UAE-listed companies now must have one female director on their boards, according to the latest move by the Securities and Commodities Authority.
The requirement came into force after the Securities and Commodities Authority’s meeting on Sunday, according to the report.
“We previously used to accept explanations if there wasn’t compliance, but now we are moving to make female representation compulsory,” the regulator’s Chief Executive Officer Obaid Saif Al Zaabi was quoted as saying by the National. “So now there must be at least one female member on the board of any listed company.”
The emirates have recently sought to increase female representation in the workforce. The UAE Central Bank and Aurora 50, a social enterprise focusing on achieving gender-balanced boardrooms in the UAE, penned a partnership as well.
“The UAE has made remarkable progress in the past decade to increase the participation of women in the public and private sectors, and advancing gender equality is part of the UAE’s 2021 National Agenda. As a regulatory authority for licensed financial institutions in the UAE, we are committed to supporting the national agenda through engaging with the nomination committees of the Boards of financial institutions to ensure a fair representation of women on their Boards, as required by the CBUAE Corporate Governance regulation,” Abdulhamid M. Saeed Alahmadi, Governor of the Central Bank of the UAE said.
Within the Middle East and North Africa, the UAE has the highest level of women in the workforce with 57.5 percent, according to a World Bank blog post.
In 2012, the UAE Cabinet made it compulsory for corporations and government agencies to include women on their boards of directors.
Despite legislative changes, under one in five representatives at executive level in UAE companies are females, according to the latest research from global giant Great Place to Work.
The study of Asia and the Middle East showed that, in terms of gender ratio at companies in the Middle East, the average company has 37 percent female workers, 28 percent female managers and 19 percent of the executive team made up of women.
However, this compares more favourably against other countries, with India, Japan, and South Korea falling behind the UAE.
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