By Mabinty M. Kamara
The World Bank has called on African governments to adopt and enforce strong policies that are geared towards empowering women. The call was made as part of the many recommendations the group made in the latest edition of the Africa’s Pulse, a regular report on the economic status of the continent.
World Bank Vice President for Africa, Hafez Ghanem, said: “Empowering women will help boost growth. African policy makers face an important choice: business as usual or deliberate steps towards a more inclusive economy.”
Ghanem was speaking via a video conference from Washington, United States of America.
He added: “After several years of slower-than-expected growth, closing the opportunity gap for women by removing barriers to their economic participation is the best way forward.”
Although the report reveals that Africa is the only region in the world that can boast of the likelihood of having more women entrepreneurs than men, it also found that women make 34% less profit than male business owners. This also spills into the agriculture sector on the continent. The report shows that women contribute to a large share of agricultural labor across the continent, yet they produce 33% less per hectare of land than their men counterpart.
In Sierra Leone, women farmers still have challenges like access to capital and traditional land holding systems.
The report further stated that global uncertainty is taking a toll on growth well beyond Africa, noting that real GDP growth is also expected to slow significantly in other emerging and developing regions. It reveals that the recovery in Nigeria, South Africa and Angola has remained weak and is weighing on the region’s prospect.
Whiles Africa still hosts the fastest growing economies in the world, as countries like Ghana, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Cote d’Ivoir are performing very well above 7%, six countries: Benin, Mauritania, Niger, Uganda, Burkina Faso and Senegal are performing above 6%. Other countries like Sierra Leone are performing very poorly, below 3%.
Kemoh Mansaray, Senior Country Economist of the World Bank, said the performance of Sierra Leone is due to the high double digit inflation, high risk of debt distress, and high fertility rate, among others.
Sierra Leone and Liberia were singled out in the report as countries with high inflation rate. Mansaray said Sierra Leone’s population is growing above 2% per annum, which indicates that it has to do more to avoid any reversal in poverty reduction as per capital income is one of the indicators used to determine poverty levels.
According to the report, this success gap is stifled by large and persistent earning gaps between men and women; one that has had a huge effect on the growth of the continent’s economy.
Albert Zeufack, Chief Economist for Africa at World Bank, noted during the conference that women’s empowerment is the engine for Africa’s growth and this is something the continent must tap in to.
“We believe that women’s empowerment is such an engine to Africa's growth. I have some good news and bad news. The good news is that, Africa is the only region in the World that can boast that women are more likely to be entrepreneurs than men. And African women contribute to a large share of agricultural labor than men,” Zeufack said.
He added, “But the bad news is that there is large productivity gap. And we believe that to close these opportunity gaps, education will keep young girls in school and provide young girls and women the skills needed to work.”
To close the gap, the report recommended six policy areas; building women’s skills beyond traditional trainings, alleviating women’s financial constraints through innovative solutions that relieve the collateral problem and improve their access to the financial sector. Other solutions include helping women secure their land rights, connecting women to labor, addressing social norms that constrain women’s opportunities and building a strong new generation by helping girls to navigate their adolescence.
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