Planned Budget (Total)
Other resources (non-core)
Country Indexes
outcome XM-DAC-41146-RAS_O_4
UN-Women in the Arab States is an accountable and trustworthy development organization that manages its financial and other resources with integrity and in line with its programmatic ambitions and fiduciary obligations
The Regional office as well as the Countries within the Arab States region have demonstrated high level of accountability for both internal resources (regular resources) and none core resources throughout the year. This is seen through the month end repiortings as well as year end reports including different donor reports.
outcome XM-DAC-41146-RAS_O_5
UN Women in the Arab States effectively leverages and expands its partnerships, communications and advocacy capabilities to increase support for and financing of the gender equality agenda, while securing sustainable resourcing for the delivery of its own mandate
By 2030, women’s employment in the Arab States should increase by 5% following an unprecedented, regional programme which aims for a transformational shift in women’s paid work. Strategic partnerships represent a core enabler for this increase in women’s employment, and key actors in banking, media (traditional and social media), and telecommunications have agreed to pursue this goal of surging women’s employment alongside ROAS. Five international financial institutions (IFIs) agreed to a set of unprecedented joint commitments with the RO to pursue this goal of 5%. These IFIs generally don’t work together to pursue common goals, nor do they collaborate closely with the UN towards common commitments. This is where UN-Women's convening and substantive evidence-based engagement has been successful and will deepen in 2024, with agreed operational arrangements. The IFI’s include the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) , Islamic Development Bank (ISDB), African Development Bank (ADB), and International Finance Corporation (IFC). 1 Forbes Middle East and UN Women signed an MoU in 2023. As our first collaboration activity, UN Women was given a runway at the Forbes Middle East Women’s Summit, 21-23 May to increase visibility of the goal of surging women’s employment in the Arab region by 5% by 203. The regional director Susanne Mikahil was a solo speaker for the subject of how the paradox hits economic progress and human development. She brought to the audiences, higher levels of graduations from urgently needed faculties – such as the proportion of female graduates within the academic field of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), which interestingly is higher in the Arab States than in any other region – uniquely positions women throughout the region. Nokia signed a first of its kind partnership with ROAS to advance joint commitments to women’s economic empowerment in ten countries across five regions (see partnership announcements: X | IG | FB ). Vulnerable women will access knowledge and skills for employment and entrepreneurship (Tunisia, Jordan, South Africa, India, Philippines, Argentina, Turkey) and Nokia’s workspaces will strengthen their capacity to increase the number of women employees in tech, as a model for the private sector in the HIC context (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait). To achieve this, Nokia will leverage human and technical resources to implement a global programme to scale-up impact based on the successful model developed during the first partnership (2021-2023). The Arab States region is unique as the global lead for this partnership. Nokia and leading telcos in the Arab States region, such as Zain and e&, also collaborated on the Nokia Action for Leadership initiative to foster women’s leadership in the telco sector with UN Women’s coordination support. As a result, UN Women was invited to address the Nokia-led ESG Council of eight Arab States and Africa telcos on the role of the private sector in advancing gender-responsive implementation of the SDGs. CNN Arabic and UN-Women's collaboration on advancing women’s economic empowerment and employment continued to deepen in 2023, particularly in Saudi Arabia, where UN-Women operates as a key agency in the UN Communications Group UN Women led two training sessions for journalists, Journalism students and media institutions in Saudi Arabia at the UN Resident Coordinator Office-convened Media Capacity Development Workshop on 13 November 2023 in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia . UN Women match-made the UN Country Team and their media partners with CNN which double the impact of the positioning of UN Women to the Saudi Media industry and to UN entities and the UNRCO. Other key partnerships have been established and advocacy platforms leveraged to advance women’s economic empowerment which will be deepened in 2024 (TikTok, through the WEPs and the “Ring the Bell Initiatives”, Shehrazad Awards, Arab Film Industry – Umm Kulthoom).
outcome XM-DAC-41146-RAS_O_6
UN-Women strategically plans for and transforms its business model to deliver impact at scale, through agile and ethical leadership rooted in a continuous improvement culture.
UN Women Arab States and Partners – Accelerating WEE Programming - Achieving Nine Milestones in 2022/2023 for speed and scale: In all UN Women regional programs, that successfully reached scale, one of the main enablers was repeatedly found to be partnerships and political engagement. In the Arab States the solid partnership base with Member States is critical, nationally and through the League of Arab States. Other important actors are the Private Sector, Media, NGOs, IFIs and Regional Banks. During 2022-2023, together with its partners UN Women embarked on the first part of the journey towards a 5% increase in women employment. In this relatively short period nine significant regional milestones were achieved, preparing the ground for the roll out of the program by Q 1. A. Milestone 1 - Regional Political Commitment of 22 Member States to Prioritize Women Economic Empowerment In January 2022, 22 Members States from the Arab Region, agreed through the League of Arab States (LAS) Convention on the Status of Women (CSW) to “enhancing women’s economic empowerment and resilience in the context of climate change response, including strengthening regional cooperation through examining the possibility of the Arab League’s adoption of a joint regional initiative with UN Women”. The “Green Economy” therefore became the first pillar of the regional initiative (see page 7). In CSW the following year (January 2023) an equally strong commitment was signed on women economic empowerment in the region in the area of digitalization. The “STEM Economy” therefore became the second pillar of the regional initiative (see page 7). 7 B. Milestone 2 – Two (2) Arab Media Powerhouse Committed, CNN Arabic and ITP Media Group - 90 million viewers By May 2022, UN Women had secured the commitment of 2 regional media powerhouses through MOUs, to support women’s economic empowerment in an unprecedented way for UN-media partnerships, as the collaboration focuses on collectively achieving a distinct development objective: the surge of women employment. ITP Media Group, has over 60 media brands attracting 50 million people per month, including Arabian Business, CEO Arabia, Harpers Bazaar Arabia. CNN Arabic, reaches 40 million viewers per month. These regional partnerships complement the partnerships established with national media entities, through which national journalists are supported to – through regional and national data - highlight the benefits of WEE, on regional, national and community level. C. Milestone 3 – Regional United Nations Cohesion amongst 22 UN Agencies By June 2022, and through the United Nations Regional Collaborative Platform’s Issue Based Coalition (IBC), co-chaired with UNFPA – the two agencies secured and agreement amongst 22 UN agencies to focus distinctively on data cohesion, advocacy and unified policy-support provision to Resident Coordinators in the Arab States, on WEE. In 2023, it was decided to narrow the work further on advocacy for legal amendments, by strategically using data from the ESCWA, UNDPA, UNFPA, UN-WOMEN joint program “Gender Justice and the Law” (see Milestone 4). D. Milestone 4 – Four (4) Agencies joining hands for Gender Justice in the Arab States In March 2023, the “Arab States Gender Justice and the Law 2022”, was launched including a regional analysis, a regional Dashboard and 15 Legal Country Reports for 15 Arab States. Resulting from a solid partnership between 4 Regional Agencies: UN Women, ESCWA, UNDP, UNFPA and UN Women regional offices. The Arab States Gender Justice Report 2022, examines six areas of legislation, including “employment and economic benefits” but also correlated legal brackets such as “personal matters and family life”. E. Milestone 5 – Commitment of 520 Private Companies in the Arab region By March 2023, UN Women had managed to gain the commitment of no less than 520 private companies throughout the region through the Women Empowerment Principles (WEPs). Beyond signatures, UN Women has moved towards “Arab States - Regional Strategy on Private Sector Engagement Strategy” designed to support the companies to implement the WEP principles, particularly: 1) the proportion of women’s employment and retention, 2) the proportion of women in leadership positions, 3) addressing gender stereotyping in marketing and 4) monitoring. F. Milestone 6 – Building a Coalition of National Banks and Regional Banks for Financing and Partnerships By March 2023, three countries had established partnerships with national banks in support of women economic empowerment. Morocco through the National Association of Banks; Jordan, 8 through the Amman Stock Exchange, and of course the Central Bank of Egypt which is supporting a large scale women financial inclusion program. Additionally, 2 regional Banks, the IsDB and the EBRD are strongly engaged in the area of WEE in the Arab States. G. Milestone 7 – Building a coalition for ODA (donors) In Q3 2022, UN Women engaged with 8 donors, all with a strong track record in the Arab States, and with particular interest in sustainable impact at scale, and hence supporting distinct “disciplines” out of the multi-disciplinary set up of this program. A Round Table is therefore planned for Q 4, 2023. H. Milestone 8 – Establishing the first Regional Statistics and Data Platform on GEWE for Transparent Monitoring of Women Employment in the Arab States In March 2023, UN Women Arab States launched the first ever Arab States regional data platform with multi sectoral data on WEW, through 144 indicators in 17 Arab States countries. I. Milestone 9 – Sharpening and deepening partnerships with Academia – A regional Consortium of 18 Universities UN Women partners with a number of academic institutions for national and regional research. In the area of working with men and boys, these partnerships include the University of Jordan’s Center for Strategic Studies (CSS), the Information and Research Center at King Hussein Foundation (IRCKHF), l’Institut Arabe des Droits de l’Homme (IADH). And the partnership with Cairo University, has led to the establishment the first and only Gender and Development Course with Curricula in a public University in Egypt and with the American University of Cairo, the UN Women partnership between AUC’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI) and UN Women program “Women Economic Empowerment Program – Entrepreneurship support”, supports women entrepreneurs to help reduce the gender gap in the Egyptian entrepreneurship ecosystem. And the American University of Beirut, where the partnership is mainly focused on the area of Women Peace and Security. In 2023, the first-ever regional consortium of universities in the Arab States for addressing social norms through engaging men and boys is being established to support the Women Employment Program – through a partnership between 18 Universities and UN Women Regional Office for Arab States In 2023, and in partnership with the Arab Women Organization (AWO). VII. A Comprehensive Program Design: Surging women employment at scale and speed In parallel with achieving the nine milestones in 2022/2023 (listed above) and solidifying critical partnerships for the regional program, UN Women embarked on what became one of the most difficult components of this program; the analysis of how exactly/operationally any country can achieve a 5 % surge in women employment in the region – given the current economic challenges and given the low level of employment overall
outcome XM-DAC-41146-RAS_O_7
With its unique and inclusive culture, UN Women is an employer of choice in the Arab States with a diverse and highly performing cadre of personnel that embodies UN values.
Enhanced commitment to a positive organizational culture with focus on staff well-being continues to be a major priority for the region. This is demonstrated through; Implementation of Learning Plan in May/June 2023 that has led to more capacity & professional development (planned mission exposure/detail assignments:64% completed, career advancement: 2 national/1 international colleagues left to pursue higher international posts); Introduced flexible working arrangement that provide a work-life balance; Positive feedback from staff retreat held in September 2023 indicated improved levels of team cohesion and reduction in stress. A comparative stress level assessment conducted indicated reduced stress level; Stress Level 2022 2023 Moderate stress (normal stress level): 38% 33% Severe stress (cluster of heightened and extremely stressed): 47% 26%
outcome XM-DAC-41146-RAS_O_8
UN Women efficiently and effectively discharges of all business processes that advance integrated delivery of its mandate at HQ, Regional and Country levels, including through shared services.
ROAS has discharged its functinal support to advance programming in the area of WEE, with analysis and indepth support provided to programme development in Morocco, Egypt and Jordan. Oversight on operations remains solid, as per QCBR results. data and results management has improved with tehe stablishemdn of a team and surther development of TrackIT and Gentrack. WPP and EVAW support provided, with empahsis on Iraq, Jordan and LebanonShowing 6 - 10 of 10