Women leaders can solve 21st Century challenges

History has recorded extraordinary feats accomplished by women leaders in government and the private sector.

More women have risen to the top levels of companies in the past decade across the globe.

There is evidence that women on boards provide unique insights that contribute to business focus from short-term profit to longer-term growth.

They are more collaborative and adept at balancing the interests of multiple stakeholders.

Data show that women are accelerators of economic growth, great at creating new market value, and reputation, and driving profits and development goals.

It’s in their nature to push for ending hunger, poverty reduction and inequality and tackling climate change.

Flexible and empathetic

Women are resilient, flexible, listening, empathetic and courageous in making bold decisions in organisations.

Offering different perspectives in male-dominated boardrooms has contributed to collaborative success in scores of organisations.

A 2016 study by the Peterson Institute of International Economics surveying 91 countries found that organisations with women in the C-suite were more profitable.

A 2018 McKinsey & Company report, “Delivering through Diversity”, showed that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 21 per cent more likely to outperform on profitability and 27 per cent more likely to have superior value creation.

At the onset of Covid-19, woman-led Germany, New Zealand, Taiwan, Norway, Iceland, Finland and Denmark demonstrated better crisis management traits, hence recording lower deaths and infection rates, as other countries were reeling from the vagaries of the pandemic.

Then German Chancellor Angela Merkel took a stand early, telling Germans to “take it seriously” and introducing testing and lockdowns.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern imposed lockdowns early and self-isolation for visitors when there were just six cases in the country. A World Economic Forum study found that this helped to save lives.

Here at home, “Beyond Zero”, an ambitious health initiative conceptualised by First Lady Margaret Kenyatta in 2013, focuses on ending preventable maternal and child deaths in Kenya’s remote rural areas by 2023.

The challenge was the lack of essential pre-and post-natal care for mothers in marginalised areas.

Grit and determination

Beyond Zero medics worked closely with engineers from local automotive assembler Isuzu to develop a mobile clinic design that would adequately meet the programme’s objectives.

The very first locally assembled Isuzu mobile clinic was donated to the programme in early 2014 with the aim of reaching all counties by 2016.

These women walk in the footsteps of great world leaders who displayed grit and determination.

Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady”, showed remarkable steel as she grappled with the 1982 Falklands Island crisis and the miners’ strike in 1984.

Mrs Thatcher won three consecutive terms in office setting an unbroken record.

In 1988, Benazir Bhutto became the first woman Prime Minister of Pakistan, a democratic government in a Muslim majority country.

In 2005, Ms Merkel became the first female woman Chancellor of Germany and was the third-longest-serving when she retired in 2021.

In Africa, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was Liberia’s President from 2006-2018, the continent’s first elected woman head of state.

She secured millions of dollars of foreign investments and established a truth and reconciliation committee to probe corruption and heal ethnic tensions in her hitherto war-torn country. 

More recently, in 2021, Samia Suluhu Hassan was historically sworn in as Tanzania’s first female president after the death of her predecessor, Dr John Pombe Magufuli.

She is one of the only two serving female heads of state in Africa, the other being Ethiopia’s President Sahle-Work Zewde.

Kenya’s internationally acclaimed Prof Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2004, for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.

She was the first female scholar from East and Central Africa to take a doctorate in biology and the first female professor in Kenya.

These great women have inspired and empowered fellow women to invest in self-development and perfect how to harness the value that women bring to the table.

Women are critical in helping to safely navigate through crises.

The time is ripe in Africa to tap into these strengths of women in leadership to inspire optimism for the future and tackle the global challenges of the 21st century.

Ms Kavashe is the managing director of Isuzu East Africa. [email protected].