The European Union (EU) and UN Women are joining forces to accelerate women’s employment across the Middle East and North Africa through the Surging Women’s Employment Initiative (SWEI). This regional flagship initiative brings together governments, the private sector, financial institutions, development partners, civil society and UN agencies to address the region’s low levels of women’s participation in the labour market.

The partnership, launched in the margins of the 81st UN General Assembly High-Level Week, comes at a critical moment for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) which has one of the world's largest youth cohorts entering the labour market, while women’s labour force participation has remained at around 20 per cent on average for more than two decades. MENA economies need to absorb more of their human capital. Narrowing the employment gap between women and men could significantly increase regional GDP as much as 60 per cent and generate greater productivity, innovation and economic resilience.

SWEI is a key initiative of the EU’s Pact for the Mediterranean , which prominently supports gender equality in the southern Mediterranean. With the EU’s support, SWEI will focus on three areas: advancing legal and macroeconomic reforms for private sector-led, job-rich growth; engaging businesses to expand women’s employment, and developing innovative employment models in the care, green and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) economies, backed by public-private financing and strategic investment.

“The region cannot realize its full economic potential while women remain significantly underrepresented in the labour market. Thanks to UN Women’s partnership with the European Union, SWEI is bringing policy reform, investment and private-sector action together around a measurable, time-bound goal: significantly increasing women’s employment in the Arab States by the end of the decade – the target date for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals,” said Dr. Moez Doraid, UN Women Regional Director for the Arab States.