By: Faridah Mugimba Kakyama African pension funds are starting to invest in infrastructure projects on their underdeveloped continent. The African Development Bank hopes the deepening pool of homegrown savings can fill the $45 billion hole it sees in annual infrastructure financing needed in Africa. “It’s an unprecedented chance to make the investments in infrastructure and other sectors that the continent so desperately needs,” said David Ashiagbor, who runs a division of the bank devoted to developing financial markets in Africa. Until recently, most pension funds in Africa were hesitant to invest in infrastructures such as roads, railroads, and ports. Tying up cash in decade-long projects seemed unnecessarily risky while strong economic growth was driving up local stock markets. Africa’s economy has recently grown by about 5% annually thanks to strong oil and mineral output as well as the rise of a nascent consumer class. The continent’s sovereign bonds were also…

By: Sydney Lazarus Procurement functions can play a big role in supporting women-owned businesses, argues a new report produced by UN Women. The report points out that corporations are in a powerful position to help close the gender gap through their procurement and sourcing departments. Even though corporate spend accounts for trillions of dollars every year, only 1% of that sum goes to women-owned businesses. (In comparison, for U.S. federal contracts, the figure is 4.7%) The benefits of sourcing from more women-owned businesses go beyond the women themselves. The World Economic Forum has found that gender equality is positively correlated with the country’s gross domestic product and level of competitiveness. Similarly, the World Bank has reported that “underused or misallocated” female labor leads to economic losses. But what do corporations themselves stand to gain? First, and perhaps most important to the c-suite, there are benefits to the…

By: Monica Burdick Those of us with careers in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM fields, in today’s common parlance) know the importance of truths revealed by numbers. How can it be, then, that so many people in our numbers-based fields are inured to the deep disappointment I feel regarding statistics on gender disparities in STEM-related jobs? According to 2016 figures from the National Science Board, women make up half of the total U.S. college-educated workforce and only 29 percent of the science and engineering workforce. Though female and male students show no significant differences in their math and science abilities between kindergarten and senior year of high school, somehow only 35 percent of chemists, 17 percent of industrial engineers, 11 percent of physicists and astronomers, and 8 percent of mechanical engineers are women. These imbalances ought to provoke outrage in their own right—or, at the very least, an…

Without customers, no business would exist. Customers are responsible for paying the bills and making sure you remain in business. But what happens when you begin to lose your customers? Many female entrepreneurs have wondered why their customers don’t return and what can be done to turn the tables around. In this article, you’ll learn five common reasons why you’re losing customers (and profit) and what you can do about this. Let’s dive right in and see five common reasons why you could be losing customers and profits to your competitors; Poor Customer Service. This is by far the biggest reason why you’re losing customers and profit to your competitors. Consider the following statistics: 89% of customers will switch to a competitor immediately after a bad customer service experience. A customer who is dissatisfied will tell 9 – 15 people about their bad experience. 13% of people tell 20 people…

For some women, enrolling in an engineering course is like running a psychological gauntlet. If they dodge overt problems like sexual harassment, sexist jokes, or poor treatment from professors, they often still have to evade subtle obstacles like the implicit tendency to see engineering as a male discipline. It’s no wonder women in the U.S. hold just 13 to 22 percent of the doctorates in engineering, compared to an already low 33 percent in the sciences as a whole. Nilanjana Dasgupta, from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, thinks that mentors—people who can give advice, share experiences, or make social connections—can dismantle the gauntlet, and help young women to find their place in an often hostile field. In a year-long study—one of the strongest yet to look at the value of mentorship—Dasgupta showed that female engineering undergraduates who are paired with a female mentor felt more motivated, more self-assured, and…

Hearing Nelson Mandela describe the African HIV pandemic in 2003 as genocide, with women and children as the frontline victims, was a turning point in Annie Lennox’s life. After seeing for herself how people were struggling to cope, Annie became an activist and in 2007, she consolidated her work into the SING campaign. Annie started the campaign by writing a song about HIV and invited 23 of the most internationally acclaimed female artists to record their voices on “SING”. SING is an advocacy and fundraising platform. It raises global awareness about the impact of HIV on women and children – particularly in South Africa, Malawi and the UK. This aims to promote global action on the issue. It provides financial support for organizations in these countries helping to ensure HIV-positive women and children have access to the treatment and care they need. This is especially important in order to reduce…