The Gender gap in sub-Saharan Africa has started to widen after a remarkable six consecutive years of making progress towards closing it according to the World’s Economic Forum Global Gender Gap 2018.

According to the Global Gender Gap report 2018, Rwanda (6th, 80.4%), which still leads in the region on closing the gender gap moved two ranks after she reversed the progress made on women economic participation and opportunity while South Africa (19th, 75.5%) recorded some progress on the political empowerment of women but made a slight decline in wage equality.

Rwanda, South Africa and Namibia (10^th) are the most gender equal countries in the region according to the report. Namibia joined the top ten list of the global gender gap for the first time in the 2018 rankings, with the report attributing the rise due to partly an increased share of women in parliament.

KENYA MAINTAINS POSITION IN GLOBAL GENDER RANKING

Kenya ranked position 76 globally in closing the gender gap, maintaining the same position she held in the Global Gender Gap Report 2017.

The report however notes that the country has made steady progress in three key indicators   used to measure the gender gap.

The country has recorded progress in shrinking the economic participation and opportunity gap owing to an increased women’s presence in senior positions and technical work.

The global gender gap index 2018 however observes that Kenya has  dropped in the education attainment indicator.

 The Global Gender Gap Report benchmarks 149 countries on their progress towards gender parity across four thematic dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.

Globally, According to the report, the world has closed 68% of its gender gap

“ Overall, the economic gender gap narrowed in 2018; however, access to health and education, and political empowerment suffered reversals,” the report states.

The report further states that the global gender gap will take 108 years to close at the current rate of change.

“Economic gender parity remains 202 years off”.