The Ministry of Planning and Economic Development participates in a conference on Efforts to Empower Women

The Ministry of Planning and Economic Development participated, represented by Dr. Mona Essam, Assistant Minister for Sustainable Development Affairs, at a conference entitled “Her Strength, Our Future: Women Lead Sustainable Development.”

The conference has been organized by the Federation of Egyptian Industries, Alexandria Businesswomen, Misr Insurance, Suez Canal Bank, the International Labor Organization, the Embassy of Finland, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The conference sought to discuss the importance of empowering Egyptian women, given their prominent role in achieving the desired development and their contribution to advancing our Egyptian society.

Dr. Mona Essam’s speech came as part of the first-round table discussions entitled “Empowering Women for a Sustainable Future: A Dialogue on Achieving SDGs”.

Dr. Mona Essam stressed the importance of raising awareness of sustainable development and the UN 2030 Agenda and its seventeen integrated and interconnected goals, which seek to achieve the 'Leave no one behind' (LNOB) principle 

She also highlighted the national version of sustainable development (Egypt Vision 2030), which paid special attention to women and their empowerment in various fields.

The vision sought to improve the standard of living of all social groups, with an emphasis on achieving the principle of “Justice and Availability,” which aims for all citizens, especially the neediest segments of society and the groups most cared for, to enjoy all political, economic, social, civil and cultural rights.

She also referred to the efforts of the Egyptian state to empower women, including the launch of the executive plan for the National Project for the Development of the Egyptian Family (2021/2022- 2023/2024), and the efforts and initiatives undertaken by the National Council for Women.

  Women's efforts to empower the country include the "Women's Health" initiative, which falls under the umbrella of the "100 Million Health" initiative, in addition to many programs offered to women with the aim of refining and enhancing their skills.

One of these programs is the “Women Leading in the Egyptian Governorates” program, which is one of the funded grants provided by the National Training Academy in partnership with the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development.

The discussion also highlighted the Egyptian pledges and priority areas that were shared at the Sustainable Development Goals Summit (SDG Summit) held at the United Nations last September. Among these areas is working to increase women’s participation in the workforce.

Essam also pointed out some quantitative estimates regarding Egypt’s performance in some indicators related to women’s economic, social, and political empowerment, including women’s participation rates in the labor force, and an increase in the percentage of women in senior and middle administrative positions about 3 times between 2017 and 2022.

Essam explained that various data indicate an improvement in school completion rates for females in Egypt at all educational levels (primary, middle, and secondary) between 2019/2020 and 2021/2022.

  It was found that the percentage of seats held by women in national parliaments increased by 84% between 2015 and 2020.

The percentage of women in the Cabinet reached 25% in 2018, compared to 6% in 2015.

Dr. Mona Essam concluded her speech by saying that "Women are half the society”, and their economic, social, and political empowerment is the core of sustainability and achieving inclusion and economic growth