Women’s leadership in the Maghreb

If you look at all the countries across the Maghreb region, every president or prime minister is a man. This is perhaps not uncommon either in global politics, where men are often in control of both economic and political structures, so can more be done for women’s representation across the Maghreb?

Despite hurdles, notable legal, political and social progress is being made. Several years ago, Tunisia was ranked the highest in North Africa by a “gender gap” index compiled by the World Economic Forum. Examining women’s school enrolment, access to jobs, earnings and other indicators around the world, the index also ranked women’s status in Tunisia as the second highest among all Arab countries. However, on a global scale Tunisia was still near the bottom, ranking 102 out of 128 countries surveyed. Algeria came in at 108 and Egypt at 120.

In recent years however, women in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia have secured more rights, greater access to education and a modest increase in their political representation. In Morocco for example in 2021 the Parliament adopted a reform that did not receive much attention but did represent a big step forward in helping close the country’s gender gap. It involved a new amended law on public limited companies to promote balanced representation of women and men in corporate governance bodies (law 19.20 modifying and completing law 17-95 related to public limited companies). It set mandatory quotas for women on the boards of publicly traded companies, with a target of (at least) 30% female representation by 2024, and 40% by 2027.

According to the World Bank this law is the result of “exemplary cooperation between the government, the parliament, and civil society, supported by the creation of a task force by UN Women, including women personally involved in gender advocacy, and several representatives of the 'Club des Femmes Administrateurs' in Morocco.”

Mandating women’s participation in top managerial positions is a bold move that only a few countries (for example France, Norway, Italy, Belgium) have adopted. Morocco is the first country in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to do so. The reform is expected to build confidence in women's qualifications, promote their career development, and stimulate economic growth and business performance.

The World Bank goes onto assert that this “new law draws lessons from international experience, which shows that quota-based approaches are indeed effective for promoting greater gender diversity in corporate governance bodies and companies' top management over the long term.” According to the European Union's 2017 Gender Equality Index, the share of women on boards of directors more than doubled between 2005 and 2015, due mainly to binding gender-based quotas implemented by some European countries, for example France, Norway, Italy, and Belgium.

Could other Maghreb countries learn from this example?

*Kieran Baker is an Emmy award winning journalist who has started up various networks including Al Jazeera English, Bloomberg TV Africa and TRT World.