The study, Gender Equality in Nigeria's Private Sector,
assessed gender gaps at 30 leading companies listed on NGX using the Equileap
Scorecard, a methodology that evaluates gaps across four categories – corporate
leadership, compensation and flexible work, corporate policies to promote
gender equality, and efforts on commitment, transparency, and accountability in
closing gender gaps.
Overall, Nigerian companies scored an average of 32 percent
across 19 gender equality metrics for the four categories, two percentage
points behind the global average in Equileap's dataset reported in 2020. While
companies assessed scored better than the global average on women's
participation as leaders on boards and compared favorably with global averages
on women in senior management, work needs to be done to achieve gender
balance—between 40 and 60 percent of each gender—across the four categories.
To help improve gender balance in the private sector, the
report recommends improving gender equality in formal employment, access to
finance for women who want to start a business, and access to markets through
supply chains and procurement opportunities.
"NGX has gender equality embedded at the core of its
working practices and has made giant strides in galvanizing capital market
stakeholders to institutionalize gender equality within their operations. The
Nigeria2Equal program comes as a strategic initiative designed to support the
private sector in increasing women's participation in employment and
entrepreneurship through favorable workforce policies and practices and we are
resolute in our commitment to participate in the program going forward,"
said Temi Popoola, Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX).
The report is part of the Nigeria2Equal initiative launched
in 2020 by IFC in partnership with Nigerian Exchange (NGX). The program, which
runs until 2023, aims to reduce gender gaps in the private sector through
research and case studies, a 15-company peer learning platform, and provide
firm-level advisory support to companies to implement gender action plans. The
program will support the private sector in Nigeria to increase women's
participation as leaders, employees, customers, and entrepreneurs by promoting
favorable workforce policies and practices, development of products and
services that target the women's market segment, and deliberate measures that
empower women's participation in corporate procurement.
"Through the Nigeria2Equal initiative, we are working
with CEOs of private sector companies listed on the Exchange who are committed
to implementing gender-smart solutions to improve their performance in gender
across leadership, employment and entrepreneurship. By conducting market
research and publishing studies, such as this report, we are providing strong
evidence on the important role women play in the country's private sector,
helping companies to identify gaps and constraints, and ultimately invest in
reducing those gaps," said Kalim M. Shah, IFC's Senior Country Manager for
Nigeria.
IFC also unveiled a peer learning platform today to
accelerate efforts to bridge the gaps between women and men. The participating
companies, which represent diverse business sectors such as banking and
finance, construction, FMCG, food manufacturing, hospitality, insurance, logistics,
oil & gas, ride hailing and telecommunications, include MTN Nigeria, Access
Bank, Sterling Bank, EcoBank, AIICO Insurance, Ardova Plc, Flour Mills of
Nigeria, Lafarge Africa, Moove Africa, StanbicIBTC Bank, Airtel Nigeria, UAC of
Nigeria, Cadbury Nigeria, Red Star Express, Transcorp Hotels, and Union Bank.
The 15 Nigerian companies will make at least three
commitments to reduce gender gaps in their operations. For example, they may
commit to boost the number of women in leadership or implement strategies to
bring more women into corporate supply chains.