Ghana placed 22^nd out of about 53 African nations in the latest 2021 Women, Business & Law index by the World Bank.

The nation’s score of 75% ranked her 6^th in West Africa but 119^th globally.

South Africa placed 1^st in Africa but 50^th worldwide. It was followed by Zimbabwe (52^nd) and Cape Verde (53^rd) in 2^nd and 3^rd respectively.

In the ECOWAS region, Togo (67th) was 1^st in terms of advancement in Women, Business and Law. Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso placed 2^nd and 3^rd respectively.

For Ghana, it scored 100% for mobility, workplace and marriage respectively.  This means a perfect score was obtained for constraints on freedom of movement, laws affecting women’s decisions to work, and constraints related to marriage.

The lowest score of 25% was parenthood. It meant laws affecting women’s work after having children were very low.

The World Bank therefore called for consideration of making paid leave of at least 14 weeks available to mothers, making the government administer 100% of maternity leave benefits, amongst others.

For pay or salary, the score was 50% for women.

Again, the Bretton Wood institution wants to see reforms on laws affecting women's pay, laws affecting women's work after having children, amongst others.

Findings

Better performance in the areas measured by the Women, Business and the Law index is associated with a narrower gender gap in development outcomes, higher female labor force participation, lower vulnerable employment, and greater representation of women in national parliaments.

On average, the World Bank said women have just three-quarters of the legal rights afforded to men. Ten economies—Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Sweden—scored 100 on the Women, Business and the Law index.

Since 2019, 27 economies from all regions have enacted reforms increasing gender equality. Most reforms introduced or amended laws are affecting pay and parenthood.

There were no reforms addressing gender differences in property and inheritance as measured by the Assets indicator.