Tanzania’s financial services sector is an important engine of economic growth and includes banks, financial institutions, insurance companies, and credit reference bureaus. In addition to these, several mobile phone companies offer mobile financial products, which have helped to drive financial inclusion for women and low-income people.
In 2019, IFC launched the Finance2Equal Tanzania initiative to identify ways to reduce gender gaps and enhance women’s access to opportunities in the sector.
Finance2Equal Tanzania has three pillars: peer-to-peer learning among companies, firm-level advisory, and research. As part of the third pillar, we are proud to launch our first report, Leading Tanzanian Women in Financial Services: An Examination of Gender Equality in Tanzania’s Financial Services Sector.
This report gathered data and assessed employees’ perceptions of practices that enable or limit gender diversity, equity and inclusion in the workforce. The quantitative analysis was complemented by a qualitative analysis of 22 women leaders in Tanzania’s financial services sector. Through their personal stories, these women provide insights about the challenges they encountered, the strategies they used to overcome these, and the actions they have taken to help the next generation of women to rise.
We hope this report will be the beginning of a private sector-wide conversation on ways to continue to support women, so that there can be gender balance at every level of employment.