Outcome PAL_D_2.2

More women own, launch and/or better manage small and medium and large enterprises

During, Oxford English Centre, Paltel Group, Birzeit Pharmaceutical Company, PalPay Co., and ALAMED Co Ltd signed the Women Economic principles, bringing the total number of WEPs signatory to 14 due to advocacy efforts by UN Women. This comes in part of UN Women strategy to deepen its work with private sector institutions - including financial institutions, to enhance equal opportunities for women’s employment in the private sector, improve decent work conditions and implement gender responsive policies, regulations and services. Moreover, and thank to lobbying efforts by UN Women, Paltel Group, has developed its first gender action plan, and reviewed their HR policies and promotions procedures, to allow for equal access to promotions by female and male employees, and trained further 100 employees (40% are women) in their affiliate companies on gender mainstreaming, which was acquired through UN Women WEPs trainings. Additionally, women’s participation in leadership positions within the TNB has grown through 2021 as a result of their commitments to GEWE. The Palestinian Monetary Fund, a WEP signatory and a strategic partner of UN Women, has developed a draft amendment of its internal organigram and has proposed new procedures towards facilitating women’s access to leadership positions and it is planned to review its policy on sexual harassment in the workplace from a gender perspective. Also, a gender task force was revitalized and trained, which serves as a support group for the implementation of the PMA gender action plan.

More women own, launch and/or better manage small and medium and large enterprises

This outcome was achieved as planned. 208 Palestinian women business owners (160 young women, 63 in the informal sector, 17 women with disabilities, 62 women from rural areas) benefited from the Ministry of National Economy’s (MoNE) services (including awareness, registration, in-kind grants and procurement procedures) to formalize their businesses. These results (208) were more than targeted (150). These results are evidenced by the additional excel spreadsheet attached here. UN Women supported the establishment and piloting of the Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Fund at the MoNE under the Joint Programme “Mitigating the impacts of COVID-19 on women’s economic participation in the State of Palestine.” A multi-stakeholder advisory board was formed and launched for the WEE Fund by the MoNE to support the sustainability of this initiative (which consisted of about 17 national member organizations, members states, local and International NGOs, private sector and UN agencies). UN Women is upscaling and expanding the WEE Fund (which is considered a best practice as a national mechanism to enhance women’s access to sustainable financial resources and services) through 2023.