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.

The periodical publication reveals how Women in the Arab region continue to have the poorest outcomes in the world of work, whether in comparison with men or in comparison with women in other regions. The insufficient employment generation and the poor quality of created jobs, along with deficiencies in the national frameworks for gender equality contribute to women’s limited participation. Women have limited participation in paid employment, in the ownership of enterprises, and in the leadership of government, workers’, and employers’ organizations. Where they participate, they are often in lower positions, are paid less, or face multiple forms of discrimination. Stories of success typically remain limited and do not achieve scale. There is a slow but growing tendency by the labor market institutions of the region, be it governments, workers’, or employers’ associations, to engage in key gender equality issues such as underpayment of jobs with a high concentration of women or high levels of unemployment among educated youth, especially young women.

UNDP CO are encouraged to incorporate gender into their work and promote women’s rights and empowerment. This can take place by identifying and establishing benchmarks and minimum standards at three levels: the organization itself, the development intervention, and the larger national context. The key elements targeted by UNDP deal with management of gender-mainstreaming, capacities and enabling environment of the CO, knowledge management, inclusion of gender streamlining within programmes and projects, partnerships built for coordination mechanisms of gender equality, and results/impacts of the CO’s contributions. Therefore, a Gender Strategy at the CO level accounts for this gender design, assesses it, and designs a path of action relevant to it. The UNDP CO in Lebanon has in fact considered gender parity in its operations and assessments of concrete development projects in the country. However, implementation is loose and does not follow a concrete institutional framework with a solid long-term vision. In order to determine the causes and remedies of this deficiency, an assessment of the situation that targets the three aforementioned levels - namely the national context, and the interventions of the CO in Lebanon – is vital. A valid assessment provides the basis for the design of a Gender Strategy that accounts for the flaws and strengths of the CO’s work as well as a plan of action to ensure that staff are held responsible for delivering gender equality results and are aware of the importance of doing so.