Africa's top companies 'should promote women'

Women dominate African markets but not boardrooms

African businesses need to do more to promote women into top positions, a new report says.

The report from the African Development Bank (AfDB) says that Africa has the best record among emerging regions of getting women into top business posts.

But women still make up just 14% of the boards of major African companies.

The AfDB says urgent action needs to be taken and recommends that publicly-listed companies should be required to have women in senior management.

"To break the glass ceiling in Africa, we urgently need to bring women on corporate boards," the AfDB's envoy on gender Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi said.

The report looks at the biggest companies in 12 African countries and found that one in seven board members are women.

'Invest in women'

This compares favourably to the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East regions, but there is "a distance to go to make sure [Africa's] strong economic growth includes its most talented women at the top," the report says.

Kenya has the highest figures for female representation with nearly 20% of board posts held by women, followed by South Africa and Botswana (both 17%).

The AfDB says that to increase the figures, publicly-listed companies should be forced to say how many women are in senior positions and quotas should be introduced.

The bank says that women should be speedily promoted though "middle and senior management in the private sector", and it calls for greater investment in women's leadership.