GSE lauds reports on gender equality

MANAGING Director of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), Ms Abena Amoah, has welcomed the launch of two reports on Gender Equality in Corporate Leadership lauding the organisations behind the move.

The two benchmarks were launched by the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Stock Exchanges (UN SSE) in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, and UN Women as part of the SSE’s  2023 Quarterly Webinars:  

The webinars included speakers from Bursa Malaysia, Ghana Stock Exchange, IFC, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Nairobi Securities Exchange, the Philippine Stock Exchange, Rwanda Stock Exchange and UN Women. 

Ms Amoah was quoted in a press statement “Congratulations to UN SSE, IFC and UN Women for this very important benchmark report because I think this is what we need to look at how we’re doing compared to other regional exchanges and global standards to drive us all towards the goal we are going forward to.”

 Highlights of the reports include:

• On average, women hold 21% of board seats in Africa and 16% of board seats in Asia.
• An average of 9% of CEOs positions in Africa are held by women and 5% in Asia.
• Bursa Malaysia tops the ranking in Asia, with 26% of board seats held by women, and 44% of its top 100 issuers having at least 30% women on their boards. 
• Johannesburg Stock Exchange tops the ranking in Africa with 32% of board seats held by women and 57% of its top 100 issuers having at least 30% women on their boards.
• There are strong signs of progress in many markets but all-male boards persist at high rates. In Asia, an average of 21% of boards are all-male, and in Africa the figure is 17%.
• The report covered 754 listed companies in Africa across 13 exchanges, and  1,700 listed companies in Asia across 17 exchanges. The analysis looked at the top 100 issuers by market capitalization in each market, or all issuers if there were less than 100. 

Gender equality is one of the SSE’s main areas of work. The SSE, in partnership with IFC and UN Women, announced earlier in 2023 a new training programme that will provide capital market participants with capacity-building resources on gender equality.

In 2022, the SSE published jointly with IFC and UN Women a guide on how stock exchanges can promote gender equality.