Sunday,
March 10, 2019 9:.00AM / Bukola Akinyele and Nifemi Taiyese for Proshare WebTV
The Nigerian Stock
Exchange in Partnership with IFC, UN Women, World Federation of Exchanges,
United Nations Global Compact Sustainable Stock Exchanges Risk Initiative and
supported by House of Tara, Olori, ShugaPlum plus Modara hosted the
International Women’s Day 2019 as an avenue to discuss bridging the gender
parity gap, gender diversity and women empowerment.
The Symposium themed
“Balance For Better “ kicked off with the opening remarks by Ms. Tinuade Awe
the Executive Director, Regulation of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Giving the opening
remarks, she noted that according to the World Economic Forum report
Nigeria ranked 133 out of 149 in terms of global gender parity. The Gender
Parity Index (GPI) is a socioeconomic index usually designed to measure the
relative access to education of males and females.
This shows that there is
progress to be made in efforts to close this gap which should be through
collective contribution.
She said, gender gap
must be a thing of history and for this to be done urgency and more action is
needed to deliver faster results.
“There should be
investment in academic policies and education as this will yield return of
investment she said. The aftermath of this is that it will unleash the full
potential of women in family, business, community and the nation altogether”
Awe said .
The ED, Regulations said
the NSE was committed to women empowerment principles signed in 2016
which covered both work place and market place.
In her keynote
speech Mrs Eme Essien Lore Country Manager International Finance Corporation
IFC, Nigeria in her remarks said the event is organized to be a global
initiative to ring bell for gender equality, in spurring growth for
development and also to push for more progress as regards women.
According to her one of
the reasons why the IFC is at the forefront of bridging the gender gap, is
providing resources and opportunities to help people focus on the role of
women.
She said several
organizations including IFC have very good initiatives to advance the agenda
and draws attention to that now to bridge the gender parity gap. The rate of
literacy is women 41% to men 61%, which is not encouraging and more
work should be done to drive public private and government
investments in girl child education.
The event was also an
avenue for the Signing of the CEO Statement of Support for the WEPs and was
done by Eme Essien Lore Country Manager Nigeria International Finance
Corporation IFC, Erelu Angela Adebayo Former First Lady Ekiti State &
National Council Member NSE and Mr Lansana Wonnen UN Women Deputy
Representative.
It was also noted that
some African countries have low representation of women in government and
Nigeria is one of them.
The IFC Country
Manager recognized the progress with women involvement in leadership in
investment, banking sector.
Deputy representative
for UN Women Mr Lansana Wonnneh in his remarks, said this was the first time
the private sector was driving International Women’s Day which makes it a
unique and significant milestone. He stated that an initiative like this
will drive full participation of women in economic activities.
He said when women are
fully integrated in the economy, the outcome is three times more he believes
either as individuals, in households or in work place. He makes mention of the
resistance for women to realize their full potential.
Statistically speaking,
he said Nigeria is at the bottom of gender equality. The figures presented in
the statistics is less than 10% and has a high rate of decrease or otherwise
owing to the upcoming elections.
According to him most
women do not benefit from government businesses as they are not awarded
contracts, he said so the infrastructure needs to be changed for clear progress
to be made.
The event featured
a panel session which discussed the topic “Think Equal, build
Smart, Innovate for Change” featured several panel discussants:
Serah Makka-Ugbabe, Country Director Nigeria, ONE Campaign, Dr Ola Brown,
Managing Director, Flying Doctors Nigeria, Olukemi Awodein, Managing Director,
Investment Banking, Chapel Hill Denham, Lady Sandra Aguebor, Founder Lady
Mechanic Initiative, Debola Williams, Founder Red Media Africa, Olusola Amusan,
Philanthropies Lead, Microsoft Nigeria with Kaidi Eddie Obiakor Gender
Specialist IFC as the moderator.
The panel session
explored the impact of education on young girls by thinking of technology and
inculcating it into the matters of education.
It made a strong case
for the gradual shift from traditional computing to Artificial Intelligence which
will produce great change to the world.
The panelists asserted
that schools should not box the girl child into Arts and Humanities, but should
hitherto encourage them to explore the sciences.
They also made a case
for the provision of technological materials to the girl child, and access to
internet and learning instructions.
It was also agreed that
the continuing narrative of more women who are influencers should be carried
along. The more important thing is to enable quotas to women for corporate boards
and NSE should work on making policies to incentivize other organizations to
embrace the use of quota.
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