The Ghana Employers’ Association (GEA) has stressed the need for the country to do more to rapidly achieve gender equality in all sectors of the economy to accelerate its sustainable development.
According to the Association, though significant strides had been made in our collective bid to promote gender equality, there was still more work to be done, particularly at the workplace.
The Association said this in its International Women’s Day statement issued and signed by its Chief Executive Officer, Alex Frimpong and copied to the Ghanaian Times in Accra yesterday.
He noted that the 2021 Population and Housing Census revealed that the share of men in the population continued to lag behind that of women in the last four decades.
Mr Frimpong however said women were underrepresented in management, leadership and boardroom positions.
“According to the latest Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 7) report, most formal sector working women are found in services and sales jobs in their organisations whilst the managerial, professional and technical occupations that lead one to top positions are dominated by men,” he stated.
“Furthermore, a study conducted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs in 2016 to ascertain the gender dynamics and challenges confronting the elevation of women to boardrooms in private and public institutions in Ghana, found that the proportion of women to total board members is less than 26 per cent,” he added.
Mr Frimpong said these do not paint a good picture about the gender diversity of our corporate environment as the results could be interpreted to mean that employers were not making full utilisation of all the talents at their disposal.
“GEA, as the mouthpiece of employers in the country, believes that this narrative must be rewritten,” he added.
The CEO of the GEA said women should be provided with the requisite skills and given the opportunities to assume higher responsibilities to give true meaning to our quest in achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 5, which sought to address gender inequalities at all levels.
“We must continue to address the challenges that hinder an equal role for women in the Ghanaian society which includes addressing the issue of equal access to all levels of education, addressing gender-based and workplace violence and harassment as well as reducing disparities in health and employment outcomes.”
He emphasised that gender equality was the big “equaliser” that could unlock tremendous talents, skills and energies to advance a more sustainable human development for our businesses, country and generations to come.
For this reason, MrFrimpong said the GEA collaborated with the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) in 2019 and deployed a Women Leadership Development intervention, dubbed the Female Future Programme.
The objective of the programme, he said was to prepare women to assume leadership roles and board positions in both the corporate world and the public sector.
“Since its commencement in Ghana, even with the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic, 52 females from various sectors have successfully undergone training. Currently, 43 new cohorts are being trained,” MrFrimpong added.
BY TIMES REPORTER
