ghananlpcommunity/ghana-gov-speeches-sentences huggingface dataset:
The report suggested that increased competition , productivity growth, and investments, could boost real per capita GDP growth rate in the region by about 1 percentage point.
What is more, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimate d that intra -African trade in 2019 was 15 percent compared with 68 percent in Europe and 58 percent for Asia.
Fragmented payments infrastructure, multiple and non -convertible currencies, over reliance on correspondent banking, were some of the factors inhibiting intra African trade, investment and growth.
Africa’s economic challenges have been further compounded by the increasing complexities of the global financial and business environment brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Covid-19 pandemic led to a sharp contraction of economic activity in the region by 1.9 percent in 2020, with countr ies that were heavily dependent on tourism and commodity exports bearing the biggest brunt of the shock.
The average inflation rate for the region rose from 8.5 percent in 2019 to 10.8 percent in 2020 reflecting a sharp increase in food prices due to the l ockdowns.
Increased Government spending to protect lives and livelihoods and to prevent a total collapse of the real sector widened overall fiscal balance on average from 4.1 percent of GDP in 2019 to 6.9 percent of GDP in 2020, while the average government debt to GDP ratio in the region also increased from 51.5 percent in 2019 to 57.8 percent in 2020.
What is more, the pandemic and the recent Russia -Ukraine war have led to g lobal price pressures in several advanced and emerging market economies, primarily due to the sharp rise in energy and food prices and existence of supply bottlenecks, heightened uncertainty and increased economic fragility in most African countries, and complication of the recovery process.
Evidently, the region’s economic prospects have from time immemorial been exposed to an external environment that has sometimes impacted harshly due to commodity price shocks and volatile global financial conditions.
These external pressures, coupled with domestic factors such as budget deficits, high debt, and complex business environments, have made the realization of the region’s full economic potential a challenge.
Financing for robust macroeconomic recovery and for the medium-to- long-term investments needed to boost Africa’s competitivenes s, also remains a challenge, with the estimated financing gap for Africa for 2021- 2025.
The IMF estimates that African economies will need some $285 billion additional financing from 2021-2025 to effectively respond to the effects of the COVID -19 pandemic.
The African Development Bank also estimated at the peak of the pandemic, that African economies were going to need some $484 billion from 2020-2022 to address the socio - economic impacts of the pandemic and to support economic recovery alone.
Meeting the Financing Gap and the other factors that impede intra - regional trade and investment, will require tough reforms, including measures to improve public finances through mobilizing additional domestic revenue (tax and non-tax) and enhancing the efficiency of public spending (especially on health and investments); as well as measures to promote competitive investment climates and thereby attract private investments.
Policy makers continue to tinker with options to address pre-existing macroeconomic imbalances accentuated by the pandemic and the recent Russia/Ukraine war.
At the same time, it is imperative that bold steps are also taken to harness strategic opportunities that should help not only with economic recovery efforts but also to create a more robust a nd sustainable economic reality for the region.
For a start, the continent’s youthful population is a great asset.
Sub- Saharan Africa alone is estimated to be home to more than 1 billion people, half of whom will be under 25 years old by 2050, according to the World Bank.
Harnessing this resource will be critical to transforming Africa’s socio-economic future into a more competitive and robust one.
Intra-regional trade presents another big opportunity for the continent’s economic growth prospects, which must be fully activated.
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) creates for the first time, a single African market for goods and services, that transcends the boundaries of each of the continent’s 54 nations.
With trading under the regime having commenced in January 2021, concrete steps need to be taken to expand production, delivery, and payment channels to promote trade, investments, and growth.
Trade volumes under the AfCFTA will be driven to a large degree, by investments that will help to expand production and processing capacity in key value chains, develop key infrastructure to support the logistics of delivery of goods and services and payments, promote access to efficient and deep financial markets .
Also critical will be investments in human capital and digitalisation, and the strengthening of business law regimes to promote investor confidence.
With advancements in technology, innovations such as the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), developed and launched by the Afreximbank and the AfCFTA Secretariat provide great hope for improving intra-regional trade and investment to help shape a more robust economic reality for the region.
PAPSS is the first centralis ed payments system i nfrastructure for processing, clearing, and settling intra-Africa payments, and is expected to significantly lowe r transaction costs and accelerate business transactions for intra-Africa trade and investments.
As a member of the Governing Council of PAPSS, the Bank of Ghana has offered maximum support to the testing and pilot phases of the PAPSS and will continue to do so.
Domestically, t he Bank of Ghana also continues to promote a modern, innovative, resilient and inclusive payments system in Ghana to help promote commerce, digitilisation, and access to financial services to support Ghanaian micro small and medium- sized enterprises to plug into the AfCFTA market and beyond.
The Bank of Ghana has also commenced a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot which, if successful, should lead to the launch of the eCedi as a central -bank backed digital alternative to phy sical currency, providing convenience and efficiency in payments, and promoting an inclusive and formalis ed economy, with significant benefits for Ghana’s economy and the regional economy.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the pandemic and the recent geopolitical wa r has reinforced the role of prudent macroeconomic policies in positioning economies to better withstand economic shocks and global supply chain vulnerabilities.
It is a wake -up call for the continent to think outside the box, build on our strengths and ad dress our vulnerabilities now rather than later.
This will take the concer ted efforts of all stakeholders – national and regional authorities, public sector and private sector, young and old – to change Africa’s economic story for good.
Among other things, we should all work towards:  Enhancing private and public sector savings by rationalising spending to create space for resources to fund critical investment needs;  Improving the business ope rating environ ment to attract private capital – both national, regional and international – into key infrastructure to support critical value chains.
To do this, we need to promote the rule of law and a compliance culture, protect property rights through e nforcement of contracts, and promote transparency, accountability, political and macroeconomic stability;  Leveraging technology to improve remittance flows and tapping into other diaspora resources to help close the financing gap;  Promoting increased dig italisation of economic activity , and empowering marginalized segments such as the youth, women, and persons who are differently abled, to unleash their full contributions to our economic growth;  Paying attention to climate change and environmental degrada tion and their growing adverse impacts on agriculture, other key sectors of African economies, and our water bodies, while devising effective de- risking mechanisms to promote sustainable and resilient growth in the longer-term.
On its part, the Bank of Ghana will continue to provide strong policy support to promote domestic and regional economic growth recovery efforts and the drive towards building a more resilient and self-sufficient Africa.
I am very confident that the disc ussions at this summit today and the conclusions that will emerge from these discussions, will provide impetus for a positive way forward.
Thank you for the attention and I wish you fruitful deliberations.
1 Ghana Microfinance Institutions Network (GHAMFIN) and CapPlus FIRST + Gender Finance Workshop on the Theme: “Gender Finance is a Win-Win-Win” Remarks By Mrs.
Elsie Addo Awadzi Second Deputy Governor, Bank of Ghana Mensvic Hotel, Accra 22nd April 2022 2 Officials of CapitalPlus Exchange (CapPlus) Mr.
Yaw Gyamfi, Executive Director, Ghana Microfinance Institutions Network (GHAMFIN) Ms.
Rosy Fynn, Country Manager of the Mastercard Foundation Ms.
Maya Margie, Senior Banking Specialist at the International Finance Corporation Chief Executive Officers and Key Management Staff of Banks, Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions (SDIs), Non-bank Financial Institutions (NBFIs), and Industry Associations Colleagues from Bank of Ghana Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen 1.
I bring you warm greetings from the leadership of the Bank of Ghana.
It is indeed a great pleasure to join you for the FIRST+ gender finance workshop themed “Gender Finance is a Win-Win-Win”.
Before I proceed, permit me to use this moment to thank the leadership of GHAMFIN and CapPlus for organising this important workshop.
I am particularly delighted this workshop starts off the First + initiative that will be working with a number of our commercial banks, NBFIs, and rural and community banks, to scale up finance for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) with a special focus on increasing women entrepreneurs , with the help of strategic partners such as Mastercard Foundation .
I also und erstand that OikoCredit will be making available funding of US$20 million to support invest ment-ready financial institutions to scale up their services for women-owned MSMEs.
This is very welcome news indeed.
Our MSMEs are the bedrock of our economy, and our women entrepreneurs own a majority of these businesses .
Anecdotal data suggests that Ghana’s MSME sector accounts for about 92 percent of all businesses and contributes about 70 percent of Ghana’s GDP.
Ghana’s private sector is dominated by women entrepreneurs, second only to Uganda, according to the 2019 MasterCard Index of Women Entrepreneurs.
We also know that about 44 percent of MSMEs in Ghana are female-owned.
This therefore means that women-owned MSMEs in Ghana are contributing significantly to the growth and well-being of our economy, and have the potential to help grow our economy even more with the right kinds of support.
Access to finance for our MSMEs re mains a perennial challenge and most surveys of our business environment surveys confirm this.
Women-owned MSMEs face an even higher bar to accessing finance.
As of 2017, the World Bank’s Findex Report suggested 3 that there was an 8 percent gender gap in access to finance in Ghana, and an average of 9 percent for Africa and the rest of the developing world.
Given that the adverse socio-economic impacts of the COVID -19 pandemic were felt disproportionately by women with many of their businesses barely surviving , it is only fair to imagine that the gender gap in access to finance may have widened even further.
The First + initiative is therefore timely and urgent, as part of efforts to help our economy recover from the pandemic and make it more resilient going forward.
As we deliberate on how to get this initiative off the ground and to make it a success, permit me to share a few quick thoughts with you:  A lot has been done already to increase financial access for MSMEs and to promote gender inclusive finance , although it appears a lot more is needed .
There is the need to take stock of previous and ongoing initiatives to determine what has worked and what has not and why, so that this initiative is designed effectively.
 As this initiative focuses on the supply-side of access to finance by aiming to empower financial institutions to provide more products and services for MSMEs in a gender inclusive manner, it is important to understand what the constraints have be en for our financial institutions beyond the sources of funding available to them, and how this initiative can address those constraints fully.
 In addition, we need to also think about what the demand-side constraints have been, so that we can somehow address them to promote effective take -up of gender-inclusive MSME -focused products and services.
For example, what specific financial products and services do MSMEs (and women-owned MSMEs in particular) need that they do not current ly have access to?
What are the constraints that hinder them from accessing existing products and services?
What else apart from financial services do they need to start, manage, and grow their businesses so that they can take advantage of the fi nancial services and products that are or will become available to them?
 Related to the above , is the need for c larity about what we seek to achieve through this initiative .
For a start, we need to be clear about de finitions – definitions of the MSME market, the initiative is hoping to target, where the gaps exist, and where the most impact could be made.
Data availability will be key to target the interventions proposed under the initiative and to help measure impact from the initiative.
4  Collaboration with ongoing initiatives aimed at promoting MSME and gender inclusive finance will also be key, to help embed this initiative into the landscape of our financial services industry and to make lasting impact.
 Last but not least, the inactive should explor e ways in which it could promote women’s leadership in financial institutions to help foster the mind set of improving gender inclusive finance .
A fair representation of women in the shareholding, Boards, and key management of financial institutions will g o a long way to help understand the needs of women-owned MSMEs and promote well-designed products and services for their benefit.
On its part, Bank of Ghana will continue to help promote access to an inclusive financial system as by extension broad -based macroeconomic growth through its policy, regulatory, and supervisory tools.
In particular, we continue to:  Promote the safety and soundness of financial institutions we regulate so that they are better able to provide finance to economic actors on a sustainable basis.
Weak financial institutions are not able to support the private sector through funding.
 Monitor the implementation of Ghana’s Sustainable Banking Principles – a set of seven ESG –related principles launched in November 2019 by the Bank of Ghana, Ghana Association of Banks, and the Environmental Protection Agency – which enjoins banks to among other things , promote financial inclusion and gender equity internally and in relation to their products and services to clients.
Banks are currently reporting regularly to us on progress they are making in implementing these principles, and we expect that soon specialised deposit - taking institutions and non -bank financial institutions we regulate and supervise will follow suit.
 Implement a new online reporting and analytics supervisory tool by which our regulated financial institutions submit their prudential returns to us on a monthly basis.
This new online tool, requires reporting on a sex-disaggregated basis, and allows both reporting institution s and our supervision staff to understand not only aggregate numbers in terms of financial products and services but also the gender dynamics of the customer bases and product and service offerings of financial institutions.
This should help address current data constraints and provide critical data for evidence -based design of financial services and products and for policy making, regulation, and supervision.
 Enhance critical credit market infrastructure such us our credit bureaux -based credit reporting system and our collateral register to help to de -risk lending particularly to MSMEs and women-owned businesses.
5  Ensure that our regulation of the payments space is s upportive of innovation and inclusion by allowing fintechs and other payments system service providers to partner with banks and other licensed financial institutions to provide products and services that promote convenience, cost effectiveness, and inclusion.
I call on all stakeholders gathered here to get on board and see how best we can all work together to achieve the intended objectives of the First + initiative.
1 Ghana Employers Association First Annual Leadership Conference 2022 Female Future Programme On the Theme: “Promoting Women Leadership in a Digital Era” Keynote Address By Mrs.
Elsie Addo Awadzi Second Deputy Governor, Bank of Ghana Marriot Hotel, Accra 21st April 2022 2 Madam Chairperson, Rev.
Joyce Aryee H.E.
Ingrid Mollestad, Royal Norwegian Ambassador to Ghana Bro.
Joshua Ansah, Deputy Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress Executives and Members of the Ghana Employers’ Association (GEA) Dr.
Janet Ampadu Fofoe, Esq., Chairperson of the Public Services Commission Participants in the GEA “Female Future” Programme Good morning.
I am indeed honoured to join you today as Guest Speaker for the GEA’s First Annual Leadership Conference on the theme “Promoting Women Leadership in a Digital Era”.
As the nation’s foremost Employers’ organi sation whose membership covers firms operating in all sectors of our economy and whose mandate includes advocating for a congenial business environment, it is very commendable that GEA recogni ses the need for promoting women’s leadership in Ghana.
Even more commendable is the fact that, the GEA is also actively promoting female leadership in the workplace and has provided this platform for stakeholder dialogue to help address factors that constrain women from rising to top leadership positions in corporate Ghana.
Indeed, the GEA’s Female Future Programme launched in 2019, with the support of its Norwegian counterpart and the Norwegian Government seeks to enhance the potential, self -confidence and prospects of women in corporate Ghana by helping them to develop key skills, and leadership and Board competence, while improving the risk-return ratio for organisations .
The goal of the programme is to increase the percentage of women in decision -making roles and to address the gender gap in leadership and Board positions by connecting people, performance, personal and organisational success as a means to increasing productivity.
, 3 5.
I applaud the GEA for this bold and worthy initiative.
Afterall, the Future is Female, as it is often said !
Given the size of the female population in Ghana, the significant contributions of women over the centuries to Ghana’s socio-economic development, and the potential of women leaders to help shape a new reality for our future as a nation, it is imperative that no effort is spared in addressing the gender gap i n top management and leadership roles in the private and public sectors.
Madam Chair, the issue of low female representation in leadership is global, although women constitute half of the world’s population .
According to a report by Pew Research in 2015, only 26 women were in CEO roles at Fortune 500 companies.
More recently, it is estimated that women constitute only 15 percent of Board roles in S&P 500 companies in the U.S.
although it is estimated that women represent roughly US$ 8 trillion in purchasing power annually, buying goods and services from some of those same companies.
The World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020 which benchmarks 153 countries on their progress towards gender pa rity in four key areas namely: Economic Participation and Opportunity; Educational Attainment; Health and Survival; and Political Empowerment, reports that progress has been more towards closing the Educational Attainment and Health and Survival gaps than in other areas.
Also, the number of women in senior roles within the Economic Participation and Opportunity indicator has also increased marginally , in that, globally, 36% of senior private sector managers and public sector’s officials are women (about 2% higher than the figure reported the previous year).
The WEF’s 2020 report however found that:  Despite the progress, there is still a 31.4% average gender gap across all four indicators, that remains to be closed globally.
On average, the largest ge nder disparity remains the Political Empowerment gap , followed by the Economic Participation and Opportunity indicator which showed that 57.8% of this gap has been closed so far, a slight step backwards since the year before as a result of the pandemic;  Women’s participation in the labour market is stalling, and financial disparities are slightly larger on average.
Only 55% of adult women are in the labour market, versus 78% of men, while over 40% of the wage gap (the ratio of the wage of a woman to that of a man in a similar position) and over 50% of the income gap (the ratio of the total wage and non-wage income of women to that of men) are still to be bridged; 4  Further, in many countries, women are significantly disadvantaged in accessing credit, land or financial products, which constrains them from starting or growing a business or making a living by managing assets.
A lot has been achieved with more women in leadership positions in Ghana, but a lot remains to be done for women to fully participate in leadership positions in our fast-evolving digital economy.
Just look at the excitement with which we still point to the first women this or that.
Women in leadership is important for women and their families, but even more important for their organisations and our national economy as a whole because of the valuable contributions they make.
Research shows that women in Boardrooms and in top management positions lead to be tter outcomes for organisations and for national economies as a whole.
More women in leadership roles translates into an increase in growth, profitability, risk management, and more long-term overall positive performance, and according to McKinsey in 2019, can improve global GDP by about US$ 12 billion over a span of 10 years.
It is no wonder that Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) focuses on achieving gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls.
With these far-reaching benefits, why is gender participation in leadership still such a rare occurrence?
I can think of a few reasons why that is the case.
While m ore women are completing university education, graduating with top grades, and are entering the job market, the so-called glass ceilings and glass walls confine many women to roles and positions that do not put them in the pipeline for top roles.
Unconscious bias against women, tends to get entrenched in systems and processes for hiring, promotions, and career development for certain roles that work against women.
For certain roles, you would find people wondering whether a woman can be trusted to do it given the time demands, the enormity of the responsibility, and related matters.
A woman who is considered “young” is often even more at a disadvantage in being offered opportunities for leadership positions even if she has what it takes.
Generally, it se ems women must prove so much more than men that they are able to take up leadership positions.
Where women dare to progress beyond certain roles, the yardstick by which they are judged is often quite different from what is applied to men.
So, a woman leader is often expected to be a “mother” to all and not be firm and assertive.
Direct reports tend to be resentful of women leaders who enforce policies and hold them to a high standard.
They are labelled as “too something”.
Other labels earned b y strong female leaders include “aggressive”, “confrontational”, and other even less 5 charitable adjectives.