ILO Country Coordinator in Jordan, Amal Mowafi, during her opening remarks

Gender equality affects women throughout their entire lives. Gender equality starts with the equal access to education, then continues with equal access to any gainful occupations, security of work, equal renumeration, and, finally, equal pensions. Significant barriers that affect all of the above are conscious and unconscious biases and myths such as girls aren’t good at maths, hiring women is a bad idea since they will go on maternity leave, women are less productive since they need to take care of children, and so on. Such barriers are often hard to overcome. However, societies that debunk these myths enjoy higher labour force participation of women, diversity of perspectives brought to the table and more empathetic and agile styles of leadership.
Working women often lack any kind of social security
The majority of women around the world work in unregulated jobs for long hours with little pay and no security at the workplace. They lack health and unemployment  insurance, protection against employment injury and disability, and maternity protection.

The vast majority of social security schemes are only available to workers in the formal economy and thereby exclude a significant proportion of women who are overrepresented in the informal sector, in self-employment and among the working poor. Women are also more likely to work in casual, temporary and part-time jobs and in sectors with less protection through labour legislation, such as domestic work or as contributing family workers in agriculture.

Access to a comprehensive set of social protection measures for women can break intergenerational cycles of poverty and have a transformative effect on society as a whole. In order to be effective in promoting gender equality and to avoid unintended consequences, a gender lens should be applied in the design, implementation and monitoring of social protection schemes. Promoting meaningful participation of women in the design and evaluation of social protection schemes can help ensure that their needs are effectively met.

Gender inequality in the world of work is among the most pressing development challenges facing the global community. Women are less likely than men to participate in the labour market, are less likely to find a job, and when they do, women are often subject to various barriers to advancement and wellbeing. Despite having achieved near equal rates of primary school enrolment and a dramatic drop in illiteracy rates for both women and men, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has struggled to translate this into women’s participation in all aspects of political, social and economic life. The Global Gender Gap Report of 2021 ranks the region last globally in the overall index and fifth, ahead of South Asia, on Economic Participation.

Her Excellency Eng. Maha Al-Ali, Secretary General of the Jordanian National Commission for Women, during her opening remarks

The region has the world’s lowest female labour force participation rates, the overall labour force participation rate in the region in 2020 is 47.9%. For women it stands at around 20% The lowest compared to other regions. There is a need for further progress in several interconnected areas to increase the economic participation of women, including improvements required in the legal and regulatory frameworks, enhanced access to skills training, reduction and redistribution of unpaid care work (reduce the high cost of child and elderly care, household chores), improved access to decent working conditions, comprehensive social security coverage (maternity and pension), and enhanced access to resources (land, property, finances), to mention a few.

There is an expanding body of research on the business case for gender equality, and it is becoming increasingly evident that it is rational for governments and businesses to promote gender equality and women’s economic empowerment. Quite simply, equality makes economic and business sense. There is macroeconomic evidence that if women in the MENA region participated in the paid economy on an equal footing to men, the regional GDP could rise by 47 per cent over the next 10 years, adding an extra USD 600 billion in economic impact annually and USD 2.7 trillion by 2025.

For individual businesses the logic of gender equality is compelling. For one, prejudice based on sex can impede the recruitment or promotion of the best candidate for the job; secondly, a diverse workforce brings with it different ideas, and ways of doing things that will propel innovation and therefore make a business more profitable; and in an era of globalization where one’s market may not simply be the locality or even the country where a business is located, diverse workforces are better mirrors of the diverse populations to whom companies are trying to sell goods or services.

Group photo during the event

Economic security is critical to women’s overall well-being and contributes to educational attainment, health, agency, family stability, and community engagement. To achieve economic empowerment, efforts to expand the scale, type and quality of job opportunities are necessary, as well as facilitating conducive policies and legislations, and ensuring compatibility with family life in terms of maternity, child and elderly care provisions and facilities.

It is against this background that UN Women and ILO have developed a multi-country programme to promote decent employment opportunities for women in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine by addressing the structural causes of inequalities that women face in the region. While this programme aims to tackle common issues across countries, it will do so by taking into consideration country context specificities. 
In line with commitments outlined in the SDGs, and in particular of SDG 5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls) and SDG 8 (Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all), the strategies will include promoting equitable labour laws and policies; engaging public, private and community actors (with attention to involving men); and reducing the unequal burden of unpaid care work.

Working with a wide range of partners from among the government institutions, the private sector, employers’ and workers’ organizations, and the civil society, the programme will work at three levels, macro, meso and micro, reflected in the programme outcomes.
UN Women and ILO bring distinct comparative advantages to the joint programme, having a strong history of promoting gender equality and women’s economic empowerment in the region. UN Women will leverage its global leadership for gender equality and women’s empowerment, its role as UN coordinator on gender equality and women’s empowerment, and its strategic relationships with government institutions and civil society organizations, in particular the women’s rights movement and the private sector through the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs). For its part the ILO has a unique tripartite structure, bringing governments and employers’ and workers’ organizations together, has an explicit mandate to promote decent work for all women and men through international labour standards, and is concerned with the promotion of social justice including gender equality in the world of work. 
Deputy Minister of Labour - Invalids and Social Affairs Nguyen Thi Ha affirmed Vietnam’s commitments and efforts to ensure social welfare, promote gender equality and gender-based violence prevention and response over the past time.
She asked authorities at all levels, sectors and localities to focus on communication activities to raise awareness of agencies, organisations and people on gender equality; actively commit to and take concrete and practical actions to build an equal society, free of violence and abuse against women and children.
Elisa Fernandez Saenz, Country Representative of UN Women Vietnam, shared specific recommendations to address the root reasons for gender inequality, discrimination and gender violence, including changes in social norms through developing a culture of respect and equality among all genders at home, at school, at workplace, in public places and even cyberspace.
These efforts need to be accompanied by strong political will expressed through a comprehensive law and policy system, long-term evidence-based initiatives to change social norms, the provision of reliable data on forms of gender-based discrimination and violence against different groups, and the availability of affordable, reliable gender-sensitive essential services to survivors of gender-based violence, emphasised Elisa Fernandez.
On behalf of United Nations organizations in Vietnam, Fernandez affirmed that the United Nations is committed to continuing to support Vietnam in promoting gender equality, eliminating discrimination and gender-based violence, towards achieving gender equality, toward realising the Sustainable Development Goals.
Data show that in Vietnam, two out of three married women (nearly 63%) have experienced one or more forms of violence by their intimate partners in their lifetime. The National Action Month is an opportunity for all stakeholders and citizens to take practical actions to eliminate gender-based discrimination and violence.
The United Nations is committed to continuing to support Vietnam in promoting gender equality, eliminating discrimination and gender-based violence, and moving towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, according to the UN Women Vietnam.