Faced with the role of women in traditional African societies, one of the most intimidating challenges for many African countries has been to guarantee access to education for the girl-child, and for young and adult women. Gender parity at the primary school level has been reached or is likely to be achieved in most Southern African countries such as Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius, Namibia, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe.

In West Africa, more effort is needed in Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Niger as their current status is low. In general, the rate of progress between 1990 and 2000 indicates that the North African, West African, and Central African subregions can achieve the goal before 2015 but not in 2005. The current level in Central and West Africa is below the SSA average.

On the political front, more women are in parliaments across Africa today than ever before. However, in most countries, African women remain vastly under-represented in politics, in the legislature, at the highest levels of the corporate sector and in economic institutions. More needs to be done for women to have their say in governance, democracy and decision-making. The participation of women is fundamentally important to fighting poverty.