{"id":158449,"date":"2020-03-16T05:46:32","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T03:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/mastercard-puts-the-spotlight-on-inclusion-and-diversity-ahead-of-the-forbes-woman-africa-leading-women-summit\/"},"modified":"2020-03-16T05:46:32","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T03:46:32","slug":"mastercard-puts-the-spotlight-on-inclusion-and-diversity-ahead-of-the-forbes-woman-africa-leading-women-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/mastercard-puts-the-spotlight-on-inclusion-and-diversity-ahead-of-the-forbes-woman-africa-leading-women-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastercard puts the spotlight on inclusion and diversity ahead of the Forbes Woman Africa Leading Women Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mastercard puts the spotlight on inclusion and diversity ahead of the Forbes Woman Africa Leading Women Summit<\/a>: <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>6 March 2020, Johannesburg, South Africa: Women comprise more than 50% of the population in Africa and drive 70% of spend. Yet, women\u2019s influence and contributions are not being fully leveraged for society\u2019s collective advantage, because too much of the world we live in today was not designed with women involved or with women in mind.<\/p>\n

This was the theme of Mastercard\u2019s \u2018Together We Lead: Women by Design\u2019 event in Durban last night, which brought together celebrated women leaders across industries to address the challenges women face as consumers, entrepreneurs, athletes, workers and innovators to unlock the potential of Africa\u2019s female economy.<\/p>\n

Ebehijie Momoh, Mastercard\u2019s Area Business Head for West Africa facilitated a panel discussion which included Chanel Alberts, Head Coach at Pirates Women\u2019s Rugby Club, Wendy Mahoney, KZN President of the 30% Club, S\u2019onqoba Vuba, Entrepreneur and Managing Director of Perpetu8, and Mpume Langa, Divisional Finance Director \u2013 Africa for Unilever.<\/p>\n

Panelists shared insights on the strategies needed to support women\u2019s advancement and inclusion in the corporate and sporting sectors. They also explored how women can better harness their capabilities as innovators and entrepreneurs to create products and services that better serve women.<\/p>\n

Beatrice Cornacchia, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Mastercard Middle East and Africa, said: \u201cWomen are the key decision makers in households; they are opening businesses at a faster rate than men in several countries, and they invest more than 90% of their incomes back into their families and communities. Yet inequality and exclusion hold them back in many aspects of their everyday lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, the loss in global wealth from gender inequality is estimated at $ 2.5 trillion. More than 37% of women do not have bank accounts, and more than half of women SME owners lack access to finance and face an estimated $ 42 billion financing gap.<\/p>\n

According to Cornacchia, this indicates that financial products and services are not meeting their needs. In fact, this is not just a developing world challenge \u2013 the vast majority of women globally \u2013 62% \u2013 reported being unsatisfied with their financial product offering, according to BCG.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can we possibly tap into the huge potential of women if we don\u2019t have representation of women in the decision-making, engineering and innovation processes? It is critical that women have a seat at the table, so that we can design solutions to better meet their needs. By creating a world with women in mind, and women involved, we can unlock limitless possibilities for us all,\u201d says Cornacchia.<\/p>\n

Solutions like Jaza Duka that offers affordable access to capital, are making an impact in Kenyan communities where many women are micro-merchants. In South Africa, uKheshe\u2019s financial inclusion platform is enabling unbanked informal traders, street vendors and casual laborers \u2013 the majority of whom are female \u2013 to accept safe and simple digital payments via Masterpass, Mastercard\u2019s digital payment service. Through its Girls4Tech programme, Mastercard is developing a strong pipeline of talent by encouraging girls to embrace STEM subjects that will prepare them for the workforce of the future.<\/p>\n

\u2018Together We Lead\u2019 is the platform Mastercard created to promote diversity of women through impactful dialogue and partnership. Last night\u2019s event was hosted in the lead-up to the Forbes Woman Africa Leading Women Summit 2020, which is presented by Mastercard at Durban\u2019s ICC Complex. Around 1,000 women are expected at the event with high-profile thought-leaders, industry game-changers and icons of social activism in attendance, including founder of the Gra\u00e7a Machel Trust and former first lady, Gra\u00e7a Machel.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE to submit your press release to MyPR.co.za<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Click HERE to submit your Durban \/ Kwazulu-Natal Press Release<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mastercard puts the spotlight on inclusion and diversity ahead of the Forbes Woman Africa Leading Women Summit: 6 March 2020, Johannesburg, South Africa: Women comprise more than 50% of the population in Africa and drive 70% of spend. Yet, women\u2019s influence and contributions are not being fully leveraged for society\u2019s collective advantage, because too much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[8275,3335,953],"class_list":{"0":"post-158449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-durban","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-mydurban-co-za","9":"tag-newspaper","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}