Emefiele gave the charge at a commemorative webinar hosted
by the bank’s Deputy Governor in charge of Financial System Stability, Mrs
Aishah Ahmad, as part of activities to mark the 2021 International Women’s Day.
According to the statement from the CBN on Friday, while
giving her keynote address, Executive Resident at the University of Oxford and
former Treasurer and Vice President at the World Bank, Arunma Otteh, also
highlighted the critical roles of leadership occupied by women, noting that
women were key to societal advancement.
Declaring open the webinar, the CBN governor restated the
bank’s commitment to continually promote gender diversity in the workplace,
empower women and increase their active participation in the economy.
According to Emefiele, the CBN recognised the potential of
female leaders in different organisations and the Nigerian economy at large,
and ensured equal opportunities for both male and female staff across every
cadre in the bank.
He also cited the CBN/Bankers’ Committee affirmative action
on 40 per cent and 30 per cent representation for women in top management and
boards of Deposit Money Banks.
While identifying unequal access to education, healthcare,
finance and cultural barriers with gender stereotyping as some of the factors
limiting the participation of women in leadership, the CBN governor listed
policies of the bank that had afforded women access to finance to improve their
lots.
Emefiele stressed the need to have appropriate policies in
place in addition to making the right investments in programmes and services to
promote women leadership and gender parity in order to enable them to
contribute to the economy.
He noted that there was an overwhelming evidence that
organisations with a high level of female participation fared better than
others.
Making a business case for gender equity, Otteh noted that
women economics was ‘SMART’ economics, citing statistics that indicated women
re-invested up to 90 per cent of their resources into their respective families
and societies.
She also emphasised the need to critically address the
challenge of security in order to earn economic prosperity, even as she
stressed that women remained Nigeria’s last hope to tackle insecurity and life
endangering situations.
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