Main Title

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Gender equality and empowerment of women in the
implementation of the MDGs Regional Perspectives
Bader Omar AlDafa Under-Secretary-General,
Executive Secretary UNESCWA
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• ESCWAs
• diverse membership
• Development Trends
• varied level of economic and technological
  development
• unequal progress towards MDGs, including health
• unequal impact of financial crisis on sub-regions
• Natural Resources
• large oil and gas reserves
• water scarcity and arid environment
• Human Resources
• high population growth
• increased educational attainment

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Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and
hunger Employment-to-population ratio, women and
men (latest data, percentage)

• Only 22 per cent of women are employed an
  increase of 4 per cent since the early 1990s
  compared with 69 per cent of men (figure
  unchanged in the same period).
• The ratio of women in employment has increased in
  all subregions since the early 1990s, ranging
  from 17 per cent in the Arab Mashreq to 29 per
  cent in the LDCs.

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Goal 2 Achieve universal primary
education Enrolment ratio in primary education
(latest data, percentage)

• Gender disparity in enrolment at the regional
  level 6 per cent more boys than girls enrolled
  in primary school.
• The gap in enrolment is particularly significant
  in the LDCs male enrolment was 60 per cent,
  while female enrolment was just 48 per cent (in
  2007).
• Most Arab countries have made progress in primary
  education survival rates and gains made in both
  enrolment and survival rates since 1990 have been
  translated into improved youth literacy rates.

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Goal 3 Promote gender equality and empower
women Gender Parity Index in primary, secondary
and tertiary enrolment

• The Arab region, in general, has made significant
  progress in reducing gender disparity and
  attaining gender equality in all three levels of
  education (primary, secondary and tertiary).
• The Arab LDCs still fall short of achieving
  gender equality in education with the largest
  gender gaps being in Yemen (secondary and
  tertiary), Somalia (primary) and Mauritania
  (tertiary).
• Disparity between the sexes increases at higher
  levels of education (in the GCC, this difference
  is in favour of women).

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Goal 3 Promote gender equality and empower
women Seats held by women in national parliaments
(latest data, percentage)

• The target of 30 per cent female representation
  in national parliaments remains a distant
  objective.
• The highest proportion of seats held by women in
  national parliaments was seen in Iraq (26 per
  cent), followed by Tunisia and the United Arab
  Emirates (both at 23 per cent) and Mauritania (22
  per cent). NB Due to recent elections the
  figure for Tunisia rose to 27.6 per cent in June
  2010
• The number of seats held by women in national
  parliaments declined by 55 per cent in Egypt and
  by 93 per cent in Yemen between the early 1990s
  and late 2000s.

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Goal 5 Improvement of Maternal Health Maternal
mortality ratio per 100.000 live births (2005)

• Maternal mortality at 285 deaths for every
  100,000 live births remains unacceptably high in
  the Arab region.
• The risk of a woman dying from treatable or
  preventable complications of pregnancy and
  childbirth is a major concern in the Arab LDCs.
• Significant differences in maternal mortality
  rates between subregions In 2005, the rate in
  the Arab LDCs was 594 deaths for every 100,000
  live births, 27 times the rate in the GCC
  countries.

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Conclusions Recommendations
Achieving gender equality is not only morally
right, but also catalytic to development as a
whole. It creates political, economic, and
social opportunities for women which benefit
individuals, communities, countries and the world.

• General need to mainstreaming gender into all
  MDGs by
• developing legislation and implementing laws on
  equal rights and equal opportunities in all areas
  (i.e. designing national action plans),
• integrating gender perspective in national
  policies and enabling national gender machinery
  to improve their capacity (i.e. trainings) to
  contribute to policy-making, and
• dedicating resources to support achievement of
  gender equality and empowerment of women (i.e.
  introduction of gender-based budgeting).

• Specific policy recommendations for the Arab
  region (examples)
• Governments to eliminate discriminative
  legislationgoverning social security, taxation,
  pension, in addition to laws that restrict
  women's freedom of movement.
• Governments to ensure the right of women to
  decent working conditions, including equal pay
  for equal work as well as encourage women to
  enter non-traditional careers and participate in
  labour institutions such as trade unions.

Economic Participation
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Conclusions Recommendations (contd)
Education

• Governments to enact legislation that raises the
  minimum age for marriage to improve retention
  rates for girls - particularly at the secondary
  level.
• Focus of resources and efforts not only to ensure
  enrolment and survival, but also on revising
  curricula to improve the overall quality of
  education and to eliminate all discriminatory
  images and stereotypes about women and girls in
  textbooks.
• Governments to provide a supportive
  infrastructure (i.e. transportation,
  telecommunications, electricity and water supply)
  helps to reduce domestic work load. In turn, this
  will facilitate the participation of women in the
  public sphere and increase the rate of female
  enrolment in schools.

Political Participation

• Governments to introduce temporary measures such
  as the quota system to accelerate womens
  political representation in national parliaments
  and at the local/municipal level.
• Policies to include capacity-building, for
  example concerning womens leadership skills and
  practical skills such as campaigning.

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Thank you!
References Data source ESCWA (2010) Charting
the progress of the MDGs in the Arab Region - A
Statistical Portrait Photo credit UN
Photo/Stephenie Hollyman