Gender inequality is rife across Africa (and beyond), especially online, where there is a shortage of fact-based news, information and knowledge about Africa’s successful women, or women’s experiences across the continent. 

The Wiki Loves Women initiative was founded in 2016 to bridge two significant knowledge gaps  – women and Africa – in terms of accessible, online content that features or celebrates women, and content authored by women to share their experiences and inspirations. 

Wiki Loves Women’s multi-layered, international activations informs, mobilised, and trains women to contribute factual information to open knowledge platforms, and in doing so, celebrates the pivotal roles that women play in each country or region’s political, economic, scientific, cultural, and heritage landscape. It does this through a year-round program that focuses on these specific elements:

• foregrounding women's voices through Inspiring Open podcasts and #SheSaid drive on WikiQuote,
• female leadership in the Wikimedia movement through the Focus Group program, and
• visibility of women through the Tell Us About Her campaigns on the ISA Tool.
• enhancing structured data on women with Wiki Oto, a Wikidata campaign aimed at improving the representation of women through structured data contributions.

Wiki Loves Women was founded by Isla Haddow-Flood and Florence Devouard. It is a pivotal project of Wiki In Africa. It was founded through funding from the Goethe-Institut and has since been supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. The project, its documentation, and its outcomes are published under CC BY SA 4.0.