It is almost impossible to overlook SDG5 with its call for gender equality and reducing inequalities in the 17 action points of the Sustainable Development Goals, which is the most comprehensive global road map to shared human progress.
This is even more true for Nigeria, where the gender bias is not only keeping women down but also restraining the country from nearing its massive potential. Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) could grow by 23% — or $229bn — by 2025 if women participated in the economy to the same extent as men, says a McKinsey report.
In finance, nearly 7 in 10 women are unbanked, with more than half of them financially excluded.
A BBC report states that 40% of Nigerian women are entrepreneurs, which is the highest ratio of female business owners in the world. Driven, innovative and passionate about uplifting themselves and others around them, Nigerian women are also running more formal businesses, leveraging technological advancements to build innovative companies, and organizing more than ever to support each other.
While data on employment in the corporate sector is hard to come by, according to a 2016 survey conducted by DCSL Corporate Services Limited, between 2013 and 2015, women accounted for only 14% of the 915 board directors of the 132 companies quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
A large body of evidence demonstrates the positive relationship between women’s economic participation and a country’s prosperity.
A recent global gender gap report from the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take an extra 36 years to achieve global gender parity from its previous assessment of 100 years.
The organization has also noted that it will take the world another 268 years to close the economic gender gap.
This data does not take into perspective the fallout from the pandemic, which when considered could be very unpleasant.
In a digital report by the CFR Women and Foreign Policy Program’s Growing Economies Through Gender Parity, which visualizes data from the McKinsey Global Institute, it is not by coincidence that the countries that rank high in the human development index (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland) directly correspond with the countries atop the gender equality’s list.
Ultimately, a more economic gender-equal Nigeria will create a more prosperous country and with HerVest offering you easy-to-use platforms and a guided approach to investing, we can truly mind that gap one woman at a time.
