Durban - The African Development Bank (AfDB) on Monday lauded Rwanda which, with 64-percent female representation - including in Parliament - had the best gender representation in public service in the world.
The AfDB was unveiling its new Gender Equality Index for Africa in Abidjan on the first day of its annual meetings.
South Africa’s Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, the AfDB’s Special Envoy on Gender, said the index was expected to provide African governments with a benchmark to evaluate the effectiveness of their policies on gender equality.
The index, which covers 52 of Africa’s 54 countries, examines the role of women as producers, in human development, as active citizens and as leaders, and also provides maps for each area.
Women’s empowerment is at the top of the African agenda, with the African Union having declared 2015 the year of Women’s Empowerment and Progress.
AfDB President Donald Kaberuka has said the bank wants to be at the forefront of gender equality efforts. It was for this reason the position of Special Envoy on Gender was created.
During a high-level panel discussion on the new index, Frannie Leautier, chief executive of the Mkoba Private Equity Fund in Tanzania, said that men and boys had a big role to play in ensuring inclusivity for women and girls.
“Without good gender policies in place women can still make it, but they would have to grow muscles to navigate in the unlevel playing field,” Leautier said, adding that she hoped stories of successful women would help inspire other women to make it.
Also on the panel was Ashish Thakkar, founder of Mara Group and Mara Foundation, who said that there was a need to celebrate more successful women in Africa who had made it in spite of the many challenges. Mara Group, a pan-African company with businesses in various sectors including financial services, infrastructure, technology and real estate, is active in 24 countries and employs more than 11 000 people, but struggles to attract female talent.
Thakkar said the organisation had a gender inclusive approach in choosing which start-up entrepreneurs to work with but not nearly enough applicants were female.
“Out of the over 500 young entrepreneurs we are currently working with, only about 30 percent of them are women. The figure is low. We still have to do a lot to encourage young women that they can make it,” he said.
Members of the panel agreed that African governments must work towards achieving inclusive growth that left no one behind. However, the AfDB’s Special Envoy on Gender, Fraser-Moleketi, also challenged women and girls to stand up and claim their rights and space, saying: “Women must make an effort to claim the space and fill the space because what men can do, they can do too.”
ANA