Global Women's Forum Dubai: tide is turning on gender gap in the Middle East, says IMF boss

Creating opportunities is not just the right thing to do it is also good for business, says IMF managing director

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, speaking at Global Women’s Forum. Reem Mohammed / The National

The tide is turning in the battle to close the gender gap in the region, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund said on Sunday.

Kristalina Georgieva said business leaders had woken up to the fact it was not just morally right to create more opportunities for women, but it was also good for business.

“Yes gender equality is morally right but if you want a business to thrive then it makes great economic sense to have more women entrepreneurs,” she said, on the opening day of the Global Women’s Forum in Dubai.

“If you create a more diverse workplace then you will benefit from better decisions.”

According to a 2019 IMF report, almost half of the world’s working-age population were women, but only 50 per cent made into the labour force.

This compared to 80 per cent of men. The same report estimated the losses caused by “economic disempowerment of women” to range from 10 per cent of GDP in advanced economies to more than 30 per cent in the Middle East and North Africa.

Ms Georgieva said gender budgeting was an obvious way to improve economies as well as societies as a whole.

“Gender budgeting is cost effective.

“Getting more girls into schools means they can help build the economy of the future.”

She said the IMF’s next engagement in the UAE would be to look at gender budgeting.

“If you want a company to prosper you have to create space, growth rates must increase, and to do that you need the boost women can provide,” she said.

“If tomorrow we woke up in a world with 100 per cent gender equality, the world would be around $172 trillion better off.”

Earlier at the forum, Carla Harris, managing director of Stanley Morgan in the US, also said diversity was essential for a business to prosper.

“If you want to be completely innovative then you need a lot of different ideas,” she said.

“To achieve that you need a lot of different people in the room with different experiences to draw from.”