Women can improve global GDP by $12bn in 10 years – 2nd Dep. Governor
Women, according to a 2019 report by McKinsey and reiterated by the Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Elsie Awadzi Addo can improve global GDP by about US$ 12 billion over a span of 10 years.
This is because more women in leadership roles translates into an increase in growth, profitability, risk management, and more long-term overall positive performance by businesses.
Making the assertion at the Ghana Employers Association First Annual Leadership Conference 2022, themed “Promoting Women Leadership in a Digital Era”, Mrs Awadzi Addo, added that research shows women in Boardrooms and in top management positions lead to better outcomes for organisations and for national economies as a whole.
Globally, 36% of senior private sector managers and public sector’s officials are women (about 2% higher than the figure reported the previous year).
According to a report by Pew Research in 2015, only 26 women were in CEO roles at Fortune 500 companies.
More recently, it is estimated that women constitute only 15 percent of Board roles in S&P 500 companies in the U.S. although it is estimated that women represent roughly US$8 trillion in purchasing power annually, buying goods and services from some of those same companies.
The World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020 which benchmarks 153 countries on their progress towards gender parity in four key areas namely: Economic Participation and Opportunity; Educational Attainment; Health and Survival; and Political Empowerment, reports that progress has been more towards closing the Educational Attainment and Health and Survival gaps than in other areas.
Also, the number of women in senior roles within the Economic Participation and Opportunity indicator has also increased marginally.
Despite the progress made, there is still a 31.4% average gender gap across all four indicators, that remains to be closed globally. On average, the largest gender disparity remains the Political Empowerment gap, followed by the Economic Participation and Opportunity indicator which showed that 57.8% of this gap has been closed so far, a slight step backwards since the year before as a result of the pandemic.
Speaking further at the event, Mrs Awadzi Addo noted that, in the digital era, women have even more opportunities to better prepare for leadership and to thrive in leadership.
According to her, the greatest advantage that mobile and digital technologies offer women is the potential to sidestep some of the traditional, cultural and mobility barriers particularly, in emerging and developing countries like Ghana.
Adding that, the digital revolution characterized by artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and mobile robotics have the tendency to improve female participation in economic life and enhance the economic and social independence of women.
“A comprehensive stakeholder approach is required to address all the structural and cultural barriers that keep women lagging behind in rising to the top in the digital economy. This is necessary to unleash our economy’s full potential and to make it more resilient,” she remarked.
