By Chernor Alimamy Kamara
Women, Business and the Law 2022 report has highlighted Sierra Leone’s ‘tremendous’ progress on Women’s Economic Empowerment in Africa.
According to the report published by the World Bank Group on the 1st March 2022, the country has reached 100 on Entrepreneurship by legally prohibiting gender-based discrimination in financial services which makes access to credit easier for women. The report highlighted challenges in the area of Parenthood where the regional average score is 45.
“No economy in the region scores 100 on this indicator,’’ it stated.
The report maintained that scores for the region range from 0 to 80, with 28 economies out of the 48 economies of the region (58%) granting paid leave to fathers. It further said that, of the 50 economies worldwide with paid parental leave, none is in Sub-Saharan Africa where the average leave granted to fathers was 2.7 days in 2021.
“Togo introduced new legislation which no longer prohibits the dismissal of pregnant workers,’’ the report said.
The report added that the highest number of reforms were made in the Parenthood, Pay, and Workplace indicators, globally.
Many reforms focused on protecting against sexual harassment in employment, prohibiting gender discrimination, increasing paid leave for new parents, and removing job restrictions for women.
It noted that the Pay and Parenthood indicators have the lowest average scores in the index, “but they have increased in the last year, rising 0.9 and 0.7 points, respectively, with average scores of 68.7 and 55.6. The gains in the Parenthood indicator have largely been around paternity leave and shared parental leave, but the low score highlights the need to accelerate reforms in this area,” it noted.
The report agreed that gender quality still remain a challenge across the world with “an aggregate score of 76.5 out of a possible 100, which denotes complete legal parity”, with 178 countries that still maintain legal barriers that prevent women’s full economic participation.
However, it stated that despite the challenges worsened by the COVID pandemic, 23 countries reformed their laws in 2021 to take much-needed steps towards advancing women’s economic inclusion.
“While progress has been made, the gap between men's and women’s expected lifetime earnings globally is US$172 trillion - nearly two times the world’s annual GDP,” said Mari Pangestu, World Bank Managing Director of Development Policy and Partnerships. “As we move forward to achieve green, resilient and inclusive development, governments need to accelerate the pace of legal reforms so that women can realize their full potential and benefit fully and equally”, Pangestu said.
Women, Business and the Law 2022 measures laws and regulations across 190 countries in eight areas impacting women’s economic participation – mobility, workplace, pay, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets, and pensions. The data offers objective and measurable benchmarks for global progress toward gender equality.” Just 12 countries, all part of the OECD, have legal gender parity. New this year is a 95-country pilot survey of laws governing childcare -- a critical area where support is needed for women to succeed in paid employment,” the report noted.
It added that a pilot analysis of how laws affecting women’s economic empowerment are actually implemented is also included, highlighting the difference between laws on the books and the reality experienced by women.
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