{"id":28435,"date":"2019-02-15T09:21:26","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T09:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/v2.ecomnewsmed.com.ecn-01.ovea.com\/2019\/02\/15\/how-to-improve-gender-equality-and-women-empowerment-in-the-mena-region\/"},"modified":"2020-08-11T11:34:45","modified_gmt":"2020-08-11T09:34:45","slug":"how-to-improve-gender-equality-and-women-empowerment-in-the-mena-region","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.ecomnewsmed.com\/en\/2019\/02\/15\/how-to-improve-gender-equality-and-women-empowerment-in-the-mena-region\/","title":{"rendered":"How to improve Gender Equality and Women Empowerment in the MENA region ?"},"content":"\u00a0\n\u00a0\nFEMISE recently launched its series of interviews called \u00ab Med Change Makers \u00bb. In the latest interview, Karine Moukaddem provides an assessment of existing policy measures on women empowerment in the southern shore of the Mediterranean :\n\u00a0\n1. You talk about the \u201cMediterranean Paradox\u201d while describing the situation of women in the South-Med. What does it imply and what are its root causes?\n\u00a0\nOn the one hand, educational attainments of women improved drastically in the region and female enrolment in schools and universities increased considerably. But on the other hand, women seem to still be struggling to find a place in the labour market.\nFemale labour force participation rates in the region remain lower than in other developing countries and stagnant. In other words, it seems like women participation to the labour market in the South Med is constrained by other factors than access to education.\nRegarding the root causes of the paradox, several obstacles are identified as impeding on women\u2019s economic inclusion :\n\nFirst, the analysis of the labour market structure in the region shows that while in the public sector employment opportunities contract, opportunities in the formal private sector do not rise. Therefore, the increase in the number of educated women translates in an increased female unemployment or a lower female participation in the formal sectors.\n\nSecond, women\u2019s overall labour participation levels seem to be affected by economic development and improvements in gender equality legislation (or lack of) as well as by the private foreign ownership of the firm and its exporting activities. Other impediments such as the lack of safe, efficient and cheap public transports hamper commuting to work for women.\n\nWomen from conservative societies would tend to participate less in the labour market given the large impact of social norms on their trade-off between working outside and being housewives.\nThe considerable negative effect of traditional social norms would be materialised in several conscious and unconscious biases that dissuade women from choosing a professional carrier.\nTo understand the full situation of women today, all of these arguments matter.\u00a0\n\u00a0\n2. Has the situation of women in the South-Med region been improving in terms of concrete economic empowerment?\nYes, it has been improving in the region through some advancement in education mostly and enhanced legislations. Yet, inequalities are still prevalent in the region and concrete economic empowerment seems to be far from reached.\nThe South-Med region seems to be behind in gender equality matters compared to other regions and the situation is actually improving slower than in other developing regions (in 2017, the female labour force participation rate reached 51.5% in Latin America and 59% in East Asia and Pacific ).\nFor the Middle East North Africa region, the female labour force participation is close to only 20.6% in 2017. The region also lays behind when it comes to a other indicators of women economic and political participation.\nThe answer is simple, when it comes to policy making regarding gender equality issues, two aspects are key to understand the inefficiency of the available measures adopted: On the one hand, there are obstacles that impede on the full implementation of measures. On the other hand, these measures are not comprehensive of the situation of women in the region.\nFirst, measures are often hindered by the lack of social will to change. Due to the unconscious biases and other implicit and explicit channels, top-down initiatives are often misunderstood by locals, not accepted by the whole society and seen as inadequate.\nMentalities and social norms remain not open to structural change, therefore despite national and international efforts, locals will find a way to deviate or pretend to change the situation without real consequences on empowerment.\nMoreover, the measures adopted are often punctual uncoordinated projects and legal adjustments that do not into account the whole picture. The symptoms of the inequality problem are tackled but not the roots.\nMeasures often lack consistency, sustainability\/durability and are not part of a holistic approach to the matter. For instance, it is not enough to implement quotas, the system itself needs to work on reforming the role given to women and deconstructing the stereotypes and structural norms.\nIn addition, there is no one South-Med woman but different profiles with different needs and that face different degrees of discrimination. For example, rural women accumulate inequalities and the answers to empower them are not the same as for women living in the capital.\n\u00a0\n3. How can the state create the conditions for women to fulfil their untapped potential?\nTo reach a structural empowerment the state needs to implement comprehensive laws and women empowerment needs to be a priority in National agendas, not only an aspiration.\nThere is a need for national strategies creating the conditions allowing women to fulfil their potentials in all sectors of the economy, society and national politics. Creating a flexible national framework that understands women\u2019s needs in each sector of activity and each context, would allow to institutionalize women empowerment.\nThese principles would lead to a better framework for legislative reforms especially in issues such as family law and a modification of educational curricula to support social change.\nHowever, to ensure a real empowerment of women, the state needs to coordinate its action with the other stakeholders. With a focus on children\u2019s education, coordinated action could help change the perceived role of women in the society especially that biases start to develop at a really young age (around 3-5 years old).\nTo make the message more relatable and legitimate, the State needs to work with local leaders such as religious leaders and other influencers that would help mimic good practices and expand the influence of adopted measures. However, working with the whole ecosystem does not mean working on improving the picture of women at the expense of men. It means to include men in the debate and to make them aware of the benefits of gender equality to the whole society.\n4. In which ways can the private sector provide solutions to improve the way we invest in women?\nBeyond understanding the positive economic externalities of gender equalities, the private sector could help improve policy making by building public-private partnerships in several fields relevant to women empowerment such as the digital sector by training women in coding, investing in vocational training, data gathering and rural areas.\nMoreover, to ensure women\u2019s economic empowerment enterprises could offer alternative and flexible working environments that take into account modern perceptions of responsibility sharing in a household.\nThis could mean offering the possibility of work-from home for men and women for 1 day a week or a payed paternity leave on top of the maternity leave or a possibility of bringing children to the office 2 days a week\u2026 In addition to these internal policies, enterprises could also install principles of gender equality in their internal functioning by setting a quota in their management boards.\nAdditionally, enterprises can have an impact on stereotypes and social norms through marketing strategies and Ads. If the message of ads becomes more reliant on gender equality principles, stigmas could decrease.\n\n5. You talk about role modeling and mentoring. How can it contribute to women empowerment?\nThis is a truly important point. Role modeling and mentoring are essential in order to instigate social change not only by empowering young women and raising their self-esteem and confidence but also by showing men the potential of women and allowing young men to grow accustomed to equality of chances.\nOn the smaller scale, mentoring can take the figure of small local initiatives working with women on increasing their self-esteem or exploring all the potential professional options available to them. This is the case of portraitists and mentors intend to help women grow more independent and strong.\nOn the bigger scale, initiatives such as establishing a TV channel featuring women from the region or the launch of a regional comity for gender equality regrouping influential women from different backgrounds could help increase the visibility of success stories. This would allow young women to identify with successful women and thrive to achieve their untapped potential.\nThis is due to a crucial aspect of role modeling, it helps women not only explore their options in terms of goals but also in terms of ways and paths to achieve them.\nSocial norms can be changed and creating a virtuous circle for women empowerment from within the ecosystem and based on role-modeling, solidarity and mentoring can be a valuable step to achieve this.\n\u00a0\nInterview by Constantin Tsakas for Ecomnews Med\u00a0\n","author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","tags":[5761,5763,5766,5751,5756,5767,2961,5760,5750,5762],"location":[],"class_list":["post-28435","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry","tag-decision-makers","tag-direct-broadcasting","tag-economic-analysis","tag-economy","tag-employment","tag-expert-opinion","tag-institutions","tag-mediterranean-exchanges","tag-news","tag-trending"],"short_url":"","have_related_news":null,"chapo":"In an interview with FEMISE, Karine Moukaddem, author of a forthcoming FEMISE MED BRIEF, provides an assessment of existing policy measures on women empowerment in the southern shore of the Mediterranean. She argues that behind the existence of a \u201cMediterranean paradox\u201d are structural obstacles that are crucial to overcome. Details by Ecomnews Med.","media":null,"media-news-header":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How to improve Gender Equality and Women Empowerment in the MENA region ? - Ecomnews Med<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u00a0 \u00a0 FEMISE recently launched its series of interviews called \u00ab Med Change Makers \u00bb. 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