Egypt's Firms Fail on Gender Parity in 2019

Egypt's companies failed to record a big improve on gender equality on corporate boards in 2019, with the situation in public sector firms tend to become more male-dominated, the Women on Boards Observatory’s (WoB) 2019 report finds.

In addition, EGX-listed companies failed to persify their boards in 2019 and actually saw the percentage of women board members fall marginally to 10.1% from 10.2%. The report noted that 113 women now need to be appointed to boards every year to achieve the target of 30% representation by 2030.

Egypt's Firms Fails on Gender Parity in 2019

In 2014, women occupied 30% of non-executive board seats at large-listed German companies after the coalition government overcame protests from business to resolve to end male-dominated corporate supervision.

The new quota came into force from 2016, joining other European countries including Norway, France, Spain and the Netherlands which have already introduced rules governing the number of women on boards. Moreover, smaller companies will be obliged to set inpidual targets to increase female representation in top management.

Meanwhile, Engineering companies remain the backbone of the German economy but women accounted for less than a quarter of engineering science graduates in 2012, according to the BDI industry association.

Later, the BDI reported that it remained “critical” of the draft bill while the BDA employers’ association said the decisive criterion for joining a board should be “technical qualification”, not a quota.

Egypt's Firms compareing with German companies

BDA added: ''Politicians must tackle the root cause for the different proportion of women and men in leadership positions, rather than just fighting the symptoms with quotas''.

In contrast, Monika Schulz-Strelow the FidAR president a German initiative, explained that seeks greater female board representation and compiles data on the issue. Under Germany’s two-tier board system, supervisory boards appoint and monitor management and are filled by investor and employee representatives.

According to FidAR, Only 6% of executives at the top 160 listed German companies are women.