The Convention People’s Party (ICPP) has tasked women to dare into other strongholds and avoid the comfort zone phenomenon which was impeding their progress, growth and development to transform society.
It encouraged women, the vulnerable, and the youth not to place any operation, academic, tribal, or religious limitations on themselves but acquire knowledge and enter the game field with the requisite skills to succeed.
“Most women need to break the mental barriers limiting them from venturing into male-dominated fields like engineering, technology, politics, among others and if women can get into various fields, they should learn more from men and take up leadership positions in companies they find themselves in,” the party admonished.
Nana Akosua Sarpong-Kumankuma, the Chairperson of the CPP, threw the challenge at the 11th monthly stakeholder engagement seminar organised by the Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office, which is a platform rolled out for state and non-state actors to address national issues.
It was also used to climax the month-long activities to mark the 2022 International Women’s Day celebration and also mark the first anniversary of the stakeholder engagement.
Speaking on the topic: ‘The Path of Women Entrepreneurs-Challenges and Prospects’, Nana Sarpong-Kumankuma urged women to organise themselves properly as they acquired knowledge and skills in various fields of endeavour and never set personal limits since there was space for all to operate successfully.
According to her, gender inequalities could be measured between men and women opportunities in three major areas of economic, participation, decision making, share of women and men in senior professional, technical positions, senior officials and managers.
“The 2020 Global Gender Gap report identified political empowerment, educational attainment, health, survival, economic participation and opportunity as the four indexes that help to measure and determine global gender equality,” Nana Sarpong-Kumankuma said.
Matilda Okrah, Maintenance Planner at the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), noted that was the case with many industrial sectors of the world economy – oil and gas boardrooms were historically homogenous spaces where female faces were few and far between.
Quoting the World Refining Association (WRA) report ‘Women of Downstream – The Female Faces of the Refinery Boardroom’, she explained that the report reaffirmed although downstream companies seem to perform better than oilfield services and upstream companies, the percentage of women in oil and gas was low across board, estimated at 20 per cent representation.
“WRA network has shown the way by engaging some of the most influential women in the industry, who have all broken proverbial glass ceilings and built impressive careers in various segments of downstream sector, in addition to its inherent value of justice and equality, diversity is proven to enhance decision-making, providing different perspectives,” Mrs Okrah stated.
She advised that a broader range of solutions to the ever-varying problems and challenges the industry faced today needed more women to venture into oil and gas field as potential to survive now was greater. -GNA
