By Linda Pearce
When World Netball (WN) introduced a dedicated Africa-focused role back in 2008, the continent had just three nations registered internationally.
South Africa, Malawi and Botswana remain active, but they are now just three of 21, including 13 full and three associate WN Members.
“When they created the position it was because World Netball realised the huge potential of the African continent and what was in it for netball,’’ says Namibia-based Joan Smit, WN’s Africa Regional Development Manager for the past 17 years.
What was in it: plenty.
Indeed, since 2018, there has been a surge in participation numbers across the Region, spurred in part by Cape Town’s 2023 hosting of the first Netball World Cup (NWC) in Africa. Uganda, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, for example, have all experienced rises of more than 400 percent.
That historic NWC2023 drew 3.2 billion social media impressions and reached a live linear TV audience of 14.9 million – more than double that of Liverpool 2019 – with South Africa and Pan Africa accounting for 78% of the overall viewership.
And when Namibia becomes just the 5th African nation to unveil a wooden sprung floor, one funded by an increasingly supportive government, and is thus able to host elite competition, it will count as another special day.
Not just locally but symbolically for the global netball movement as it pushes for inclusion in the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games. For this is a sport with a unique female reach into Africa — home to three of the top eight in the WN World Rankings and eight of the top 20.
All while the Region’s potential and a vast talent base which YouGov research says includes 6.6 million participants – half of all players globally, with Uganda and Kenya among the growth nations – remain a key opportunity.
“Netball is currently the biggest female sport in Africa. It’s affordable, it’s easily accessible, and it’s extremely strong in schools,’’ Smit told netball.com.au.
“In Africa, every open space there is can be utilised for netball. You only need one ball to play netball and you can make a netball post from anything that is there that you can get.
“The children in Africa don’t mind playing on gravel if they need to play on gravel. Everybody wants to play netball. Everybody plays netball.’’
Just as virtually everyone in the broader netball family can see the benefits that would come with involvement in the Brisbane Olympics, with the number of signatories to the pledge for inclusion having now topped 80,000.
It’s a now-or-probably-never moment to leverage the strength and influence of the sport in Australia to aid expansion and development for the benefit of so many more.
“We need every team because people keep saying ‘It’s only Australia-New Zealand, it’s only Australia-New Zealand’,’’ says coaching legend Norma Plummer, who led the Origin Australian Diamonds to two NWC titles after playing in one herself, and then coached South Africa in two stints from 2014.
“I heard that so often in my time and I got bloody sick of it, so if we could get them all (including the Caribbean nations) up, I think that’s the secret.
“It’s all there for the asking. You can see what happens if some of those countries get some decent support and coaching the finance to back them to get the coaching that they need. It was just such an eye-opener.’’
As much as the athletic talent is unquestioned, nor are the challenges and barriers that remain on this diverse and volatile 54-nation continent to be underestimated.
Funding, for example. Resources, generally. Infrastructure. Governance, given that all local governing bodies other than South Africa are run by volunteers who have full-time day jobs.
Access to not just quality coaching but umpiring and competition.
Despite a continuing strong presence in the UK’s Netball Super League, and a newer one in Singapore, a recent decline in African representation in world-leading Suncorp Super Netball League has left just Queensland Firebird Mary Cholhok of Uganda and the Adelaide Thunderbirds’ South African recruit Elmere van der Berg among the 80 fully contracted players for 2026.
That’s down substantially from the heady days when the Sunshine Coast Lightning’s dual premiership defender Karla Pretorius, star Vixen Mwai Kumwenda, Phumza Maweni and Peace Proscovia headlined a larger cohort able to share their knowledge and professionalism when returning to their respective African homes.
“We need to know what exactly is it that the franchises in Australia are looking for so that we know what is it that we need to do to bring more African players back to Australia,’’ Smit says. “Australia has been good to us”, she continued.
“Australian netball is so extremely strong and that’s why Australia keeps on being the No.1 country in the world, and there is so much that we can bring through. The Mwai. The Peace Proscovia. The Mary. With the Australian experience that we can bring back to our national teams.’’
Plummer recalls being flooded by recruiting messages during her first tenure as South African coach, and laughs: “I was farming ‘em out. I couldn’t get ‘em out quick enough.’’ Stronger competition was, and remains, a key to improvement.
With the 201cm Cholhok in the last year of her first contract, Plummer expects van der Berg to thrive on debut, describing the 24-year-old as “a talent-plus, and an athlete’’, one who is happy to turn and shoot and could prove to be another Gretel Bueta.
“The kid’s got the natural ability to play it, go for it. Give her the top coaching (for the) next 12 months and look out after that. She’s just gonna boom.’’
Indeed, Plummer insists elite coaching is most essential to developing African netball.“That’s the answer,’’ she says, noting the potential in Uganda, for example, which finished a best-ever 5th at NWC2023.
The high watermark remains South Africa’s surprise second place behind Australia in Birmingham to mark its return from apartheid exile back in 1995; a more recent success was a gallant 4th in Liverpool in 2019.
Malawi, a fixture in the top eight for two decades, and where superstar Kumwenda grew up playing barefoot on dirt with a tree trunk for a goal post, an old tyre rim for a ring and a ball made from melted plastic in her remote village, now has the funds to hire a high performance guru from a field of applicants that numbers several from Australasia.
Discussing the seven African nations in the top 20, Cholhok says: “That’s amazing. Uganda is 7th and I feel like we have grown as a country, we have a lot of talent, we just need a bit of funding, which will give us the equipment to be able to perform better.
“With the She-Cranes I feel like netball is just embracing (and) connecting different countries at international level I feel like that’s where netball is heading for the future.’’
In late October, Smit presented to a sports conference in Namibia, detailing the quest for Olympic entry as well as the issue of government investment in a nation that has elevated sport and education to No.2 on a financial priority list headed by agriculture.
“Government finally realised what sport can bring to the education, to the growth, to the development of a country and its citizens,” she says.
And to the empowerment, inclusion and advancement of women and girls, in particular. “It brings them out of extreme poverty and puts them in a world where everything opens up for them – not only sport, but education, and they become career women,’’ Smit continues.
“We have extremely strong leaders in women and if we can bring them out to full leadership positions, not only in netball but also on national Olympic committee boards, in government and in the sports ministry of a government, this is really where we make an impact.’’
More widely, a boardroom mindset change is still needed, Smit stressing that the willingness and excitement to play remain constant. Just not the appropriate facilities.
There is also an expanding product born from 2019 in Liverpool, via the Community Sport Hub Site model, with five sites in Zambia having grown to 49 across Africa that create inclusive pathways while promoting education, leadership and social enterprise.
Meantime, the continent’s first strategic plan, designed to take netball through to 2032 will be unveiled at the hotly-contested Africa Cup in Lilongwe, Malawi, in December, which, notably, will be the second with a men’s division.
“The absolute focus areas are of course athletes, in development and high performance, coaches, umpires and then governance structures within countries. One of the key, key, key priorities is the establishment of proper and professional leagues in countries.’’
There are many others, in this African story of challenge, potential and possibility, as it pushes for transparency, accountability and visibility.
“Netball is and for us will remain the biggest sport, and it’s exciting to know that whatever is against us to promote further in Africa we still do it,’’ Smit says.
“World Netball currently doesn’t have the funding to do all the development we want and we need on our continent of Africa, but we are fortunate that even in schools it is the preferred sport for women and girls and everybody still wants to play.
“So for me it is important for the next 10 years to keep netball in that number one place in Africa, and then secondly is to keep on bringing more countries and see if we can get a country that can eventually manage to infiltrate amongst the first four in the world, and not remain where we are.
“But also to get more countries, new countries, to play netball.’’
As, in the meantime, some of the older ones join the international netball sisterhood in not just daring to dream but pushing to make a reality of Brisbane 2032.
You can sign the pledge to back the bid for netball to be included in the Brisbane 2032 Olympics, here.