November 7th, 2013

A Business Plan for AfricaBreakaway Sessions 2: Market Enhancement & Segmentation of our target marketSession 4: Women

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POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS WITHIN THE AFRICA 2.0 MANIFESTO (1/2)

The vision Africa 2.0 Manifesto proposes three areas where the participation of women warrants attention, it puts forward specific actions – based on best practices – to empower women on the continent.

Entrepreneurship Create an African Women Diaspora Fund that invests in women on the continent. Create a Business Idea Competition – to promote learning, competitiveness and networks

creation and reinforcement (Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund could focus on women specifically).

Assess the feasibility of an African Training Institute Hub for Women Entrepreneurs with the aim of developing a two-way information and knowledge center and local community’s reinforcement.

Enable women to be more effective participants in public-private dialogue processes.

Food security and Agriculture Women’s right to land ownership could change the face of Africa and speed up efforts to

achieve food and nutrition security (IFPRI). Capacitate women with the technological skills to boost productivity in Africa’s

agricultural sector. Biotechnology should be a technological option for small-scale farmers, mostly women,

and there is a need for agricultural bodies and governments to ensure that women are familiar with emerging technologies.

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Support women’s leadership for greater governance

There is a stronger likelihood that an increase in female participation results in the adoption of gender-sensitive policies in various areas.

According to Graca Machel, President of Mozambique’s Foundation for Community Development, specifically vis-a-vis women in agriculture, “women need to be involved in decision making so that they can tackle discriminative aspects of land ownership”.

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS WITHIN THE AFRICA 2.0 MANIFESTO (2/2)

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KEY FACTS AND FIGURES ON WOMEN

Fact 1: Women make up just over 50% of Africa’s growing population. At the global level, the percentages are almost equal: 50.4% men and 49.6% women.

Fact 2:Globally, women’s participation in the labor market remained steady in the two decades from 1990 to 2010, hovering around 52%.

Most women in Africa are engaged in informal self-employment (84%). The share of women in non-agricultural wage employment was 36% in sub-Saharan Africa and 22% in North Africa.

Fact 3: Because of limited possibilities for advancement in their home continent, a significant proportion of degreed African women (28%) migrates out of Africa in search of suitable job opportunities. This is in contrast with 17% of educated men.

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CHALLENGES TO WOMEN’S ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION

IN AFRICA

Restrictive laws

Infrastructure challenges hamper

women’s productivity

Unconscious bias

Impact of war and insecurity

Women’s health

CHALLENGES

According to FAO Statistics, import of commodities such as wheat, maize, rice, palm oil, sugar, soy oil, soya beans aby 2013 and 2015.

Almost 70% of the world’s poor are women.

Women earn just over half of what men

earn.

1. According to the latest World Bank Enterprise Survey, in both the public and private sectors, only 1 in 26 salaried African women is employed in a senior management position, compared with 1 in every 6 men.

2. Damaging perceptions and attitudes to women leadership create additional challenges in retaining African talent in the formal sector.

3. Violence against women is the biggest cause of death and disability among women aged 15 to 44.

4. Women make up less than 17% of members of legislative assemblies (parliaments).

5. Two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are women.

IMPLICATIONS

LEVERAGING STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES, ADDRESSING WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

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1. A United Nations report supports this view, noting that investing in female education “has a multiplier effect on productivity, efficiency and sustained economic growth.”

2. A report from Goldman Sachs’s Global Markets Institute argues that gender equality “fuels growth”, by bringing women into the labor force and by raising the overall level of human capital, productivity and wages.

3. The researchers found that on the basis of nine organizational excellence criteria, companies with three or more women in senior management functions scored higher than companies with no women at the top.

OPPORTUNITIES

“Women reinvest 90% of their income in their families and communities, compared with men, who reinvest only 30% to 40% of their income.”

Madeleine Albright & Phil Borges,Women Empowered: InspiringChange in the Emerging World,(Rizzoli, 2007)

LEVERAGING STRENGTHS AND OPPORTUNITIES, ADDRESSING WEAKNESSES AND THREATS

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BEST PRACTICES - RECOMMENDATIONS

For policy-makers, there are a number of recommendations that can be considered:

Policy development, which pursues policies that promote gender equality and,

furthermore, ensuring that women are consulted during the policy process;

Empowering women politically through the use of quotas at all levels of

government;

Accelerating progress toward meeting Millennium Development Goals targets,

thereby meeting the needs of basic service delivery;

Introducing economic reforms and regulating markets to ensure women can

participate equitably, and relaxing those regulations that hamper women’s

full economic participation;

Access to credit and supportive programs will afford women the opportunity

to employ more people, and develop a necessary link in the chain against

poverty.Source: 2011 Ernst & Young Report – Women of Africa. http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Women_of_Africa/$FILE/Women%20of%20Africa%20final.pdf

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BEST PRACTICES – PORTRAITS

Source: 2011 Ernst & Young Report – Women of Africa. http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Women_of_Africa/$FILE/Women%20of%20Africa%20final.pdf

“There is no choice in Africa but to invest in women,” she says. Banda tells a story of her childhood friend who was a goodstudent with a promising future. When it came time for secondary school, however, Banda’s friend had to drop out because her father couldn’t afford the tuition. “I finished because my father could pay,” Banda says. “I am now a vice president.

How education made a difference

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Source: 2011 Ernst & Young Report – Women of Africa. http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Women_of_Africa/$FILE/Women%20of%20Africa%20final.pdf

“My family never stopped supporting my schooling even during the most difficult times. After finishing high school in Nigeria, I came to the US, where I finished my undergraduate degree and then went on to my PhD degree.”

How education made a difference

BEST PRACTICES – PORTRAITS

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KEY QUESTIONS TO ADDRESS IN TODAY’S SESSION

How to increase women’s participation in the formal economy?

How to empower women politically both at the national and local levels?

How to increase women’s access to credit and financial independence?

How to increase women’s access to affordable healthcare and higher education?

How to ensure women’s access to new technologies and science?

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ACTION PRIORITIZATION MATRIX AND STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT MATRIX

Complete the Action Prioritization Matrix below with the key short, medium and long-term leapfrogging actions.

For each identified leapfrogging action, complete the Stakeholder Engagement Matrix below: