Outcome RAS_D_8.1

More women access equitable employment opportunities and services, increasing the rate of women’s participation in the workforce in Arab States, including the most marginalized.

In 2025, UN Women significantly deepened private sector engagement in the Arab States through the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs). A total of 877 companies across the region are now WEPs signatories—up from 645 in 2024 —with women holding, on average, 42 per cent of leadership positions within these companies. This rapid growth reflects a strong shift in private sector commitment to gender-responsive business practices. Evidence from the 2025 WEPs monitoring survey demonstrates that this commitment is translating into tangible results for women’s economic empowerment. Companies reported that 31 per cent of their workforce are women , representing 73,396 women employees , up from 57,297 the previous year. Crucially, women’s access to new employment opportunities more than doubled : 14,749 women were recruited into new jobs in 2025 , compared to 5,638 in 2024 . Beyond job creation, WEPs signatories are also improving the quality of employment and career progression for women . In 2025, companies reported 6,390 women promoted , more than twice the number recorded in 2024 ( 2,817 promotions ). Supportive workplace policies remain a core feature of WEPs implementation, with 89.5 per cent of companies reporting that they retrain women employees following maternity leave , sustaining women’s retention and advancement in the workforce. Collectively, these results demonstrate concrete progress towards the outcome that more women—particularly those most at risk of exclusion—are accessing equitable employment opportunities and services, contributing to increased women’s labour force participation across the Arab States . This progress is driven by UN Women’s integrated approach under SWEI , combining policy and technical support, private sector partnerships, national-level analysis, and innovative financing —including catalytic financing initiatives in Jordan and strategic engagement with IsDB —to move from commitments to measurable change at scale.

More women access equitable employment opportunities and services, increasing the rate of women’s participation in the workforce in Arab States, including the most marginalized.

Limited data on gender equality attitudes, women's workforce participation, and the percentage of WEP signatories with female top managers hinders progress tracking. Although recent labour force participation data shows some recovery in women's involvement, the rate is still lower than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

More women access equitable employment opportunities and services, increasing the rate of women’s participation in the workforce in Arab States, including the most marginalized.

The goal of increasing the women's labor force participation rate in the Arab States from around 20%, where its been stagnant for two decades, has been a priority for the UN Women Regional Office for Arab States. The legislative changes supported in Egypt, Jordan and Palesine through the JP, along with the regional committment by the League of Arab States paired with the region-wide work on the WEPs contribute to achieving that. With the goal of reducing the gender gap in unpaid care and domestic work and contribute to transform social norms that impede women’s access to paid employment , UN Women achieved some important milestones through critical reforms of relevant normative frameworks . At the beginning of 2022, three labor laws were reformed to approve or enhance paternity (fathers') leave in Egypt, Palestine, and Morocco thanks to advocacy work undertaken by UN Women in cooperation with other partners. These milestones were achieved as a result of policy dialogues and advocacy campaigning organized by UN Women during previous years at both regional and country level. In Egypt, one day of paternity leave was approved through its labor law reform; three days for civil servants in Palestine; and 15 days for civil servants in Morocco (an increase from the existing three days paternity leave approved some years ago). Although these legal reforms cannot be considered as best practice -as the global best practice for parental leave entails a fully paid leave, of equal duration for both parents and non-transferable-, they constitute a positive gradual step to achieve more equal and meaningful paternity leave , increase the engagement of men in childcare and reduce the burden of unpaid care on women in the longer term .

More women access equitable employment opportunities and services, increasing the rate of women’s participation in the workforce in Arab States, including the most marginalized.

Unavailability of updated data on bias in gender equality attitudes, percent of women's participation in the region's workforce and percent of WEP signatories with female top managers makes it difficult to track progress. The latest data on labour force participation suggests some recovery in the rate of women participation but the rate remains below the pre-COVID-19 level.