Spoiler alert!
Gender diversity and inclusivity in teams bring a range of benefits, including improved decision making, productivity, and greater profitability. Gender-inclusive teams not only have a greater capacity to understand the unique needs of female customers’, but they also boost product uptake and improve customer satisfaction, as well as create positive impact and empower women in the region.
At Oolu, we have always focused and actively worked on overcoming the barriers to gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) in West Africa. So far, this is what we have learned.
Barriers to overcome
Despite considerable advances in the last decade, women still only account for approximately 27% of employees in the OGS sector according to GOGLA. This is a direct result of social, workplace, economic and legal barriers.
Let us break this down for you.
Lack of leadership and support for women in business in the sector:
Female leaders may be inclined to leave the sector due to challenges of working in a male-dominated sector, amongst other reasons. There is also a lack of mentoring and training opportunities for women, even at the executive level. In some cases, external support is needed to provide management-level training for women in the workplace.
Workplace barriers :
For office-based roles, women are adversely impacted if companies cannot provide flexible workplace policies around childcare. For agents working in the field, the issues may relate more to to travelling long distances from home, challenging physical conditions, and the threat of sexual harassment and violence.
Non-existent policies or lack of adequate HR policies:
Lack of adequate understanding around gender-related issues, harassment policies, and mental health support for women.
Economic barriers:
African founders already face fundraising challenges in general, and then to add to that we see clear gender inequity between male and female-led businesses in the region, particularly regarding financing. Not only do women-led or owned businesses find it harder to take out loans, as they face higher borrowing costs and collateral demands, but male investors tend to prefer male-led businesses. For example, men are 60% more likely to receive funding than women who delivered identical funding pitches.
Social barriers:
West African women can often be associated with the traditional domestic roles of caring, cooking, cleaning and childbearing, especially in rural areas. This can deter women from continuing their education and gaining the necessary skills to enter the off-grid sector. For example, IFC research found that in 70% of sub-Saharan African countries studied, the average female secondary school enrollment was only 36%. Female leaders have also reported that they feel they are not being taken seriously by external Africa-based management when attending meetings on their own, without male counterparts.
So how can we overcome these barriers?
It will probably come as no surprise that all of these barriers are interlinked and a concerted effort is required at many levels. So what can individual OGS companies do? At Oolu, we have some ideas, as well as our own practices, to get started on improving gender diversity and inclusivity.
Prioritize collecting and understanding feedback from female employees
In order to create impactful and sustainable policies, we need to identify where the current barriers exist. Surveys committed to understanding the current situation from a woman’s perspective can help understand where improvements need to be made.
Have clear policies about gender bias and discrimination
This includes creating fair salary and promotion procedures that are transparent and equitable. Make sure all employees have a safe (anonymous if needed) and easy way to report inappropriate treatment in the workplace. Here at Oolu we have implemented an anonymous reporting system where an incident can be reported and it will go directly to the Head of HR.
During the recruitment process, focus on gender diversity.
When posting job opportunities and vacancies, use gender-inclusive language and create a gender-diverse candidate pipeline. At Oolu, we make sure our interview panels are diverse in terms of gender, background, age, ethnicity and ability and encourage women to apply in our job ads.
Have required diversity and inclusion training programs for everyone.
And yes we mean everyone! From new hires to stakeholders. Tailor these training to your particular business and address potential biases and prejudices within your organization.
Support women growing within the company to more senior roles.
Focus more on promoting qualified women from within, through standardized and transparent procedures. At Oolu Nigeria, we offered female employees the opportunity to enroll in a Women’s Leadership Development Course with USAID/ Power Africa, and we actively encouraged applying for roles internally.
Create an inclusive company culture
This means creating a safe space where everyone feels a sense of belonging, acceptance, and appreciation. Demonstrate that all voices are equal and valued. If and when microaggressions towards women occur, address them.
Uniquely support women and offer training and development opportunities
For example, provide better access to childcare and offer more flexible work arrangements. In every country that Oolu is present, we respect breastfeeding hours, and we have remote working policies, giving more opportunities to primary caregivers, which are often women.
And of course, evaluate your progress!
Regularly check back on your targets, find out what worked and what didn’t, and then revise your plan accordingly. Get feedback from women at all levels and really listen to what they are saying and - bringing us back to our first bullet point - prioritize collecting and understanding feedback from female employees!.
Change from the top-down
In the Sub-Saharan Africa renewable energy sector, women account for around 27% of board positions, 30% of CEOs, 16% of directors and 26% of middle managers. Therefore it's very clear that there is still work to be done in terms of gender equality and representation at all levels in the workplace in SSA. There should be a particular focus on increasing females in executive roles as this would also positively impact the number of women in roles further down the professional pyramid.
From establishing direct quotas and transparent promotion practices to launching mentoring programmes and specific training for female middle managers, companies should look at methods to accelerate gender diversity at the top to help overcome gender barriers at the bottom.
Creating a gender diversity and inclusivity plan that is unique to your organization.
There is no one-size-fits all solution for improving gender equality and social inclusion in the off-grid solar sector. Every company that prioritizes and cares about improving gender diversity will need to create their own set of policies and practices that are unique and suitable to them
We are very proud that at Oolu, we have recently been working on a new and ambitious Gender Action Plan in Burkina Faso as part of the Beyond the Grid Fund for Africa (BGFA) project. We hope to use this as a test case before rolling out the best practices across our other country markets.
For more information about our work in gender diversity and inclusivity, please contact us at info@oolusolar.com or media@oolusolar.com.