Argument: Africa's greatest needs are for infrastructure and education  Africa’s greatest needs for development are infrastructure and education. Neither of these needs implies that women are about to become key to the African economy.  Africa is severely deficient in infrastructure; Sub Saharan Africa generates the same amount of electricity as Spain, a country with one seventeenth the population. The World Bank suggests “if all African countries were to catch up with Mauritius in infrastructure, per capita economic growth in the region could increase by 2.2 percentage points. Catching up with Korea’s level would increase economic growth per capita by up to 2.6 percent per year.” [1]  There are numerous projects to alleviate this deficit such as immense projects like the Grand Inga Dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo which could power not just the country but its neighbours too. [2] However if construction is the key to the future then this implies men are going to continue to have more impact as the construction industry is traditionally dominated by men.  Africa has been making strides in education for women. Yet there still remains a gap. To take a few examples the youth female literacy rates in Angola 66%, Central African Republic 59%, Ghana 83% and Sierra Leone 52% is still lower than youth male literacy rates or 80%, 72%, 88%, and 70%. [3] And the gap often increases with further education. To take Senegal as an example there are actually more girls than boys enrolled in primary education, a ratio of 1.06 but for secondary this drops to 0.77 and to 0.6 for tertiary. The situation is the same in other countries; Mauritania 1.06, 0.86, 0.42, Mozambique, 0.95, 0.96, 0.63, and Ghana 0.98, 0.92, 0.63. [4]  With women not breaking through to the highest level in education it is unlikely that they will be the main driver of the economy in the future. Their influence may increase as a result of increasing education at lower levels but without equality at the highest level they are unlikely to become key to their countries economic future as the highest skilled jobs and the roles of directing the economy will still be carried out primarily by men.  [1] ‘Fact Sheet: Infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa’, The World Bank,   [2] See the Debatabase debate ‘ This House would build the Grand Inga Dam’  [3] UNESCO Institute for Statistics, ‘Literacy rate, youth male (% of males ages 15-24)’, data.worldbank.org, 2009-2013,   [4] Schwab Klaus et al., The Global Gender Gap Report 2013, World Economic Forum, 2013,  , pp.328, 276, 288, 208 (in order of mentioning, examples taken pretty much at random – though there are one or two where the ratios actually don’t change much such as Mauritius, but that is against the trend)

Counterargument: economy general international africa house believes women are key africas Neither education not infrastructure can discount the possibility of women being key to the economic future. Yes infrastructure is needed before many businesses can reach their full potential. But the same limits are on men and women. The lack of infrastructure does not necessarily mean that men will be the ones who benefit. Nor can we be certain that Africa will develop through building infrastructure in the manner than China has. Some infrastructure may become unnecessary; for example there is now no need to build extensive systems of landlines as a result of the use of mobile phones. Other technologies in the future may make other large scale infrastructure projects less necessary – for example community based renewable energy.  Similarly education is not destiny; those who do not go to university may well contribute as much as those who do. Moreover this education gap simply shows that when it is closed the impact from women will be all the greater.