International Women’s Day: Emefiele advocates gender equality

GOVERNOR of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Mr Godwin Emefiele on Tuesday advocated for gender equality as a way to foster growth and development of nations.

At the celebration of 2019 International Women’s Day organised by CBN, Emefiele said: “gender equality is a driver for economic growth and a prerequisite for achieving the 2030 global development agenda.”

According to him, a 2017 McKinsey research showed that if women’s economic participation were at the same level as men, $28 trillion could be added to the world’s economic growth by 2025.

“According to World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report (2018), there is an average 32 per cent gender gap that needs to be closed and going by the trend, the overall global gender gap will close in 108 years.

“A 2018 study by the IMF showed that greater inclusion of women as users, providers, and regulators of financial services have benefits beyond addressing gender inequality.

“Narrowing the gender gap would foster greater stability in the banking system and enhance economic growth.

“It could also contribute to more effective monetary and fiscal policy.

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The study also found that the gender gap in leadership does make a difference when it comes to bank stability.

“Banks with a higher proportion of women board members had higher capital buffers, a lower ratio of nonperforming loans, and greater resistance to stress.

“Similarly, according to Lagarde (2019), adding one more woman in a firm’s senior management or corporate board—while keeping the size of the board unchanged—is associated with an 8–13 basis point higher return on assets.

“If banks and financial supervisors increased the share of women in senior positions, the banking sector would be more stable too,” he stated.

According to the Governor, although global theme for the 2019 International Women’s Day “Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change” focuses on innovative ways of advancing gender equality and women empowerment, CBN adopted “Investing for Equality” as its local theme explaining that it is particularly apt and timely, “as it allows us to strengthen our commitment to empowering women which we believe is an economic and social imperative.”

He also noted that recent deliberate efforts to promote gender equality at the CBN has ensured that “today, women represent 29.0 per cent of CBN staff and 29.0 per cent of Directors are women, (8 Departmental Directors and 1 Director General of WAMZ) as against 26.0 per cent of staff and 25,0 per cent of Directors in 2014.

“Similarly, 3 out of 11 board members are women (27 per cent).”

Earlier in a keynote address, Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed called on governments at the various levels to put measures in place for a strategic approach towards establishing gender parity in the society.

“Given the challenges we are facing, it is critical that we take a long term and strategic approach to establishing gender parity, and ensuring that women are economically empowered, resulting in stronger economies overall.

“It is therefore imperative that we prioritize the advancement of women in all spheres of society, and specifically in areas relating to their socio-economic empowerment.”

Usman identified key intervention areas government must focus on to continue to develop and support women in its efforts of investing for equity.

They include access to financing for women-owned businesses, particularly MSMEs; boosting financial inclusion and financial literacy amongst women and girls; improving human capital development outcomes for women and girls through targeted government spending in line with the ERGP priorities.

Other are ensuring that our budgeting process is more gender-sensitive through the incorporation of gender-based budgeting; access to Information and develop targeted capacity development programmes aimed at developing women at all tiers and ensuring they have the support and structure in place to succeed, particularly in positions of leadership.