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.

This paper tries to examine if women’s education affects the economic growth. To illustrate this aim, four countries cases have been presented: Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, named MATE. The motive behind choosing them was because these countries have many common religious and cultural norms and values. The statistical analysis of data over the period 1960-2012 shows that the relationship between fertility rate and different measures of education is negative. Averages literacy rate and labour participation of the female are less than that of male. Two panel models are estimated over the period 2000-2012: a 'general' panel model and a 'gender' panel model. In the first model, the explanatory variables are introduced without gender’s characteristics in order to measure their impact on the economic growth. In the second model, the explanatory variables are introduced in the first model with gender’s distinguishing excluding variables that measure the quality of governance and institutional. The main findings are that women’s education, particularly, tertiary education, women’s labour force participation and institutional capital affect positively economic growth. On the contrary, the primary and secondary school enrolment are negatively linked to the economic growth. This paper concludes that women’s tertiary education is a master-key to economic growth and development accompanied by a healthy and good quality of institutional capital and by eliminating all forms of gender discrimination.

There is strong evidence about the situation of women in the Middle East and North Africa region despite a lack of highly accurate data available at the national and regional levels. The data that is available reveals that the empowerment of women and the level of equality between men and women are fluctuating. The most important findings concerning the status of women can be summarized as follows: -The rights of women that do exist are poorly enforced. The economic, social, civic and political capacities of women are low. Consequently women are largely disempowered and uninfluential. -Poverty deeply burdens women more than men, affecting everything from their education, health, and economic access to their participation in decision making. This directly affects women’s ability to enjoy all their human rights. -The lives and civil participation of Arab women in the countries of the region are affected directly and indirectly by conflict and war.

Many Arab countries have in place family laws – also known as personal status codes – that confer upon women the status of dependent and minor with respect to marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance. Because of these family laws, States that have signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women have done so with significant reservations. Broadly speaking, women remain associated primarily with their family roles, and the cumulative effect is gender-based discrimination and second-class citizenship for women, albeit in varying degrees across the countries of the region.