Gender equality is smart economics and right way to go

Lesetja Kganyago, Governor of the SARB spoke for millions of women when he urged the World Bank/International Monetary Fund executive boards to “make meaningful strides” towards greater Diversity and Inclusion in the two gatekeeper organisations of the global economic and financial systems.

The governor was addressing the Forty-Ninth Meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee at the Spring Meetings of the World Bank/IMF in Washington DC on Saturday.

Based on the assumption that like charity, gender parity begins at home, Kganyago reiterated the perennial call from developing countries for gender parity in the executive board of the IMF, as well as enhanced gender balance on all grade levels in the offices of executive directors.

For two institutions historically and ideologically stitched up by the prime victor and their largest equity subscriber, the US, and its Western allies aided and abetted by Japan and South Korea, in the post-war chaos that led to the Bretton Woods dispensation, this will always be a difficult task steeped in the politics of demographic hegemony, financial sovereignty and economic and capital ownership supremacy.

“We recognise the progress made on diversity and inclusion,” reminded Kganyago, “but stress the need to timely meet all the benchmarks. We call for continued commitment to make meaningful strides to tackling the ongoing challenges of greater recruitment and promotion of staff from underrepresented regions, as well as more female appointments at all levels, to ensure a level playing field and equitable treatment for staff at all grade levels across the membership.

Addressing the legacy of underrepresentation, especially in today’s increasingly complex global environment is of paramount importance for the fund, as it seeks to remain a trusted global policy advisor, which values and integrates diverse views, work styles, cultural norms, skills, and competencies.”

In fact, two reports coinciding with the Spring Meetings make sober and uncomfortable reading on the current and near-to-medium-term state and prospects for women in finance, the workplace and trade. The 11th edition of the Gender Balance Index (GBI) published a week ago by OMFIF, the independent forum for central banking, economic policy, and public investment, tells a story of missed opportunities.

The index tracks the presence of men and women in senior positions in central banks, commercial banks, pension funds and sovereign funds.

“Even though there are more women in senior positions across central banks and top financial institutions in 2024, only 14% of the 63 institutions with new governors or chief executive officers in the past year appointed women. At this rate of change, the prospect of gender parity in leadership remains decades away,” maintains OMFIF.

The proportion of female leaders in the 335 institutions in the GBI increased to 16% – its highest-ever share. Most of the progress was found in central banks where the number of female governors increased to 29 (16%) from 23 (15%) in 2023.

Pension funds have the highest share of women in the top rank – rising to 28% from 24% in 2023. However, commercial banks have regressed: the share of female CEOs fell to 12% this year from 16% in 2023. Lower still are sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), with 10% of those in our sample led by women.

However, in this war of gender gaps and parities, the data can be beguiling because they are often absolute in numbers but mask the fact that the base for the metrics is low and barriers to entry for change are very high and dominated by policymakers and national leaders who remain predominantly men.

According to OMFIF, in 2023 the share of new women CEOs in commercial banks and SWFs was zero, and in central banks and pension funds only 18% and 22% respectively.

SARB’s gender parity record is mixed – a fact that Governor Kganyago, who so passionately articulated the need for much greater diversity and inclusion in the World Bank/IMF senior management structures at the Spring Meetings, is only too aware of.

Although SARB’s ranking in the GBI improved from 100 in 2022 to 63 in 2023, and its GBI score of 54 improved by 19 points year-on-year, the percentage of senior female staff at the central bank was only 35%.

In March 2024, President Cyril Ramaphosa reappointed Nomfundo Tshazibana as Deputy Governor of SARB for a period of five years effective from August 1. He also appointed the prominent economist, Dr Mampho Modise, as a new Deputy Governor of SARB for five years effective from April 1. The gender bias is now in favour of women in the deputy governor cohort, which comprises three such appointments under the provisions of the South African Reserve Bank Act of 1989.

There are encouraging signs for women in technology. Of the seven sovereign fund chief technology officers (CTOs) included in the OMFIF’s GBI index, four are women.

Two out of five African sovereign funds have women in leading technology roles, including Makano Mosidi, CTO of South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation (PIC) and Sheila Malebogo Sealetsa, adviser on banking and currency digitisation of Botswana’s Pula Fund.

In fact, the Central Bank of Seychelles and Bank of Namibia were the two highest ranked African countries in the GBI, with 54% senior staff comprised of women professionals. The PIC on the other hand has 17 female executives but no women on its board.

Absa and Standard Bank had 43 and 29 female board members respectively, and 23 female executives each.

Perhaps the biggest indictment of the huge and entrenched gender bias and gap for women in the workplace comes in the World Bank Group’s Women, Business and the Law Report launched in March 2024, which confirms that “the global gender gap for women in the workplace is far wider than previously thought.

When legal differences involving violence and childcare are included, women on average enjoy just 64% of the legal protections and rights that men do —far fewer than the previous estimate of 77%.

No country provides equal opportunity for women – not even the wealthiest economies.”

The report reveals a shocking implementation gap. Although laws on the books imply that women enjoy roughly two-thirds the rights of men, it observed, countries on average have established less than 40% of the systems needed for full implementation.

For example, 98 economies enacted legislation mandating equal pay for women for work of equal value. Yet only 35 economies – fewer than one out of every five – have adopted pay-transparency measures or enforcement mechanisms to address the pay gap.

The gender and implementation gaps highlight how much hard work lies ahead towards parity. Gender equality is smart economics, and it is essential for development, increasing aggregate productivity, and for the dignity of women in the workplace and society per se.

Gender balance is too much consumed by a rhetoric of aspirations espoused by a group of powerful and oft misogynistic men, who pay lip service to gender equality only to obfuscate policies needed to implement them through smart strategies.

* Parker is an economist and writer based in London

Cape Times