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By CIPESA Staff Writer |

According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Nigeria is among the countries with the highest number of women entrepreneurs, most of whom conduct their business online. However, with the increasing prevalence of cyber attacks and fraud, the success of women-owned Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the country is under threat. In Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, Sophos reports that 71% of businesses were hit with ransomware attacks in 2021.  

In 2021, cybercrime caused an estimated USD 4 billion loss for African economies, equivalent to 3.5% of the continent’s USD 115 billion digital economy. Despite significant threats such as online scams, digital extortion, email compromise, ransomware and botnets, Interpol figures indicate that over 90% of businesses on the African continent operate without the necessary cyber security protocols in place. 

In a bid to counter such threats, Tech Hive Advisory in partnership with Ikigai Innovation Initiative implemented the Cyber Smart Woman project to build a sustainable digital ecosystem for women entrepreneurs in Nigeria. The three-phase project featured 12 focus group discussions on data governance, cybersecurity challenges, and digital security needs of the women-owned SMEs, followed by four knowledge and skills workshops, and the development of a toolkit on data protection and cyber security practices for sustainability and competitiveness.

Tech Hive Advisory and Ikigai Innovation Initiative were one of ten initiatives awarded grants in the sixth round of the Africa Digital Rights Fund (ADRF). The supported initiatives focused on promoting effective data governance in Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal; countering gendered and election-related misinformation and disinformation in Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda; building digital resilience within the media fraternity in Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda; promoting digital inclusion in Uganda and Kenya; and building grassroots-based movements for internet freedom in South Africa.

The focus group discussions featured participants from various online business sectors, many of whom revealed that they lacked adequate digital protection for their businesses. Up to a quarter of the participants had been direct victims of device theft and cyber attacks such as scams and hacking. As a result, their businesses had suffered monetary loss, reputational damage, and, in extreme instances, loss of online assets such as social media accounts and client databases. 

The discussions further revealed that despite the SMEs collecting various personal data, the majority did not include online security or data protection measures within their business strategies. Meanwhile, many clients did not invoke their rights as data subjects, which made their data more susceptible to abuse. Indeed, one participant admitted that she had  shared a client’s contact information without permission. 

Most of the focus group participants believed that with the appropriate knowledge and skills, business owners, just like data subjects, would be able to minimise vulnerability to cyber attacks  and data breaches. Accordingly, four capacity building workshops were convened in four regions – Abuja, Ibadan, Kaduna and Lagos –  benefiting 167 SME owners. Topics covered included data protection rights and obligations; compliance with data protection regulations; and cybersecurity best practices.  

To complement the training workshops, a toolkit for data protection and cybersecurity was developed and disseminated. The toolkit outlines Nigeria’s data protection frameworks as well as the obligations and compliance requirements for business owners. It also provides tips and resources for data subject access procedures, privacy policies, records of processing activities and retention periods. The second section of the toolkit focuses on cybersecurity, also outlining the prevailing legal and regulatory frameworks, common vulnerabilities, best practice guidelines and resources. 

Ayodeji Sarumi, the Co-Founder of Tech Hive Advisory, says the project has equipped female-owned businesses in Nigeria with better approaches to handling data protection and cybersecurity issues,  which could be essential for their survival in a highly digitised world where cyber fraud is rampant.

By Loyce Kyogabirwe |

Across Africa, a gender-inclusive digital society remains largely elusive. Beyond the challenges related to the gender digital divide and online gender-based violence, the growth in form and prevalence of online disinformation in Africa is also taking on a gendered lens. Pushback against gendered disinformation is thus critical to  combating online harms against women and attaining gender equity.

In Uganda, there has been a notable upward trend in gendered disinformation, with attacks targeted at organisations working on sexual and reproductive rights. This, against a backdrop of offline attacks such as the August 2022 suspension of the operations of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) on allegations that the organisation had failed to register with the National Bureau for Non-Governmental Organisations.

During the second half of 2022, the activist group Her Internet implemented a project to create awareness and understanding of gendered disinformation including its effects and perpetrators in Uganda. With a focus on sexual minorities and sex workers, the project supported by the Africa Digital Rights Fund (ADRF) also worked to build alliances and networks as support systems for mitigation of impact and countering false narratives.

HER Internet convened an interactive dialogue in Uganda’s capital Kampala to share real life experiences as well as strategies on how to avert the negative effects of gendered disinformation. Targeting 20 individuals from communities of structurally marginalised women, the dialogue also covered aspects of fact-checking and safety online.

Extract from HerInternet handbook on understanding gendered disinformation

The dialogue called for non-discriminatory enforcement of current cyber laws and the need for diverse narratives to eliminate biased reporting, amongst other measures. In addition to the dialogue, Her Internet also conducted a campaign on its social media platforms on the key concepts of gendered disinformation, its manifestations and counter strategies. The project also compiled and disseminated a handbook on understanding gendered disinformation as a go-to guide for communities to understand and further engage beyond the campaign and dialogues.

According to a 2020 report by  UN Women,  women  with  multiple identities, such as sexual and ethnic minorities, are often targeted online through discrimination and hate speech, which often forces them to  self-censor  and  withdraw  from  debates and online discussions. Similarly, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, has stated that some  groups  of  women, including women belonging to ethnic minorities, indigenous women, lesbian, bisexual and transgender women, and women with disabilities are particularly targeted by technology-facilitated violence.

Research by the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) has found that cyberstalking, online sexual harassment, blackmail through non-consensual sharing of personal information, promotes and normalises violence against women and girls who use the internet in Uganda. Her Internet’s project builds on ADRF’s gender and sexual inclusivity portfolio. The ADRF has previously supported digital literacy and safety programmes for sexual minority refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, South Sudan and Sudan, living in Uganda.