A focus on achieving gender balance in corporate Africa
Global Career Company has been fortunate to get a front-row seat to see how African organisations have approached and addressed diversity and inclusion.
Diversity and Inclusion continue to be prominent on corporate and governmental agendas in Africa. Although positive strides are being made slowly but surely, there are still challenges. There is, therefore, still a pressing need to draw attention to these, to keep up momentum and to make significant changes to reduce the gender disparity that is still present across the continent.
Working closely with many of Africa’s top employers over a span of 20 years, Global Career Company has been fortunate to get a front-row seat to see how African organisations have approached and addressed diversity and inclusion.
We have seen the number of women being employed across industries and across functions continuously increase over the years, particularly in the junior to mid-career levels.
The same cannot be said, however, at the senior or executive level, with men taking up a disproportionate amount of these positions and 57% of women stating that they do not have enough opportunities for advancement, according to research we conducted.
Having said this, it is still important to note some of the major appointments of women being made and initiatives being put in place to support women. We would like to shine a spotlight on some exemplary African organisations for their efforts and commitment in this regard.
Progress has been made
Last year Afreximbank appointed the firstever female Executive Vice President of Intra-African Trade, following her successful six-year tenure as Managing Director of the Initiative. Kanayo Awani has been a key figure in making the Bank a pioneer in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Awani played a significant role in the creation of the Intra-African Trade Fair; in the increase of the Bank’s share of intra-African trade over the years; and in enabling major African organisations to expand their activities outside the countries that they originated in.
Another example is the African Guarantee Fund (AGF). The Fund has partnered with the African Development Bank to increase lending from financial institutions to women-owned or managed small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in an initiative aptly named “Affirmative Action for Women in Africa” or simply “AFAWA”.
The initiative was a result of recognising that women are indeed the backbone of the African economy – with one in four women starting or managing a business and 86% of women being willing to put in extra effort to help their organisations succeed. Women also tend to reinvest a significant percentage of their income into the education, health and nutrition of their family and community – and because of this, the perceived risk of lending to women needs to change, as echoed by AGF’s CEO, Jules Ngankam, who said in a recent interview that “banks tend to regard lending money to women as a favour. It is not a favour. It is a business opportunity.”
The initiative aims to unlock $3bn in credit for women-owned or managed SMEs – an incredible show of commitment to addressing an evident gender gap in the continent.
In the telecommunications sector, Africell has demonstrated an admirable determination to employ more women across all levels of the organisation, with the objective of improving its gender balance, especially at the corporate level and within the engineering and technical functions. It is well on its way to achieving this. To address the gender imbalance in the sector, Africell expects to offer a degree of “remedial” training to ensure that women have equal opportunities to succeed in technical roles, notwithstanding their disadvantaged position as a general social group.
At the senior level, efforts are being made to recruit more women. Africell recently appointed Linda Mvoko as the Group’s HR Director, to develop and execute the group’s HR strategy with diversity and inclusion remaining as a key focus. This is reiterated by Sam Williams, Africell’s Group Communications Director who insists that no role within the organisation is off-limits to anyone and that they are prepared to invest in bringing out the talents of underrepresented groups.
Practising what we preach
Global Career Company is made up of a majority of women and one of our core values is Diversity and Inclusion – and it has been that way for over 20 years. We exhibit this by making intentional efforts to reiterate the importance of the diversity agenda, sourcing female talent especially for STEM roles and supporting and taking part in diversity and inclusion initiatives whenever we can.
There are many other examples we could give of African organisations making tremendous strides in the right direction and we continue to encourage organisations to keep up and build on their momentum with regards to diversity and inclusion. Not only will this allow organisations to unlock their full potential; it will also have a wider, more positive and significant societal and economic impact by empowering the next generation of women in the corporate space. ■