The Gender Entrepreneurship Markets (GEM) Country Brief series is intended to provide an overview on the status of women entrepreneurship in countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The focus of IFC’S PEP MENA GEM program is to expand women’s participation in the private sector by providing support to growth-oriented small and medium enterprises and expanding women’s employment opportunities.

Women organizations in Lebanon have a long history of struggle towards gender equality. Perceptions concerning the achievements and status of women in Lebanese society suggests relative progress on issues related to rights and gender equality. This paper proposes an analysis of the status of women in Lebanon based on various indicators highlighting women’s participation in politics and decision-making processes and examining gender equality from the legal perspective and in terms of women’s economic status. It also looks into women’s achievements in terms of gender equality, reviewing some strategies adopted to enhance women’s status in Lebanon and highlighting their limits in the particular Lebanese socio-political context.

Women in Lebanon face discrimination at many levels, from social conservatism to inadequate public policies. The National Commission for Lebanese Women (NCLW) was formed in 1998 to promote women’s rights, enhance gender mainstreaming, and also to oversee the implementation of the goals of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. In July 2006, a newly formed Cabinet vowed in its Ministerial Statement to put in action all the commitments that Lebanon has made on women's issues in connection with the recommendations of the Beijing Conference in 1995 (Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action). The Gender Profile of Lebanon describes main gender topics, like the above, within the Lebanese context, as well as addressing such milestones in relation to legal, political, economical, educational, health, infrastructure terms and subjects.

The objective of this report, “Gendering Youth (girls and boys) Empowerment in Arab Mediterranean Countries (AMCs)” is first to identify the inequalities of empowerment among young people of different genders; secondly, the efforts already made by governments and civil society in the AMCs to empower young people; thirdly, it describes positive experiences that may be generalized and reproduced in other countries. Finally, the report points out the disparities and inequalities present in programmes for capacity building addressed to young women and men. Recommendations for fixing such unequal treatment will be made to stakeholders in order to encourage them to better mainstream a gender perspective in the implementation of their programmes and action plans in favour of youth empowerment. Accordingly, the report is based on the qualitative and quantitative data and information provided by the SAHWA project in the Arab Mediterranean Countries (AMCs) of Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia: The National Case Studies, the policy papers, and the Ethnographic Fieldwork dataset 2015 based on narrative interviews, focus groups and life stories collected. Thus, and in line with the SAHWA gender equity approach, the report attempts to tackle the socioeconomic factors leading to the exclusion of women, exploring a number of pathways that could foster equality between men and women.

Incorporating the most recent employment trends for young women and men, Global Employment Trends for Youth sets out the youth labour market situation around the world. It shows where progress has or has not been made, updates world and regional youth labour market indicators, and gives detailed analyses of medium-term trends in youth population, labour force, employment, unemployment, working poverty and informality. The 2017 edition discusses the implications of technological change for youth labour market prospects – both quantity and quality – focusing on trends in sectoral employment and on the forms of work available to young people.