Women leaders and advocates from different sectors have said that despite growing public support for women in leadership, institutional barriers and weak policies continue to limit their participation in governance and top corporate positions in Nigeria.

They made this known during a briefing on the Reykjavik Index for Leadership, where speakers called for stronger policies, deliberate quotas and structural reforms to ensure gender balance in leadership across both the public and private sectors.

Executive Director, Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ), Omowunmi Akingbohungbe, said sectors with deliberate gender policies have recorded significant progress in women’s leadership representation.

She noted that the Reykjavik Index shows the banking sector currently leads with a score of 77 on gender equity, alongside education and medical research.

According to her, the progress recorded in the financial sector is largely the result of deliberate policy interventions introduced more than a decade ago.

Despite the improvements, she said women remain underrepresented in the highest leadership positions across sectors, currently occupying only about 12 per cent of CEO roles.

She said the decline underscores the need for renewed efforts by both the private and public sectors to address structural gaps that continue to limit women’s advancement.

She therefore urged regulators, policymakers and corporate leaders to introduce deliberate policies that promote women’s leadership across sectors, similar to the approach adopted in the banking industry.

Also speaking, Technical Lead, the Nigeria Governors ’ Forum (NGF), Rachel Pindar noted that Nigerians have shown increasing readiness to support women leaders, but the structures that determine who gets into positions of power still remain a major obstacle.

Pindar noted that women currently hold only about 4.8 per cent of participatory seats in political leadership, stressing that the figure reflects the deep structural barriers that continue to hinder women’s advancement in governance.

She explained that the NGF has been advocating a minimum of 35 per cent representation of women in state cabinets to ensure that commitments to gender inclusion translate into tangible outcomes in governance.

Pindar added that state should publish regular transparency reports on women’s representation using disaggregated date to ensure accountability and track progress toward gender parity.