SEOW-MENA Sustainable Economic Opportunities for Women

Prologue
This policy brief is inspired and informed by the EU-funded regional project “Sustainable Economic Opportunities for Women in the MENA region (SEOW-MENA).

The purpose of these short, at-a-glance policy briefs is to provide easily used information in order to tease out learning and synthesis for the project’s field experience into policy dialogue with the aim of contributing to creating sustainable economic opportunities for women in the MENA region.

This second Policy Brief is based on the learning drawn from SEOW-MENA Training and Capacity Building component.

Capacity Building and Training for Economic Opportunities for Women in MENA… Issues and trends

There is a multitude of training and capacity building initiatives and activities in all countries covered by the project. However, most remain punctual and project based and do not necessarily aim to transform gender relations and address gender specific obstacles to women’s economic participation.

There is quite an inventory of training and capacity building material. Most of the reviewed material appears to be redundant and by and large technical. Conceptual grounding of this material in an understanding of gender discrimination in economic opportunities is very much limited; hence the potential impact in changing and transforming gender equality is insignificant as shown in data on women’s economic participation in the region.

Local human resources equipped with comprehensive training and capacity building and excellent local understanding and analysis are dearth. Expertise appear to be compartmentalized and poorly linked (it is possible to find gender trainers, VT trainers, leadership trainers, etc… but hardly possible to find skilled local trainers/facilitators with a comprehensive approach to building capacities for sustainable economic opportunities for women).
DOWNLOAD FILE: SEOW MENA Policy Brief Two

2006/07 (1)

Prologue
This policy brief is inspired and informed by the EU-funded regional project “Sustainable
Economic Opportunities for Women in the MENA region (SEOW-MENA).

The purpose of these short, at-a-glance policy briefs is to provide easily used information in order to tease out learning and synthesis for the project’s field experience into policy dialogue with the aim of contributing to creating sustainable economic opportunities for women in the MENA region.

Economic Opportunities for Women in MENA… Issues and trends…
The nature and sustainability of work and economic opportunities in the MENA region is rapidly and dramatically changing, often negatively as sustainable work opportunities appear to be declining.

Employment within the public sector has been increasingly shrinking over the past decade thus greatly disadvantaging women for whom such opportunities were attractive due to the security and benefits offered even if modest.

Employment in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises is common but does not necessarily offer women any significant training and career development, social or other forms of protection.
SEOW MENA Policy Brief One.pdf

Following the launch of the SEOW-MENA project in 2006, work is well under way on phase 1 of the project.

Literature Review:
This review was carried out to provide a background on women’s current economic situation in the 5 countries, to look at programs and projects already in place and to provide a framework on which to build during the assessment visits. The review included books, periodicals, reports and websites as well as looking at information produced by organizations such as the World Bank and UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women), and the level of information available varied considerably, with Egypt and Morocco proving to have a wealth of information, whereas information about Syria, Lebanon and Algeria was much scarcer. (Details of the information found are available on the website).

Assessment Visits:
A team from CRTD.A has visited each of the 5 countries (Algeria is still outstanding) to establish contact with various organizations highlighted by the literature review, and other key stakeholders in the area.
Following these visits assessment reports were produced, giving guidelines for the implementation of the next phase of the project, identifying key partner organizations and highlighting areas of particular importance within each country. Full reports from each country are available but the key points are listed below.

Egypt:
One of the key problems in Egypt is the high level of female illiteracy, which stood at 51% in 2003, rising to 67% in rural areas. In addition there are very high levels of poverty, and these factors lead to a drop in the age of marriage, all things which restrict women’s economic opportunities.
Egypt was found to have a high level of micro-credit schemes, whereby women can borrow money to assist with businesses, but these schemes have little follow-up or skills training attached to them and women face huge difficulties in marketing their goods and services. This means that the overall sustainability of these projects are in doubt and also that any income generated in used to support basic needs rather than to develop businesses further.

Types of Employment:
Employment can be divided into 3 main sectors – services, industries and agriculture. Within most countries,
women work predominantly in the agricultural sector with 57% of women still working in this area. From 1980 the services sector has seen an increase in importance with 32% of women now working in the service sector. (Figures from ILO’s LABORSTA – database ends in 1990).

Female workers within the agricultural sector are often unpaid and classed as “contributing family workers”
or simply as helpers within economic figures. This means that their actual economic contribution is not
quantified, and they are often rural women with little or no access to education, health services or social
security. This means that as the agricultural sector declines these women have little chance of employment
elsewhere.

Public and Private Sectors:
In North Africa the public sector represents the main employer of females. This is because the types of jobs, particularly within the health and education sectors are more traditionally female roles, and also because the terms and conditions offered are generally more attractive to women than those in the private sector. In Algeria in 2004, 80% of the women working in the public sector, which itself was 85% of working women, were employed in health or education.
World trends however, suggest that the private sector will increasingly become the main source of employment for the future and there is a danger that this will lead to a decrease in the level of women’s working conditions and wages as a result.