Togo Ranks High on Gender Equality Scales
The World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law 2020 report was recently released. It measures how laws affect women in 190 countries, mostly on a professional level mostly. In this regard, the report recognised Togo as one of the best-ranked countries in Africa. The report looks at reforms undertaken by businesses between June 2017 and September 2019, across eight areas that are associated with women’s economic empowerment. It says that Togolese women enjoy 84% as many rights as men benefit from, and this rate is above the average in sub-Saharan Africa.
Even though women and men in Togo enjoy the same rights, relative to freedom of movement, employment, wages, and retirement pensions, women held only 27% of businesses created in 2019 according to data from the Togolese center for business formalities. The reason for this low percentage is due to the barriers that still impede women’s entrepreneurship. It is worth noting that, globally, laws enhancing women’s economic empowerment have improved in the past few years, indicating increased participation of women in all walks of life.