South Africa, Sept. 22 -- The economic case, made plainly

Hon. Dr Nomusa Dube-Ncube, Deputy Minister for Higher Education and Training, opened the conference's programme of addresses with "Education and Employability: Actively Empowering the Next Generation of Women." Citing McKinsey research showing Africa could add US$316 billion to its GDP by matching the continent's best-performing nation on gender parity, and a Mastercard Foundation study putting a further $287bn, and 23 million jobs, on the table by 2030, the Deputy Minister was direct about the cost of inaction: young women's share of Africa's GDP fell from 18% in 2000 to just 11% in 2022.

The address named the pain points the conference spent two days working through:

An educat...