Inside Africa: Closing the Gender Gap
NickyLloyd
In Ethiopia, a woman named Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu became a beloved entrepreneur who gained international attention with her business, SoleRebels. It has grown into one of the largest footwear companies in the region with an eco-friendly mission producing shoes from recycled tires and creating hundreds of local jobs. Alemu has received international recognition with her drive to promote ethical production and paying higher wages than required, covering medical care, and supporting cultural preservation within her local community. She has been featured in Forbes as one of 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa, one of 100 in the world, an example of what African women can achieve in business.
In many parts of the continent, women sit on the side of the road, shouting out the food, toothpaste, or some kind of petty good they are selling that day in hopes that travelers are wanting to buy from them. Women make up a big part of the informal economy all across Africa that does not rely on steady paychecks or provide much opportunity to move forward. United Nations Women reports that 89% of women who work do so in the informal sector as subsistence farmers, seasonal workers, street vendors, and similar trades. They are mostly self-employed, often in poor working conditions, and work without benefits like sick pay or medical care.
Women globally are an untapped resource. The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 suggests that gender parity is not likely to become a reality for another 100 years at the rate that it is improving. In the report, countries are examined based on health, education, economy, and politics, showing the progress each has made to close that gap. Iceland continues to hold the top spot globally as the most gender-equal country, though Rwanda has broken into the top 10 at number nine on the index looking at those four categories. Other countries in Africa are also showing improvement. Even if they are still not ranked high on the index, Mali (139th) and Ethiopia (82nd) are among the top five most improved overall while Cape Verde (15th), Nigeria (128th), and Sierra Leone (35th) are showing improvement in economic participation and opportunity. The world is showing promise, even if it is slow coming.
There is a push to close those gender gaps in these countries and better utilize their potential workforce in its entirety. Rwanda in particular has been the starting point for initiatives geared toward getting African women into STEM fields. In 2018, there was the launch of a pilot program of the African Development Bank’s Coding for Employment initiative, bringing in information and communications technology centers to train more than 200,000 youths across the country as well as Nigeria, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, and Senegal. Other programs and initiatives are Miss Geek Rwanda, a competition to encourage young girls all across the country to develop their own technical or business ideas, and the African Institute of Mathematics, which is actively addressing the gender gap by recruiting both men and women. There are coding masterclasses, entrepreneurial masterclasses and other programs all with the same mission: promoting gender equality and providing access to business and STEM opportunities. It is a move that could change the perception that women are not fit for these kinds of professional leadership roles despite many still believing that there are no opportunities for women.
There is still the assumption by many that men generally have more opportunities for high paying jobs. A Pew Research survey found that those polled in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa believe that men should get preferential treatment when jobs are scarce and that men have more or a right to a job than women. The problem with this kind of thinking is that it limits women’s opportunities and reduces progress in closing the gender gap. South Africa has shown some improvement according to the Global Gender Gap report, however Nigeria and Kenya do not even make the top 100 in the rankings. By giving priority to men, women are forced into the informal economy where they face unstable incomes and often unsafe working environments that put them at greater risk. Important strides are being made across the continent, including in Rwanda, to address this.
The African Union is pushing a movement which makes closing the gap and achieving gender equality a goal to strive for all across the region. The AU strategy on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE), launched in early 2019, looks to address gender disparity in economic activities and social and political affairs as described in the Global Gender Gap report. Like in Rwanda, it puts an emphasis promoting access to employment opportunities through education and other initiatives. Girls remain left out of education frequently, and GEWE's campaign is to declare “illiteracy a harmful traditional practice and make ‘out of school’ a punishable offence.” By promoting access to education for young girls, they could grow to become empowered professionals. GEWE highlights the need for African governments to invest and promote policies and initiatives that focus on bringing the female population, giving them a voice and an opportunity to contribute to the regional and local economies. Member states that buy into the mission are encouraged to adopt the priorities and operational plan outlined by GEWE in order to promote gender equality.
As Africa looks to become a global economic powerhouse through new regional initiatives, it is also important to look to its potential human resources. Gender disparities show themselves in illiteracy and lack job opportunities, among many other social issues, and by investing into these areas with competition and professional development, the region can move forward with equal representation of men and women voices in the decision-making process.
