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East African countries have been urged to hasten their commitments and actions towards achieving gender equality by 2030.

With just six years left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), stakeholders across the region were told to accelerate progress by ensuring equal representation and equal pay for work.

Absa Bank Kenya MD and CEO, also a board member of the Global Compact Network Kenya, Abdi Mohamed said the world needs an additional $360 billion annually to empower women and achieve gender equality across key global goals.

“I urge all businesses and stakeholders represented here to proactively tackle these issues, as they indicate areas where collective efforts can yield the most significant and swiftest impact by 2030,” he said.

He was speaking yesterday in a Nairobi hotel, as Kenya hosted various experts and stakeholders for the first regional gender equality conference organised by Global Compact Network Kenya and Danish Industry East Africa.

Accelerate progress

Mohamed urged stakeholders to accelerate progress and called on stakeholders to focus on five key areas, which include gender equality, climate action, living wage, water resilience, finance and investment, which have been tested to demonstrate a strong correlation between bold action and positive corporate returns.

East Africa Confederation of Danish Industry Regional Manager Klaus Lehn Christensen said the conference is a way of not only celebrating the progress made but also discussing how to find solutions to challenges faced in gender equality.

“Globally gender equality is also a key priority to Danish Industry and I’m proud of the work we are doing with all our East African Organisations. The challenges to gender equality are the same across the region and thus there is a great benefit in finding the solutions together,” he said.

The event brought together stakeholders from all East African countries including Ethiopia, with the conference running under the theme “Count Her In: Accelerating Gender Equality Through Economic Empowerment.