Empowering women in various sectors in countries might be viewed as trivial, but collectively African economies are losing close to $95bn annually in potential revenue.
This observation was made by UN Development Fund (UNDP) director, Helen Clark, on the sidelines of Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Nairobi recently.
“They are not harnessing the full potential of women, and that costs economically, at the family level, community level and the national level,” Clark bemoaned.
Citing agriculture as an example, Clark said that in many African nations, women are banned from owning or inheriting land, making it hard for them to borrow money.
“They then don’t have the finance to buy the best seeds, the best fertilisers. So women, despite working very, very hard, end up producing less, being less productive,” she said.
During the event, he UNDP said in a statement that male-female inequality in sub-Saharan Africa costs the continent some $95bn each year in lost economic potential.
“Gender equality is a good thing in its own right, and it’s the right thing to do, but often it’s not until you start talking about economics that people think my goodness, it has implications if we don’t do something about this,” said Clark, former New Zealand prime minister and a candidate for UN secretary general.
Clark meanwhile noted the progress made in some nations, including in Rwanda, where 65% of elected MPs are female.
Source: adapted for Transform SA Online from a report filed by AFP
