Today, KEPSA conducted a workshop for gender champions drawn from all the sector boards at Sarova Stanley, Nairobi. The workshop is part of the private sector's initiatives to reinforce gender mainstreaming across various sector boards, including education, energy, environment, ICT, land and housing, mining, blue economy and maritime affairs, security, public finance, trade, transport and infrastructure, and sports.

A total of 30 gender champions were identified, and this workshop is just one of the many sessions they will participate in. The overarching goal is to equip them with the necessary tools, knowledge, and networks, enabling them to effectively enhance gender responsiveness within their respective organizations and sector boards.

In setting the context, Ms. Gloria Ndekei, Executive Director of the KEPSA Foundation, highlighted the journey that gender mainstreaming had undergone. She challenged the gender champions, serving as the focal points in their respective sector boards or organizations, to create an enabling environment for gender inclusivity. Furthermore, she urged the champions to conduct a FAMOS Check at their organizations. The FAMOS Guide is a tool designed to facilitate business support agencies, financial institutions, and government departments in taking a fresh look and conducting a systematic assessment of the extent to which they target and serve women entrepreneurs, considering their needs and potentialities. Ms. Ndekei emphasized that this audit would serve as an excellent starting point for gender mainstreaming initiatives.

In exemplifying a commitment to gender equality and women's empowerment initiatives, Ms. Maryann Nderu, Sustainability Manager at Diageo, shared EABL’s best practices. Notably, she highlighted the introduction of a 6-month maternity leave aligned with WHO guidelines on exclusive breastfeeding. This progressive policy has proven instrumental in aiding women employees to navigate the postpartum period effectively, contributing to enhanced performance through the support provided during this transition.

EABL's journey towards gender equality extends beyond internal policies. Ms. Nderu emphasized the company's efforts in achieving progressive gender portrayal in advertising and ensuring increased representation of women in their creative teams, allowing for authentic storytelling. In addition to providing designated mother's rooms for female employees, the company is actively working to ensure gender balance in their community projects. This holistic approach reflects EABL's comprehensive commitment to fostering gender inclusivity both within the organization and in its broader community initiatives.

It was noted that creating awareness around gender mainstreaming was important for it to be actualized in the private sector. Part of the training focused on demystifying gender terms and concepts and how they manifest in the private sector space. For the private sector gender interventions to yield results, continuous training and awareness including deliberate strategies such as gender budgeting, developing and tracking gender indicators, and collection and use of gender-disaggregated data were highlighted as crucial steps.

The training also delved into unconscious bias and how it derails efforts for gender equality in the private sector. Some biases are attributed to individual deep-seated structures within organizations, while others are identified as social constructs learned from culture. Overcoming these biases requires conscious building, providing access to resources, addressing silence, challenging norms, values, and practices, creating opportunities for equity, and calling out biases.

Acknowledging the heightened challenges faced by women with disabilities, Iram Bahawal from Light for the World urged participants to make environments more conducive for people with disabilities. The intersectionality of women with disabilities was discussed, stressing the need for disability inclusion in all private sector engagements, programs, and policies.

According to the World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report 2023, Kenya is ranked 78th out of 146 countries surveyed, which indicates that Kenya still has a long way to close gender gaps. KEPSA remains committed to contributing its voice to moving the needle towards an inclusive society and will continue to double its efforts in the quest to contribute to the realization of gender equality and women empowerment, which is an important goal under the Sustainable Development Goals.

In his remarks, Mr. Harrison Ngatia, KEPSA Head of SME Development, highlighted the JGP program that was rolled out this year that aims to address the funding gap for young women and young men-owned and led MSEs by combining financial support with well-tailored technical assistance and a hands-on coordination strategy between various players in the ecosystem. JGP is an initiative of the Mastercard Foundation in partnership with a 7-member consortium, namely: Kenya Private Sector Alliance, Grassroots Business Fund (GBF), Groots Kenya, KNCCI, Powered by People, 4G Capital, and DT Global. The program targets reaching 4,500 youth-led and women-led SMEs, 3,500 groups or enterprises, and 225,000 microenterprises in five years and enabling 500,000 underserved young people who have been left out of the financial system.

From the workshop, the following key actions were agreed upon, which will further guide further engagements with the newly established KEPSA Gender Champions Network.

• Collect gender-disaggregated data and utilize it to design evidence-based gender interventions for the private sector
• Undertake gender awareness and training at the organizational level to achieve buy-in for diversity and inclusion in the workplace
• Document success stories of gender mainstreaming efforts, including best practices in the private sector
• Provide capacity building for the members of the gender champions network on gender equality, women empowerment, diversity and inclusion etc
• Utilize the network as a resource and support mechanism for gender champions.