Why did Advances in Education & Health Fail to Achieve Better Economic Opportunities for MENA Women? CSW58

A parallel event given by WLP and the Equality Without Reservation Campaign at the 58th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will explore endemic deficiency of the Arab region in economic policy-making that ensures gender and economic justice, as demonstrated by past policies that ignored women’s care work and failed to provide support services for care work.

Although there are differences among Arab countries, a common denominator is that women’s participation in the formal economy is significantly lower than men’s. Data on the Arab labor force reveal a bleak reality regarding women’s economic participation and economic justice; the Arab region is one of the lowest performing environments worldwide.

Incentives for women to penetrate the formal economy are minimal. There are no employment generating policies able to absorb newcomers, particularly women, into the market. Women have higher unemployment rates and are mostly found in poorly regulated and often exploitative informal economic sectors. Most significantly, women’s work is often unpaid and invisible (women’s care work goes often unrecognized in economic indicators and policies alike). In addition, challenges to women’s mobility greatly impact economic participation, and past policies have ignored the additional burden of women's care work and failed to provide support services for this work. 

The panel will also discuss social protection systems in the region, analyzing weakness and ways in which they exclude women from social protection measures and benefits. The panel will present experiential knowledge from a regional intervention over the past eight years, which combined knowledge production, capacity building, and policy dialogue for change. Repercussions and likelihood of meeting MDGs for women and girls in the foreseeable future will be discussed, notably, promoting women’s equal access to full employment and decent work.

Moderator: Ariana Rabindranath, Chief Operating Officer, Women’s Learning Partnership