Changing Laws and Breaking Barriers for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia
At a moment when many countries of the MENA region are looking to accelerate economic growth and build more stable, open societies, this report argues that greater women’s economic empowerment holds one of the keys. It asserts that despite challenges some countries are facing in guaranteeing women equal access to economic opportunity, progress is underway and can be further nurtured through targeted, inclusive and coordinated policy actions. Building on the conclusions of a first monitoring report released in 2017, the report analyses recent legislative, policy and institutional reforms in support of women’s economic empowerment in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia and seeks to identify success factors that have helped anchor reform. Moreover, it delivers actionable examples and practical tools for policy makers to help them transform policies into effective actions for women’s economic empowerment.
Methodology
This publication brings together a collection of case studies that illustrate recent legislative, institutional and policy reforms in support of women’s economic empowerment in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia. By recent reforms, we mean reforms that took place after the revision of the constitutions in the four countries following the Arab Spring over 2010-2011. Some of these reforms have already been mentioned in the 2017 OECD report on the impact of legal frameworks on women’s economic empowerment in selected MENA countries (OECD, 2017[1]). However, this report highlights new evolutions and goes more into depth about how and why reforms happened, which actors were involved and how the reforms are being/will be implemented in practice. The case studies are clustered within thematic chapters, which each contain an introduction to provide context, and conclusions to highlight commonalities between the case studies and their key takeaways. The objective of the case studies is not to compare countries with each other but rather to measure the progress of countries against internationally agreed standards and benchmarks on gender equality and women’s empowerment. Each chapter also provides policy recommendations on how to move forward.