23 June 2021, Hiroshima, Japan –  Engineering can play a critical role in solving the challenges facing humanity. Yet despite its importance, women in Africa make up only 10 to 20 per cent of the engineering workforce.

In celebration of Women in Engineering Day and as part of its commitment to encourage more women into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) joined a webinar featuring five African women who have co-written a book about their experiences as engineers, Rising to the Top Volume IV: African Women Engineering Leaders Share Their Journeys to Professional Success. The webinar was hosted by the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES) and the Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC).

This latest book in a series includes Vãnya Pereira, an employee of the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technologies in Angola, Ghada Amer, President of the Centre for Strategic Studies of Science and Technology in Egypt, and Debra Blaine, Associate Professor in Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.

At the webinar, Mihoko Kumamoto, Director of UNITAR Division for Prosperity, said UNITAR supported the publication of the book because

“it is critical to showcase female role models to help generate more future female leaders.”

The webinar was co-hosted by the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies and the Global Engineering Deans Council.

Kumamoto added that UNITAR continues to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment during the COVID-19 pandemic by training women in Africa through online programmes. UNITAR trained young professionals in South Sudan in leadership and entrepreneurial skills and helped marginalized women in the Sahel region to gain digital literacy skills to improve their chances of employment.

The first volume of Rising to the Top was published in 2019. It was initiated by Hans Hoyer, Executive Secretary of the Global Engineering Deans Council, who was inspired to produce the book after reading an article by Dr. Tagwa Musa of Sudan about her journey into academia.

Such has been the success of the three books so far that Dr. Musa suggested Volume IV be written about women engineers in Africa, showing not only the challenges they face but also highlighting the opportunities that have propelled them to where they are today.

One of the authors, Trudy Morgan, is the first African woman to be awarded a Fellowship of the Institution of Civil Engineers in Sierra Leone. Morgan said: “I first wanted to be an astronaut, then a doctor but with the expert guidance of my father, I decided to become an engineer. But in the whole of Sierra Leone, there is no female lecturer in engineering, not a single role model for young women at universities who want to become engineers.”

Another author, Cecile Uwimana, is an engineer from Rwanda. Uwimana said:

“I was one of the first women engineers to work in the private sector in the country and I met men who thought I could not do construction work because I was a woman. But I also met men who supported me, so I ignored the bad words and focused on what I had to do.”