Solidarity is crucial to improve gender parity across Africa

Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge Consultancy Services Ghana Yvone Prempeh has indicated that collaboration among women is crucial to improving gender parity levels across Africa. Prempeh was speaking at the International Women’s Summit on Leadership Training and Sustainable Funding for Women in Business.

The summit comes amid a wave of realisation in business environments across Africa, where women are standing up and taking notice of the increasing disparities in the workplace, ranging from compensation & promotions to overall treatment of women in the work environment.

Global health and wealth management consultancy Mercer recently declared its intentions to help deconstruct the unequal structures across Africa. Meanwhile, a number of other firms across Africa have begun to make female appointments to senior positions, exemplified by the recent appointment of Nancy Muhoya as Managing Partner at EY Kenya.

The latest Women’s Summit was organised with the specific objective of empowering women across Africa by offering training and educational facilities. Those women who have managed to carve out a place for themselves in the business environment used the summit as a platform to share their experiences and insights.

The summit was organised in Accra, Ghana by a range of stakeholder organisations, including the Association of Women in the Media, Empowering Strategies for Health and Development (EMSTRAD), the Expat Professional and Women’s Business Network and the Ghana Technology University.

The theme of the summit was ‘Empowered Women, Empowered Communities.’ Many leaders who spoke at the summit urged women on the continent to share and inspire, highlighting that unity and collaboration were crucial to altering the currently imbalanced scenario on the continent.

Yvone Prempeh of Cambridge Consultancy Services urged women who had made it to senior positions to take the time and mentor young women, and help them grow. She also reiterated the importance of events such as the International Leadership Summit to drive forward efforts in the direction of gender equality in the workplace.