Educate the ‘girl child’ – and lift women to leading roles in business
JOHANNESBURG: As the country prepares to celebrate Women’s Day on Sunday, African Union (AU) chairperson Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has emphasised the importance of educating girl children, and also having women in leadership positions.
Speaking at the Association of Black Securities and Investment Professionals (Absip) Women in Focus Summit at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) yesterday, she said more needed to be done to give greater momentum to the emancipation of women.
Dlamini-Zuma, who is the first female chairperson of the AU, said the 2014 Global Gender Gap Report had some of the most concerning findings regarding the benefits of gender equality from companies.
The report states that companies that include women in top-level leadership positions tend to outperform those that don’t. Those that fail to recruit and retain women and ensure they have a pathway to leadership positions were found to be undermining their own long-term competitiveness.
She said the importance of focusing on women’s economic empowerment was important because of the different ways in which women approach work. They tend to be more flexible, they multitask and tend to do what needs to be done – even if it’s not exactly what they were employed to do.
“That is very important and gives companies that flexibility. Research also shows that where girls are educated, their families have better health, because they understand how to feed them nutrition food. Educating girls has a better spin off for families and communities.”
Asked what the AU was doing to protect girls in the wake of what happened in Nigeria, where Boko Haram abducts girls, Dlamini-Zuma said that particular situation should be looked at with a wide lens and not a gender one.
Even terrorism or extremism have to be looked at broadly, she said. “Our societies are very diverse and managing that diversity is critical. To ensure that no part of our population feels excluded in any way, our democracy must be participatory. Our economy and development must be inclusive.
“If we don’t do that, young people will be attracted by extremists. And of course we must respect all cultures and religions, but more importantly, we must pay attention to development.
Chairperson of Absip, Tryphosa Ramano, said if boys grow up not seeing a girl as a leader but a “thing” and never given leadership roles, that is how they will always see them.
Ramano, who is also the chief financial officer of PPC Cement, said the minute boys are socialised to see that girls are the same as them and assume leadership roles – whether at church or school – that will change the way they view them.
When it comes to women empowerment in the workplace, it starts in the boardroom and will filter down, but putting one woman there was not enough as a lone voice won’t change much.