WomenConnect Challenge - AFCHIX Fact Sheet
Date published: July 11, 2023
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Businesses, economies, and even personal relationships rely on Internet connectivity. Yet, this is only true for around half of the world’s population. Developing countries in Africa, low-income, and remote areas are disproportionately affected by a connectivity gap that leaves them cut off from the information economy and its benefits, and this is particularly true for women in these settings. AFCHIX, a network of African women in technology who believe that gender diversity is crucial to building a thriving and innovative ICT sector on the continent, was awarded two grants through USAID’s WomenConnect Challenge (WCC) —the first in WCC’s Round 1 and the second in Round 3 to scale up the first round’s efforts—to 1) expand women’s access to the Internet, and the benefits it offers, through female-led community networks in Kenya, Morocco, and Namibia, and 2) promote digital training specifically for women.