ABJ and Amam Ventures (an investment fund and consultancy that provides technical assistance for small and medium-sized companies growth and sustainability with a gender lens) signed on Wednesday 15/09/2021 a cooperation agreement facilitating women’s participation in boards of directors and senior management in the banking sector and Jordanian financial institutions. The agreement was signed by the association’s Director-General, Dr. Maher Al-Mahrouq, and Tamara Abdel-Jaber, CEO of Amam.

Al-Mahrouq highlighted that the agreement serves as a tool for framing cooperation with Amam, as ABJ will cooperate with the company to implement its own training (Get on Board) program supported by Bank Al Etihad and (Finance in Motion) by attracting candidates and promoting bank’s participation in the program. ABJ will also provide specialized training rooms for the purposes of training and holding meetings and meetings for participants from the banking sector.

Al-Mahrouq indicated that the agreement will contribute to strengthening the continuous work of banks to support women’s access to leadership positions in the banking sector as it is a major Jordanian talent operator of both genders in addition to being the most attractive environment for female work within the private sector. The banking sector provides jobs for approximately 21,000 male and female employees in 23 banks in Jordan with nearly 35.2% female workers in 2020 according to ABJ statistics.

On the other hand, Al-Mahrouq said that supporting women’s economic participation and their access to leadership positions is a key one tool to promote Jordanian economy growth and recovery from the Corona pandemic in light of the low revised economic female participation which amounts to 14% compared to 54.8% for males besides the high unemployment rates among young people which reached 25% for the first quarter of this year. He stressed the need for an  in-depth study by the concerned authorities to address this challenge and achieve economic recovery.

On the importance of women’s access and leadership participation in Jordan, Ms. Tamara Abdel Jaber said that Jordan’s performance in the Global Gender Gap Index report issued by the World Economic Forum in 2021 is still modest as it ranked 131 out of 156 and ranked fifth regionally. Jordanian women’s access to leadership positions is still low at the level of the public and private sectors as women constitute no more than 20% of first-class employees in the government sector and no more than 5% of the boards of directors of companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange. Therefore, the agreement aims to increase women’s participation on boards of directors in the banking sector as a model for all parties to follow.

It is noteworthy that the banking sector, during the Corona pandemic, contributed to supporting the Jordanian economy and pumping liquidity to the affected sectors through the facilities and incentives that were provided in cooperation with the Central Bank in addition to maintaining indicators of financial strength and the rise of bank’s main indicators of total assets to 2.6%, and credit facilities to 4% compared to the end of 2020 reaching nearly 30 billion.

Pertinently ABJ is the representative of the banking sector and it is supportive of the implementation of women related government plans and strategies such as the National Strategy for Women for the years 2020 – 2025 in addition to the implementation of the banking sector’s policy of financial inclusion focusing on delivering banking services to all citizens especially women.