The Africa Governance Report investor confidence. Equally, there is a need to establish effective regulatory frameworks to achieve the objectives of the AU Agenda 2063 and the UN SDGs. Inclusive growth implies that the benefits of growth generated within African economies is distributed more equitably to prevent rising inequality or to reduce inequalities in economies where such inequality is high. To achieve this, African countries, which still rely heavily on the primary sector, must promote greater industrialization and diversify their economies using the potential for increased cross-frontier value chains as well as forward and backward linkages. States are urged to establish regulatory and legal frameworks to address fundamental and structural economic challenges beyond the confines of corporate social responsibility, including environmental management and the preservation of social cultural heritage. Nineteen Member States have established a collaborative network called the Corporate Governance Network to enhance their institutional capacity for the sustainable development of public and private corporations. 6.3.5 Gender Equality, Gender Mainstreaming and Development Gender equality has long been recognised as the key to unlocking and unleashing the development potential of the continent. Though significant progress has been made on many fronts, gender equality for African women and girls is still far from satisfactory in most countries. According to the Africa Human Development Report 2016, gender inequality is costing subSaharan Africa on average six per cent of the region’s GDP, thereby jeopardising the continent’s efforts for inclusive human development and economic growth.56 The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) contends that gender inequality is a governance failure. National plans, policies, institutions and budgets reflect how governments translate commitments to gender equality into results for women. Too often, however, there is a gap between policy and practice. Globally, gender inequality has assumed a central position in development discourse, as demonstrated by the inclusion of gender-specific goals and targets in both the MDGs (MDG 3) and the SDGs (SDG 5) that require women’s empowerment and promotion of gender equality as a cross-cutting component in NDPs. This is in addition to ending violence against women. The AU Agenda 2063 places gender equality at the core of all development efforts stating that “African women and youth shall play an important role as drivers of change” and that “the African woman will be fully empowered in all spheres, with equal social, political and economic rights, including the rights to own and inherit property, sign a contract, register and manage a business. Rural women will have access to productive assets, including land, credit, inputs and financial services”. Progress in gender equality has been inconsistent and slower than expected in many African countries. Implementation of the African Union Agenda 2063 provisions on gender, as well as the UN resolutions and multiple legal frameworks for realization of gender equality, have only been partially successful in many of these countries because of cultural barriers and lack of structural policies and the political will to promote women’s rights and empowerment. 56 UNDP, 2016. Page 75 of 96