African Girls Can Code Initiative helping build digital skills among young women.

In the rural Rwandan village where Chantal Niyonkuru grew up, access to digital technology was basically non-existent. But when she was selected to attend one of the country's top high schools, Chantal took to computer science right away. After acing her exams, she told her mother she wanted to pursue a career in programming.

Chantal Niyonkuru

Chantal's mother's response, she says, did not surprise her: 'She laughed and said 'Do you know where you are from? That's for students from the cities, rich families or boys,'' Chantal recounts.

Though the details vary, versions of Chantal's story are shared by girls across Africa and around the world. A lack of exposure to tech coupled with strong gendered norms continue to keep girls out of the field from an early age.

Sizolwethu Maphanga

The absence of visible women role models further drives-and is cyclically driven by-their under-representation. Even for girls who do have exposure to tech, their interest is often dampened by a lack of gender-responsive and interdisciplinary curricula.

This was the experience of Sizolwethu Maphanga, whose high school in Eswatini offered classes on information and communication technologies: 'I was fortunate enough to have enrolled,' she says, 'but I was never that much in love with it.'

The course had failed to connect technology to the real-world challenges she saw facing her community and country-a key driver of many girls' career choices, research shows.

Everything changed for Sizolwethu when she attended a coding camp run by the African Girls Can Code Initiative (AGCCI).

There, she says, her passion for tech grew as the camp 'opened my eyes to the game changing innovations that can impact Africa. I learned that with little to no resources, I can make a huge difference if passion and determination are there.'

Launched in 2018 by UN Women and the African Union Commission (AUC) in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), AGCCI is working to empower girls across Africa by helping them build digital literacy and computer skills and placing them on the path to tech careers.

AGCCI's coding camp was a turning point for Chantal, too. She credits the initiative with pushing her to pursue Information Technology at the university level-despite the pressure she was receiving against it.

Furthering long-time passions for some, AGCCI has provided other girls with their first real exposure...