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Thursday, March 28, 2024

First Female Future Programme opens in Accra

By
Hafsa Obeng, GNA

Accra, Nov. 12, GNA – The Ghana Employer
Association (GEA) in collaboration with the Netherlands Embassy on Tuesday
organized the first Female Future Programme (FFP), in Accra.

The FFP is a flagship programme that seeks
to bridge the gender gap among women in top management and boardroom positions
in the country.

Madam Victoria Hajar, Treasurer GEA, said
women form the majority of Ghana’s population but they were under represented
in management, leadership and boardroom positions.

She said a study conducted at the
International Finance Corporation and the Swiss secretariat for economic
affairs in 2016 to ascertain the gender dynamics and challenges confronting the
elimination of women from the boardroom in public and private institutions in
Ghana found that the portion of women to total board members was less that 26
percent.

“Additionally only 26 percent of
organizations have females as board chairpersons and 49 percent of women who
rise to board level decisions were made to occupy non-executive positions.

Madam Hajar said there is the need to
intensify the participation of women in boardroom decisions by augmenting the
capacity of talented women in organizations to compete favorable with their
male counterparts.

She said the programme consists of three
modules: leadership development, rhetoric and boardroom competence.

“Available information indicates that women
who went through all the sections of the programme in Africa and Europe have
built excellent oratory and negotiation skills, boardroom competence,
discovered their inner potentials and obtained additional knowledge to lead any
organization.”

She urged participants to open their minds,
learn and maximize the understanding in all the three areas of the programme to
acquire and apply these skills for elevation to the apex of the corporate
ladder.

Employers that introduce their female staff
through this programme have benefitted significantly on increased productivity,
profits, wok place happiness, improved corporate image and reduced turnover as
well as risk over return ratios, she said.

Madam Hajar expressed the hope that
employers would make good use of this opportunity to train majority of their
female talents to diversify their workforce and improve productivity, while
entreating all participants to actively participate in all sections of the
programme to build significant competences to achieve the goals of the
programme and improve performance in their respective organizations.

Mrs Rose Kankam Annan, another official,
said leaders become leaders through training and as such this training has come
at an opportune time and participant must take keen interest in it to acquire
leadership skills that they were not born with.

She said a good leader must have a personal
vision and must know how to share and inspire others to also go with that
vision as well as be confident to take new challenges.

“A leader must have social ability and be
someone who understands the corporate world, and need to know how to make
choices.”

“Women leaders like to isolate themselves.
But try as much as possible to create an environment for people to have easy
access to you, bearing in mind that all leaders have their strengths and
weaknesses and you need to appreciate your weakness.

Dr Adu Anane Antwi, Managing Consul Finlaw
Consult, said skills was what was needed to steer the affairs of any
institution and encouraged participants to learn hard and participate fully in
the event.

“The boardroom as well as top management
challenges are there. It was not easy to go through some of them and it is not
something that you cannot do, you can do it, but you need to get the skills to
be able to do it.”

He said once they had the opportunity, they
should grab it, utilize it well, participate fully in the deliberations and
learn from others.

He said, “Skills and knowledge is something
that if acquired no one can take away from you, so utilize the time so that you
can prepare yourselves for heights in business and any organization in society
that may need your skills and experience to run.”

Mr Alex Frimpong, Chief Executive Officer
GEA, said many women have complained about the fact that some organizations are
not giving them that opportunity to lead, but after going through this
programme and applying what would be discussed, things would change.

Facilitators for the FFP include Madam
Esther Cobbah, CEO, Stratcom Africa, Madam Abigail Opoku Mensah, Researcher and
International Publisher, Madam Vicky Wireko-Andoh, Member of the Editors Forum,
Ghana, Madam Marian Rosemond Barnor, Faculty Member, Stanford University
Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies, and Dr Adu Anane Antwi.

GNA

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