By Benjamin Adamafio Commey/Josephine Dodoo, GNA
Accra, Sept 26, GNA - The Ghana Employers’ Association (GEA) in an effort to increase women’s participation in decision making processes in management, has launched women leadership and boardroom competency development programme in Accra.
The initiative, dubbed: “Female Future Programme (FFP)”, seeks to provide a forum for women managers and women on boards of corporate organisations to interact and exchange ideas as well as to assist companies in developing their gender equality policies to achieve United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal five (SDG 5).
It was launched in collaboration with the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) and the Norwegian Embassy in Ghana.
Mrs Mansa Nettey, the Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Bank Limited said building the competences of women was critical if they were to be considered for leadership positions.
She said even though various leadership opportunities existed, especially for women, the lack of requisite skills hindered their chance in assuming such leadership roles.
Mrs Nettey urged women who aspired to hold such leadership positions to be creative and explore wider avenues to enhance their leadership qualities.
“You need to be creative and explore various options, which may include rewriting your career or taking a detour. There are no straight routes.
On his part, Mr Daniel Acheampong, the President of GEA said the initiative was targeted at building the capacities and skills of women to compete favourably with their male counterparts in the corporate environment and every aspect of life.
He noted that despite women forming a majority of the country’s population, they were hugely underrepresented at leadership and decision making levels.
“For instance, women form more than half, that is 51 per cent of Ghana’s population, but they are underrepresented in management, leadership and boardroom positions”.
According to the latest Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS) report, most formal sector working women are found in services and sales jobs in their organisations whilst the managerial, professional and technical occupations that lead one to top positions are dominated by men.
The programme, he said was opened to top and middle level managers, board members, female CEOs as well as every woman who was aspiring to be a leader in any sector of the economy.
He said the programme would focus on three thematic areas of leadership empowerment- Leadership Development, Rhetoric and Board Competence.
Mr Acheampong appealed to corporate leaderships to support female workers to participate in the FFP in order to maximise their potential and improve workplace diversity to facilitate national development.
The Female Future programme originally developed and established in Norway by the NHO in 2003 and has since 2010 been replicated in four African countries; Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and currently in Tunisia.
Madam Kjersti Granaansen, a Representative of NHO said the programme since its inception in Norway had trained 700 women and over 400 in Africa since it was introduced nine years ago.
She said this had enabled numerous women assume top management positions in both Norway and Africa, adding that she was optimistic that the country’s gender inequality would be bridged with the enrolment of the FFP.
GNA
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