The Wikimedia Foundation has launched its “Wikipedia Needs More Women” campaign as it celebrates efforts around the world to improve gender equity on Wikimedia projects.
As one of the world’s largest knowledge resources, with 62-million articles in over 300 languages and 15-billion views per month, Wikipedia plays a crucial role in shaping understanding of the world.
Content on Wikipedia is written on notable subjects by more than 265 000 volunteer contributors from around the world. These volunteers adhere to Wikipedia’s editorial standards, ensuring all information is backed by reliable sources and presented from a neutral point of view.
Wikipedia depends on the availability of existing published sources to verify the facts in its articles. But in many places around the world, women have been left out of historical narratives and traditional sources of knowledge. This gender gap is an all-pervasive issue across the internet and it means that many of these knowledge gaps are present on Wikipedia, with women significantly underrepresented.
“On International Women’s Day, the ‘Wikipedia Needs More Women’ campaign is a call to action for everyone to help close these knowledge gaps on Wikipedia. There are a number of ways that people can get involved to change the stats and make a difference, from editing a Wikipedia page, to attending an online event,” says Anusha Alikhan, the Wikimedia Foundation’s chief communications officer.
“We’re also calling on everyone — journalists, academics, thought leaders, and individuals and organizations across the information landscape — to increase their coverage of women. This will help build out the ecosystem of secondary literature that Wikipedia volunteers rely on to create and improve content about women.”
For some time, the Wikimedia Foundation and volunteers on Wikimedia projects have been making global efforts to address these knowledge gaps, and increase the equitable engagement and representation of all people and subjects on Wikipedia and beyond. Some examples of these efforts in Africa include:
* From 2022 to 2024, there was a 26% increase in the number of biographies and other content about women from the sub-Saharan Africa region on Wikimedia projects.
* Wikimedia contributors in Africa have been making consistent efforts to help bridge the gender gap on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects over the past years. For example, librarian Alice Kibombo has created 70 Wikipedia articles, many of them about women politicians in Uganda.
* The “Wiki Green Conference 2023” in Ghana introduced young women to contributing to Wikimedia projects, including on topics that align with their other interests such as climate issues, gender equality, and social justice.
* In Nigeria, which saw a 23% increase in women-related content on Wikimedia projects over the last two years, volunteer Dr Nkem Osuigwe has trained 300 African librarians on contributing to Wikipedia.
* In recent years, Kenya also witnessed a growth of 26% in biographies and other content about women, increasing from 762 entries in 2022 to 958 in 2024.
“It is inspiring to see the progress made across the African continent to improve gender equity on Wikipedia and beyond,” says Masana Mulaudzi, senior manager of campaign organising at the Wikimedia Foundation. “As one of the world’s top resources for information, it’s critical for Wikipedia to represent the full, rich diversity of all humanity. When more people from Africa contribute to Wikipedia, we move closer to achieving this vision.”