By Elizabeth Adegbesan

WOMEN, today, are accepted as pillars of the smallest economic unit, the family. From them, great people, both male and female, have been birthed. This shows that women are forces to be reckoned with in terms of nation-building and economic development. However, the special qualities possessed by women have been downgraded and played to a minor key due to ignorance on the part of most and lack of concern or appreciation by others. Hence the establishment of structures of inequality against women, as opposed to men, has come to generate the phenomenon of gender disparity.

L-R, Bimbola Wright, Head, Coverage & Corporate Banking FBNQuest Merchant Bank; Ibukun Awosika, Chairman, FirstBank; Olusola Oworu, Independent Non-Executive Director, FirstBank and Irene Netimah, Company Secretary, FirstBank at the Bank’s celebration of the International Women’s Day and launch of its First Women Network initiative in Lagos during the International Women’s Day.

A plea for economic planning

Gender disparity is the differences in women’s and men’s access to resources, status and well-being, which usually favour men and are often institutionalized through law, justice and social norms. This has become a cankerworm eating deep into society and creating an unbalance in economies worldwide.

Disparities in gender are caused by traditional and cultural factors such as the preference for boys; the obsolete mentality that women are too fragile to perform serious work and manage top positions; less empowerment; unequal pay for equal work compared with that of men; and poverty. These lead to infant mortality, low access to prenatal care and maternal mortality, little or no access to education, female genital mutilation, illiteracy, human trafficking, violence against women, sexual assault and rape and child marriage.

Global efforts to create gender-balanced economies

One of the greatest global focal point in the movement for  gender parity was the creation of the International Women’s Day (IWD), celebrated on March 8 every year. This day is used to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women and to mark a call to action for accelerating gender parity.

The World Bank recently published a report titled: “Women, Business and the Law 2019: A Decade of Reforms” which looked at legal reforms to help women’s economic inclusion.

The business and the Law index for women in the report showed that ten years ago, the global average score for movements against gender disparities was 70.06 and since then 131 economies made 274 legal changes towards gender equality leading to a 4.65 point increase in the average global score, to 74.71 today.

According to the study, “the average improvement was the highest in the South Asia region, followed by East Asia and the Pacific and the Sub-Saharan Africa region. The Middle East and North Africa region had the smallest movement towards gender equality, over the past 10 years. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the most reforms were in starting a Job and getting married.”

Banks and gender disparity in Nigeria

In the Nigeria, one of the most significant efforts towards gender parity was Nigerian Sustainable Banking Principles, developed and introduced by   the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the banks  in 2002.

Among other things the principles mandated banks and financial institutions to make provisions for women empowerment.

“We will promote women’s economic empowerment through a gender-inclusive workplace culture in our business operations and seek to provide products and services designed specifically for women through our Business Activities”, the apex bank stated.

First Woman Network

Driven by this industry commitment and in commemoration of the 2019 IWD, themed: “Balance for Better”, First Bank of Nigeria Limited recently  launched the First Women Network. The network is  aim at  to increasingly address the gender challenges in the workplace and help women reach their maximum potentials, especially career-wise.

The initiative buttressed FirstBank’s commitment to driving the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN’s) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on increased women representation in all banks.

The First Women Network is centred on six pillars which are: Career Management, Personal Branding, Mentoring, Welfare and Support, Financial Planning & Empowerment and Networking opportunities.

Speaking at the launch of First Women Network, advocates for gender parity recommended strategies to achieve global balance in gender parity.

Chief Executive Officer/ Managing Director, Standard Chartered Bank, Bola Adesola said: “FBN Women’s Network Initiative is not a silver bullet to creating the first female CEO of the bank, it is about opportunity.”

Addressing women at the gathering, Adesola said:   “There are just three things I want to throw out there. The first thing is that to thy own self be true. You need to determine your level of ambition. I think the second thing is about purpose onus. Know who you are, what you want for yourself, how are you going to achieve that purpose? The third thing is your connectivity and networking. We need to be intentional and deliberate in our journey to success”.

Speaking on the way forward for young women, Independent Executive Director,   FBN,  Cecilia Akintomide, said: “Deliver. Whatever assignment you take, you don’t need to take every assignment but if you take, you must deliver. The second step to achieving your goals is for you to be ready. Work on yourself. Inform yourself. Right now you don’t win by being prepared for today, you win by understanding today and how you got to today and letting that give you an understanding of the future. That is what makes you win today. Be daring. You know for me life is fun. We take things too seriously.”

Similarly, Adia Sowho, Managing Director and Vice President Commercial at Mines, said: “I think it is important to know the arena you are playing in. I am going to select from a couple of points. One is because you are going to plan your exit from that environment and two because you are also trying to understand your stakeholders and I think it is also good to be truthful at least in understanding that we do live in a gender-based society and we would place judgment when you are there. You must look at where you are and the goal you are trying to achieve and you need to be clear about what you can achieve.”

On her part, Lampe Omoyele, Managing Director/Chief Executive, Nitro 121 said: “I will like to split these in three Vs. The first V is Vision. Have a picture of what you would like to be in the future and then work towards it. The second V is values. Ultimately whether you are a female or male what is going to sustain you is your character and the values you live to.   The third V is what I call Verve and it speaks about enthusiasm in things that we do.

“For the gender balance issue to be resolved there has to be courage. Do not say “this is happening because I am a woman”. You have courage that you are brave in terms of taking risks within the organization that you are in and if things do not appear to go well do not play victim.”

Past efforts of FBN on gender disparity

Furthermore, the First Woman Network was initiated to complement FirstBank’s products designed   to empower  women and thus enhance gender parity. These include  FirstGem, which was launched in 2016 with the aim of driving financial inclusion and all-round development of women through gender-advancement programs wrapped around savings culture, financial literacy, loan management and building investment portfolio.

Since its creation, the bank has disbursed  N57.06 billion to over 81,000 individuals and businesses owned by women in Nigeria. This has provided opportunities for women to create a savings plan and culture that guarantees them financial freedom and safety for the future. It has enabled women to create wealth for themselves and their families from various investment platforms offered through the product. It has created an avenue for women to have access to soft loans to support their aspirations and economic development in their different fields of endeavour. It has offered opportunities for women and girls to have access to financial tools and resources and has enhanced women lifestyle needs.