ACIOE’s Senior Program Officer for Gender and Climate Change recently attended and supported the Women in Leadership Dialogue session @BMGF NCO where discussions were held around challenges women encounter assuming leadership roles at the organizational and societal levels. The dialogue, aimed to accelerate full and effective participation for women in leadership and all levels of decision-making in the economic and public scene was an intriguing and dynamic session with primary emphasis on the fields of health, law, and economics.

Key objectives were decided upon after brainstorming with brilliant thinkers, female CEOs, business owners, and tech-savvy professionals to create a Women in Leadership (WIL) strategy the Foundation will focus on, implement and scale by 2024.

Some of the action steps to achieving women’s inclusion discussed included,

• Continuous advocacy to the government to fulfil its 35% women in leadership commitment.
• Intentional development of the pipeline of WIL via cohorts, psychosocial skills in negotiations, and internal dialogues should focus more on women.
• To consider reevaluating performance management to include outputs and results.
• Organizations structuring internal managerial policies and trainings for women as they begin their careers to prepare them for the management.
•  Deliberate executive mentorship for women (begin from the girl child), through advocacy, social agency and voice.
•  To provide opportunities for women at the decision-making table.
•  Women supporting women (advocacy for women in leadership to give other women opportunities to excel and not see them as threats )

As natural born leaders, women can with intention and collective collaboration build the nation and the world at large.