Multi-stakeholders Workshop: Women economic participation and ICT in the Mediterranean Region: Constraints and opportunities
Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean
Event details
Description
Women economic participation and ICT in the Mediterranean Region: Constraints and opportunities
Exploring how to increase women employment and entrepreneurship in the ICT sector
The MENA region has the lowest rate of participation in the workforce of women in the world, with a female participation rate of the labour force by 22%, against 73% in East Asia and about 50-52 % for other regions. In parallel, the ICT sector offers many opportunities in terms of jobs or entrepreneurial openings. First, it remains an important and growing sector for employment: job opportunities in the digital economy continue to grow, and many countries and regions are anticipating growing demand for qualified personnel with mathematics, science, engineering, and computing skills. On the other hand, the range of benefits ICTs offer to start and develop businesses is extensive.
In the last years, several actions, initiatives and programmes have been undertaken by different actors aiming to increase the women participation in the ICTs sector. However, UFM believes that improving the coordination and synergies between all stakeholders at national and regional levels to avoid unnecessary duplications and competition and to develop joint, strategic and relevant actions, can significantly help improving the impact in advancing economic participation of women in the region.
By organising the workshop, UfM aims to launch the first step of a regional platform of dialogue and coordination between the key stakeholders active in this field, with the aim to let them think together on how to improve the women participation in the sector in the MENA and thus contribute to increase their economic participation.
The meeting is organised in the framework of the implementation of the Conclusions of the UfM Third Ministerial Conference on Strengthening the Role of Women in Society, and as a contribution to the Beijing+20 process.
The event will bring together representatives from key stakeholders, including international and regional organisations, donors and development agencies, private sector, civil society organisations and experts. They will identify the barriers and constraints that hinder the women participation in the digital sector, while exploring the opportunities offered by the sector and propose concrete suggestions for specific follow-up actions and the way forward for enhancing economic participation of women.
For more details about the workshop, kindly find the concept note and the draft agenda on the following link:
Contact person: Mr. Juli Hernàndez (juli.hernandez@ufmsecretariat.org ; Tel: +34 935 214 131.
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