Rationale of the ODFP

The ODFP: If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door!

The last two decades have been critical towards creating global awareness about the importance of achieving equal access of girls and women to education worldwide. Since then, the international donor community has launched thousands of initiatives aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals 4 Quality Education and 5 Gender Equality with notable impact. Women's education has proven extraordinarily positive on families' health and nutrition status and increased economic growth (1). Still, data indicates that we are far from reaching equity in education, professional opportunities for career consolidation, leadership or equal salaries. Sadly, projections point towards regression of all the improvements achieved over the past decades due to the COVID-19 crises  (2,3)

At the tertiary education level, data from UNESCO highlights that globally, despite there is parity between women and men at Bachelors and MSc levels (53%), it reduces during their Ph.D. (43%). It dramatically drops to 28% of the graduated women becoming employed researchers and taking leadership and managerial roles in science. Upon arrival at the tertiary education system, women's dismissal rates are significantly higher than men's (4), and women's retention in academia is low. Some challenges female university students in East Africa identified include >discrimination, sexual violence from male colleagues, teachers' gender insensitivity, lack of counselling, and financial constraints (5). 

Unconscious bias during the recruitment process is yet another barrier women researchers in STEM face when they enter the job market, despite their qualifications (6). Moreover, once recruited, women researchers, especially those who experience motherhood, often face more challenges in catching up with their male colleagues regarding their scientific productivity (i.e. published papers, mentored students), attendance to conferences, and alike. Therefore, women researchers often see their scientific visibility diminished, which can eventually hamper their access to research funds and connections with international networks. 

Among others, women researchers have argued that work-related factors negatively affecting the progress of their scientific career include corporate invisibility, lack of public recognition, limitations in making independent decisions on their research, or lack of leadership roles for them within their organisations. At times, additional challenges to consolidate women's careers come from existing cultural barriers. Within their communities, women can also receive pressure from their families and relatives to prioritise their roles as spouses, mothers, and daughters instead of their professional choices and financial independence (7).

Ultimately, all these factors translate into a higher percentage of early and mid-career women scientist dropouts than men do: the global retention rates in academia for women are 20% lower than for men (8). This phenomenon is known as the leaking pipeline of science (9), with dropouts affecting the entire scientific career path, suggesting that solutions focusing only on early-career scientists may not revert the gender imbalance in the longer term.

In Africa, countries such as South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, Nigeria, Rwanda, Cameroon and Ethiopia have conducted practical efforts to retain women in science  (10) by providing them with career-building scientific soft skills and professional guidance on dealing with traditional, societal, and cultural pressures on women. Creating an awareness culture within their hosting institutions about recruiting women, supporting them along their tenure track, and adapting policies is also paramount to prevent women from dropping out of STEM research and ensure the next generation of mentors and role models for the younger generation of scientists.