Gender and Leadership for Regional Integration: Leveraging Female Talents to Drive Regional Integration in Africa
Keywords:
Regional integration, gender, leadership, female talent and social revolutionAbstract
Shifting market conditions, higher customer expectations, evolving workforce demographics, constant advances in technology and rapid social changes require us to rethink the kind of leadership that is needed to be successful in integrating our societies. Regional integration requires new, unique ideas that connect the regions to the local by including women in leadership positions. Unfortunately women are still stuck on a “sticky floor†and a social revolution is needed to be taped in order to promote regional integration. This paper argues that Africa needs to work up and realise that there are three pillars of sustainable development that must be addressed in regional integration. These are environmental protection, economic wellbeing and social equity. Women are an untapped engine that is sufficiently well placed to promote this since they are less involved in bribery than their male counterparts and corruption functions primarily through all-male networks and in forums from which women are socially excluded. The paper recommends that sustainable regional integration, now and in the future, need to be led by fully engaged, balanced teams of men and women working together synergistically to produce extraordinary results for the prosperity of mankind.
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