outcomes. This is the kind of discipline private lenders can emulate to support women economic empowerment: tag, track and disclose where capital actually lands and scale what works.
From underrepresented sectors to future skills
Stories from leaders in aviation, mining and STEM fields illustrated both progress and the remaining cliffs women face, from qualification pipelines to prejudicial workplace cultures. The agenda spotlighted these sectors and youth innovators because tomorrow’s value chains will be digital, data-rich and skillsintensive. If women and girls are not in those pipelines, inequality will be coded in.
The solution set is clear: get girls into STEM, remove bias from hiring and promotion, and direct procurement, capital expenditure and concessional finance to women-owned suppliers in strategic industries. These are bankable steps that shift markets.
Partnership is the operating model
One message resonated: no single actor can move this alone. Governments must set enabling policy. Development institutions can design fit-forpurpose instruments. The private sector must mobilize balance sheets and value chains. Civil society must hold stakeholders to account and ensure that impact reaches rural as well as urban communities.
This is why our call to action emphasized coalitions. A crossindustry group was convened to capture commitments, define joint initiatives and return with a concrete plan, eschewing event-driven announcements in favor of accountable delivery. Thought leadership is useful; shared execution is better.
A practical roadmap
Based on the day’s discussions, here are seven actions institutions can adopt now:
- Adopt gender markers and disclose annually: Tag every loan, investment and procurement line for women’s participation and outcomes. Publish progress and use it to steer capital.
- Back women asset managers at scale: Allocate to women-led funds, including through platforms such as AWIF.
- Design for the ‘missing middle’: Build derisked, cash flowbased products for women-owned SMEs that sit between microlending and corporate banking.
- Procure in priority value chains: Use offtake and long-term supplier contracts to localize value in textiles, cocoa, critical minerals and the ocean economy.
- Invest in care infrastructure and safety: Treat the care economy and GBV reduction as productivity investments that lift participation and SME growth in Africa.
- Create opportunities in STEM: Promote gender mainstreaming, skills development and youth-led innovations in AI and robotics.
- Reinforce collaborative ecosystems: Form a multi-sector action group to track commitments and support implementation.
What comes next
Hosting Women to Africa during South Africa’s G20 presidency was a milestone, but the measure is what follows. As Songwe reminded delegates, capital is a tool, not an end. It must be structured to reward inclusive growth and resilience. Likewise, Chikunga’s charge to the room was to match advocacy with delivery so that women fund managers, founders and producers can scale in the value chains that matter.
Standard Bank’s commitment is to keep moving capital to where it multiplies growth and equity. The promise we made in the room was to turn dialogue into deal flow, with transparent tracking, shared accountability and a clear bias for action.
