Photo by: Bloomberg
Sub-Saharan Africa was progressing solidly in making gender equality a reality, but still faced key obstacles such as getting women out of low-skilled employment.
Four nations from Sub-Saharan Africa – Rwanda (5), Burundi (12), Namibia (14) and South Africa (15) made it into the top 20 of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2016 – more than any other region except Western Europe.
The report, which was released on Wednesday, found that Sub-Sharan Africa had closed nearly 68% of its gender gap.
The report further noted that according to data, it would take only take 60 years for economic parity to be achieved – far less than other more developed regions of the world.
However, the report found that high labour force participation for women tended to be in low-skilled roles in the region, a factor that would need to be addressed to ensure that economic parity led to growth and inclusion.
“While the region is relatively advanced in terms of closing its economic gap, much of the progress has been in labour force participation, much more needs to be done to help women out of low-skilled roles in favour of better-paying ones.”
The report further noted that the Sub-Saharan Africa region was “possibly the most polarised in the world when it came to gender parity, with four nations in the top twenty but also three in the bottom ten”.
Chad, Mali and Ivory Coast all fared poorly in the global rankings, while Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia from North Africa also featured in the bottom 20.
The report pointed to education as the key battleground.