Gender equality: why it's important for Africa

Getting more women involved in business will help the continent realise its potential and workplace equality will inevitably lead to change across society.

Businesses across the globe have progressively recognised the importance of promoting gender equality within the workplace, understanding that an increased representation of women correlates with a multitude of beneficial outcomes. This principle extends beyond just the corporate domain, suggesting that enhancing female participation in all aspects of society could lead to more efficacious and sustainable operations. The interplay between gender equality and organisational success is founded on the notion that economic empowerment, leadership roles, and financial successes for women can fundamentally reshape societal structures.

The transformative potential of gender equality is particularly pertinent in the business sector, where economic influence often extends into broader societal impacts. Empowering women to excel in business-through earning, leading, and innovating-instigates a shift in societal dynamics, creating environments where both businesses and communities can flourish through sustainable practices. Thus, the link between gender equality and sustainability is not only intuitive but essential for future prosperity.

In the context of corporate governance, South Africa's King Reports serve as a benchmark for sustainable organisational practices. The latest edition, King IV, emphasises the importance of diverse and balanced board composition, linking ethical leadership with organisational success. By championing gender diversity, King IV recognises the crucial role women play in guiding companies towards sustainable growth and societal benefits.

King IV thus sees board composition as crucial to providing the right mix of people to guide the organisation successfully in an increasingly complex environment. Genuine diversity is crucial to realising this goal, and gender is seen as a crucial factor in achieving diversity. Recommended Practice 11 thus suggests that the governing body "set targets for race and gender representation in its membership? There is a growing body of research that links organisational performance with diversity. Research from the Boston Consulting Group long since provided the link between companies with a more diverse leadership team and above-average revenue from innovation. This research also established a link between diversity and prospects for future growth^.[1]

More recently, out of many other examples, McKinsey & Co's report, *Diversity matters even more: The case for holistic impact^[2] indicates that top-quartile companies have more diverse (in terms of gender and ethnicity) executive teams. In fact, the greater the representivity, the higher the likelihood for higher performance: companies with more than 30% of female executives are more likely to outperform companies with lower percentages. The same principle holds good for ethnic diversity.

The case for diversity is strong
The case for diversity, which pre-eminently includes gender represen- tivity given the fact that women make up roughly half of humanity, is solid. Here though, it is worth noting that diversity cannot be a tick-box exercise: it's not the fact of being female, per se, that makes a woman valuable in the workspace, but the different viewpoints and experiences she brings. The same point can be made of other components of diversity such as race and age: always the key criterion must be what the governing body needs to do its job more effectively.

Aside from governance frameworks like King IV, the beneficial effects of female participation in business are recognised in the regulations of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, which requires a policy and targets for gender diversity on boards.

By adding a different dimension to the way business decisions are made, women can make companies more successful and sustainable over the long term. Research shows that women make decisions differently from men and may even make decisions better. For example, research shows that when competing interests are at stake, women are better at making fair decisions.^[3]

The benefits of female participation we have seen in business surely hold good for politics and society more generally. At base, politics is all about balancing competing claims as fairly as possible. For that reason, one can safely assume, that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has established a protocol urging member states to ensure "equal and effective representation of women in decision-making positions in the political, public and private sectors.^[4]

In theory, at least, we can hope that greater female participation in Africa will enable the continent to make better decisions regarding the continent's urgent needs. While several African countries are growing strongly, conflict is still rife across the region. The benefits of the former will not fully be realised unless the latter is curbed.

There is one particularly difficult set of decisions Africa has to make that will determine its future. These relate to the transition to green energy, pitting environmental sustainability against economic and thus social sustainability. Africa is seriously deficient in the reliable, plentiful energy needed to enable the continent to realise its considerable economic and human potential. It also has abundant reserves of the fossil fuels needed to supply that energy and yet many Africans accept the need to support global efforts to decarbonise energy. How to balance the conflicting imperatives of energy security and energy decarbonisation will take great wisdom-and better representation of women at the highest levels could help negotiate these tricky currents.

In conclusion, though, one has to note that Africa's progress towards gender parity in business and society remains patchy. In 2018, women made up over 50% of the population but generated only 33% of GDP, and it has a low Gender Parity Score, as indicated in a 2019 McKinsey report.^[5] If it improved its performance in gender parity at a best-in-region rate, the report estimated it could have added $316 billion to annual GDP by 2024.

The figures matter less than the principle. Africa must not continue missing out on the potential that its women have to offer in both the economy and society and politics more broadly.

References
^[1]Rocío Lorenzo, Nicole Voigt, Miki Tsusaka, Matt Krentz, and Katie Abouzahr, "How diverse leadership teams boost innovation (23 January 2018), available at https://www.bcg.com/publications/2018/how-diverse-leadership-teams-boost-innovation

^[2]McKinsey & Company, "Diversity matters even more: The case for holistic impact* (5 December 2023), available at https:// www.mckinsey.com/featuredinsights/diversity-and-inclusion/ diversity-matters-even-more-the-case-for-holistic-impact

^[3]"Women make better decisions than men, study suggests", Science Daily (26 March 2013), available at https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130326101616.htm

^[4]SADC website, see https://www.sadc.int/pillars/women-politics-decision-making

^[5] McKinsey Global Institute, "The power of parity: Advancing women's equality in Africa" (24 November 2019), available at https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/gender-equality/ the-power-of-parity-advancing-womens-equality-in-africa