IVORY COAST. Abidjan: The Board of Directors on the Africa Development Bank has approved a new Gender Strategy for 2021 to 2025.
The strategy is titled ‘Investing in African women to accelerate inclusive growth’. This is according to the statement released by the bank on January 8th.
“This is a significant milestone for the bank as it will guide our interventions in the next five years as we increase our efforts to achieve outcomes and maximum impact on building gender on the ground for women to thrive,” said Vanessa Moungar, the Bank’s Director for gender, women and civil society.
The strategy seeks to strengthen the Bank’s commitment as a leader on the continent, to reach set targets in gender equality and women and girls empowerment in Africa.
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Gender equality is regarded as a driving force to transforming Africa.
Through the gender strategy, the bank will capitalise on its long-standing experience leadership as well as building on its comparative advantage to achieve maximum impact on the ground.
Teamwork
Commending all parties for their contribution to designing the new strategy, Moungar said, the entire bank’s ecosystem has been closely involved in its development through a highly consultative process involving bank staff, members of the board as well as key external stakeholders.
Statistics show that women and girls are still lagging behind. Gender inequality costs sub-Sahara Africa $95 million each year.
The current COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated the need for immediate attention to support vulnerable women and girls in fragile areas.
A recent study jointly published by the AfDB, UNWomen and Impact Her, based on a survey with over 1,300 women entrepreneurs across 30 African countries revealed that 80 percent of women owned small and medium businesses had to temporarily or permanently shutdown.
