The Network For Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT) has launched the Women in Finance (WIF) platform to provide an opportunity for dialogue among women working in the banking, insurance, and Fintech sectors.
The platform sought to build the confidence of women and consolidate their voices in these sectors and the needed skills to exercise their Agency and representation to advance women’s financial inclusion.
The launch forms part of NETRIGHT’s partnership with the Graca Machel Trust (GMT) to implement a project titled “Women’s Leadership for Financial Inclusion and Economic Recovery Initiative” (WLFI).
The WLFI aims to build and institutionalise a collective of African Women leaders and leading women’s networks to influence policy actions which promotes inclusive economic recovery in Africa through women’s financial inclusion.
This is against the backdrop, that despite women constituting 50.9% of the population in Ghana, they were underrepresented in Leadership roles in all sectors and according to PricewaterhouseCoopers report half of women in banking are at entry level with only 27% in management.
Madam Patricia Blankson Akakpo, Head of NETRIGHT Secretariat, said the women’s financial inclusion was focused on addressing the systematic barriers that hinder women’s access to financial services, resources and opportunities and this includes advocating for gender-responsive policies and legislation to address specific challenges faced women in participating in the financial sector.
She noted that during the mapping of Women groups under the WLFI project, it was realised that although financial institutions had women groups, they were strictly organizational based and had no common platform to facilitate collaboration.
Ms Eva Esselba Mends, Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance, lauded the initiative and added that there was enough evidence to show that women’s inclusion in all spheres of leadership proved to be impactful and “makes a lot of sense”
She said women were quite represented at all levels at the Finance ministry, yet there was more work to be done to enhance and sustain women’s representation across the financial sectors and pledged support of the ministry to achieve the platforms objectives.
Dr Yaa Afi Osei, Assistant Director, supervision at the Bank of Ghana (BOG) who spoke on behalf of Mrs Elsie Addo- Awadzi, Second Deputy Governor, BOG said there must be intentional programmes to address barriers to women’s financial inclusion and gender inequalities.
She said a lot had been done to enhance women’s financial inclusion, however much remained to close the gender gap of women’s representation and financial inclusion through implementation of effective policies and programmes such as mentorship.
Pursuant to that, she disclosed that the BOG was implementing seven principles which includes financial inclusion and gender equality programmes ensuring that banks were committed to the objectives of promoting gender equality in the financial sector.
NETRIGHT is an economic justice and Advocacy network made up of civil society organizations and individuals working together to bring gender perspectives into national policies and programmes to strengthen women’s rights.
Whiles the Graca Machel Trust, is a Pan-African institution with the mission to amplify women’s movements, influence governance and promote women’s leadership in the social and political development of Africa.
GNA