Africa urged to fast-track women’s financial inclusion as leaders warn slow progress undermining growth

African ministers and senior policymakers have called for urgent and coordinated action to accelerate women’s financial and economic inclusion, warning that the continent’s slow pace of progress is constraining growth and undermining development.

The appeal was made at a Ministerial Policy Dialogue on the African Women’s Decade on Financial and Economic Inclusion, held on the sidelines of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa 2026 Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.

The event was co-organised by ECA and the African Center for Economic Transformation.

The discussions centred on how governments can prioritise women’s inclusion in economic decision-making, using Africa-led evidence from instruments such as the African Gender and Development Index, the Africa Gender Index and the African Women’s Inclusion Index.

Opening the dialogue, Morocco’s Minister of Economy and Finance, Nadia Alaoui, said women’s exclusion from economic opportunities was rooted in governance failures rather than a lack of skills or ambition.

“We face a reality we must acknowledge. Women are trained, but they are not hired. They are hired but not promoted. They are present but not deciding,” she said. “This is not a pipeline issue. It is a governance problem,” Alaoui added.

She stressed that meaningful transformation depended on women participating in decision-making and resource allocation.

“Inclusion will never be complete without women being part of decision-making. We will not transform our economies by including women in numbers and excluding them from power,” she added.

Alaoui highlighted the importance of data, technology and innovation in designing effective reforms, pointing to Morocco’s efforts to expand access to transport, childcare and financial services as examples of practical support for women.

ECA Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist, Hanan Morsy, warned that progress remained too slow, with most African women still excluded from formal economic structures.

She noted that 89 percent of African women are employed informally, often without social protection or access to finance, while digitalisation risks deepening inequalities.

“Closing gender gaps can boost economic growth, yet our ability to measure these losses remains constrained by serious data gaps,” Morsy said.

She said: “Without gender-responsive data, we are effectively making policy with partial sight. This is something we can no longer afford.”

She urged countries to make women’s inclusion a central economic priority, invest in gender data, and design financial and digital systems with women in mind.

Presenting new findings from ACET, Senior Economist Theophiline Bose-Duker said Africa’s average inclusion score has risen modestly from 45.6 in 2011 to 53.5 in 2022.

“At this pace, full inclusion will not be achieved until 2093. That is a sobering reality,” she said.

She attributed the slow progress to gaps in funding, weak implementation of gender policies and limited institutional coordination.

Bose-Duker called for stronger gender data systems, inclusive digital infrastructure, and tighter integration of gender priorities into finance ministries.

The dialogue’s recommendations will feed into the African Union’s Women’s Decade on Financial and Economic Inclusion, which aims to accelerate action to close gender gaps across African economies.

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