Genre et commerce

This brief summarizes a three-part research series produced by UN Women’s Fund for Gender Equality—a global gender equality fund which awards competitive grants and technical assistance to women-led civil society organizations around the world. Focusing on grantee case studies in Guinea, Lebanon and Sudan, the series offers a more nuanced look at the real-time opportunities and barriers to women’s economic empowerment in three fragile contexts, including what is working, what is not and what is needed to help women realize greater empowerment, equality and inclusive development.

The study shows that measures of patriarchal culture are correlated with female labor force participation (FLFP) and that levels of women education, together with personal values and country norms in regard to patriarchy explain most of the regional variations in FLFP observed around the world. We argue that education hides (at least) three separate effects: the impact of women’s wages on household income, its impact on personal values, and the impact of a better bargaining position in her household and community. This means that FLFP can be increased not only through the impact of improved education on household income, but also through its indirect effect on patriarchal values, and on women bargaining power, the latter effect being larger in countries where the variability in values among the population is large.

This Executive Briefing – which draws on the insight and project work of the Forum’s System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Education, Gender and Work – finds that it is imperative for the Middle East and North Africa to make adequate investments in education that will hold value in the labor market and prepare citizens for the future. It aims to serve as a practical guide for leaders from business, government, civil society and the education sector to plan for the needs of the future. It is also a call to action for changes that will help young people harness new opportunities.

The Toolkit is meant to serve as a starting point, to stimulate the analytic process by helping the user identify and think through what gender issues might be involved with a problem and what interventions might be needed. The Toolkit provides guidance for promoting gender equality and female empowerment and complying with USAID Automated Directives System (ADS) Chapter 205 on Integrating Gender and Female Equality in the USAID Program Cycle,6 which identifies the specific expectations for IPs. The material in this Toolkit is adapted from and modelled after the 2012 USAID Toward Gender Equality in Europe and Eurasia: A Toolkit for Gender Analysis, and also follows ADS 205 guidance.7 For the Lebanese context, publications, academic literature, statistical databases, and analytic reports were reviewed. Information about gender issues in specific sectors was drawn from the 2012 USAID/Lebanon gender assessment.8 In addition, other international development agencies’ materials and guidance on gender analysis were reviewed.

The objectives of the council are as follows: To monitor trade and investment relations, to identify opportunities for expanding trade and investment, and to identify issues relevant trade or investment such as negotiation in an appropriate forum. To hold consultations on specific trade and investment matters of interest of the parties. To identify and work to work the removal of impediments to trade and investment flows between the parties. To seek the advice of the private sector and civil society, where appropriate, in their respective countries on matters related to the work of the council.