Africa’s largest online store, Jumia, is throwing increased light on African women and the strides they’ve made by kicking off a series of thoughtfully crafted initiatives within the company and among the Nigerian community. The annual International Women’s Day (IWD) continues to serve as a call to action and a bench mark for Jumia’s effort in promoting gender parity.
The World Economic Forum predicts the gender gap won’t close entirely until 2186 but Jumia believes the International Women’s Day can be a key catalyst and vehicle for creating awareness about the strides that have been made towards attaining gender parity.
In Africa, Jumia boasts of the highest number of women leaders in Africa and globally, with a whopping 40% female managers, managing directors or CEOs. Juliet Anammah, CEO Jumia Nigeria commenting on this figure declared, “Each one of us: women & men, joining forces – can be a leader within our own sphere of influence by taking bold pragmatic action to accelerate gender parity. Through purposeful initiatives, we can help women advance and unleash the limitless potential offered to economies the world over.”
Last year IWD, Jumia pledged its support for #PledgeForParity and committed to help women and girls manage dual careers, challenge conscious and unconscious bias; call for gender-balanced leadership; value women and men’s contributions equally; and empower them.
This year, Jumia is set to validate its unflinching commitment towards supporting African women to #Be Bold for Change through a series of initiatives:
- The Jumia J-Force Programme currently reaching out to disadvantaged women to support their financial independence: the program now comprises 16,000 women, the majority of which are not formally employed or who are stay-at-home mothers.
- The program aims at empowering and enriching entrepreneurs-to-be with the full support of an established brand. Women now represent 34% of the JForce Program.
- Jumia promotes small women entrepreneurs through its seller center: we offer them a distribution platform and trainings which to help them grow their businesses.