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4.4 Creating Real Economic Empowerment for Women in MENA
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In this penultimate episode, Yara Shawky Shahin has a frank discussion with her colleague Yasmine D’Alessandro about how to create programmes of real economic empowerment for women in the Middle East and North Africa based on their decades long experience working with international and grassroots organisations in the region.
Yara Shawky Shahin is an Senior Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and a researcher and civil society professional with more than 20 years of experience in the fields of development, human rights, policy analysis, and not-for-profit management. Yara has worked with different organisations including UNHCR, Save the Children, and UNDP in programs supporting youth participation, inclusion, and integration. With the Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute, and recently Ford Foundation, her work focused on programs supporting media reform, freedom of expression, digital rights, and the impact of technology on society as well as advocating for inclusive social protections across countries of the MENA region.
Yasmine D’Alessandro is a senior development expert with over two decades of experience in the gender, economic empowerment, skills development and civil society fields. Yasmine has a solid grounding in program design, strategic planning, and program management across a wide spectrum of organisations, ranging from consultancy firms and international NGOs to independent grant-making institutions. Over the course of her career, she has successfully led initiatives that address complex social and economic challenges, in communities such as rural Upper Egypt, remote communities in Yemen, refugee camps in Jordan and pockets of poverty in urban centres in various countries, always with a focus on building sustainable and locally grounded impact. She has been consistently committed to bridging the gap between policy and practice, ensuring that programs are not only well-designed but also contextually relevant and responsive to community needs.
Find out more about Yara's work here: https://afsee.atlanticfellows.lse.ac.uk/en-gb/fellows/2023/yara-shawky-shahin
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Transcript
Introduction to Season 4
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Season 4 of Instant Coffee. I'm Nadine Almanasfi and this season we're very excited to be collaborating with our colleagues at the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity, based at the LSE International Inequalities Institute.
00:00:17
Speaker
This season's focus is a question. What does it take to affect meaningful social change in the Middle East? We thought what better way of exploring this question than by speaking with Atlantic Fellows past and present who are from the Middle East.
00:00:29
Speaker
These activists and practitioners from the region have come to the LSE to dedicate a year to academic research, thinking through how they can find sustainable strategies for social change.
Co-curation with Atlantic Fellows
00:00:39
Speaker
The episodes that follow explore questions such as how to build transnational networks of solidarity across the Middle East, what it takes to keep education going during the recent war on Gaza, and much more.
00:00:50
Speaker
All episodes have been co-curated with Atlantic Fellows Past and Present based on their spheres of activism and thinking. They have invited friends, colleagues and guests to highlight the challenges facing their communities, the work being done and future thinking.
Economic Empowerment for Women in MENA
00:01:03
Speaker
Based at the LSE International Inequalities Institute, the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity is a fellowship programme for mid-career social change leaders who are working to tackle inequality.
00:01:14
Speaker
In this episode, Yara Shouki Shaheen speaks to Yasmeen D'Alessandro about what needs to change in order for funders and international organisations to create programmes of real economic empowerment for women in the Middle East.
00:01:27
Speaker
Yara is with me now to introduce the episode. Yara, can you introduce yourself and Yasmeen and tell us about why you chose this topic? Definitely. Thank you, Nadine, very much for this interesting opportunity to share with you our research and our interests over the past many years when it comes to professional development and over the past year for this project in women's economic empowerment.
00:01:48
Speaker
But let me start by introducing myself. So my name is Yara Shawi Shaheen. I am a development and civil society expert and professional, have been working in the MENA region and globally over the past 23 years.
00:01:59
Speaker
with many organizations, international organizations, bilateral funders and donors, philanthropy in many and different fields. However, all the time my interests have been over the role of social justice movements in addressing inequalities. I'm also a senior Atlantic fellow for a social and economic equity. And um recently I have collaborated with my ah friend and colleague Yasmin D'Alessandro, who is herself, ah similar to me, a gender development expert and who have been working across many organizations in Egypt and them and the MENA region in a project around women economic empowerment.
00:02:37
Speaker
And what was this research about? I mean, the project was mainly to map the different investments and work that has been done addressing the women economic empowerment programming. And by this, we mean all of the programs that have been implemented by various international organizations, funders, international financial and institutions over the past 10 years across the whole MENA
Exploring the MENA Paradox
00:03:01
Speaker
region. It's such an ambitious project, but we have tried as much as possible to to capture the main highlights of those programs and the programming that has been done over the past 10 years. And across our work in particular, you know, the main piece of literature that has captured our attention was the one about the MENA paradox.
00:03:25
Speaker
Both Yara and Yasmin have decades of experience working in the fields of development, gender, economic empowerment, skills development, civil society and human rights. Working with international organisations as well as groups on the ground, their conversation is a reflection on what has worked and what can be improved.
00:03:42
Speaker
The conversation that follows attempts to transform our understanding of change in the development context from one that focuses on income-generating solutions for individual women to how can we think about structural strategies for collective empowerment for women.
00:03:56
Speaker
The conversation starts with a discussion on the paradox of women's economic participation. Before we listen to the conversation, Yara, could you explain what this paradox means in the literature? The MENA paradox, why women in our region, in the MENA region, have managed to attain high levels of women's educational attainment and and you know high levels of education. and health and a constant product of productive health. and and and And really, I mean, like when you look at women in the MENA region, you find them high level of education, universities, master's degrees. i mean, a lot of achievements. Nonetheless, their participation in the formal economy, in in the labor in labor and the formal economy in general, remains very limited to the extent that it is one of the lowest opportunities. across the globe. So it's it's a paradox, or it was, or it is described in the literature as a paradox. However, as we went through our research and looking and diving deeper into the so-called paradox, me and Yasmin We tried to unpack it.
00:05:03
Speaker
We tried to look at it and understand it. And we realized that it includes a lot of, or underscores a lot of complex sociocultural, legal, and economic barriers that inhibit women's active participation in economic life.
00:05:19
Speaker
We wanted to understand it more. We wanted to dissect it. And hopefully across this episode, we will try to share with you our two cents of the discoveries across our research journey.
00:05:32
Speaker
Hello everyone. Today I'm happy to be in this conversation with my colleague and research partner Yasmin D'Alessandro. Today with Yasmin we would like to discuss together our research and look into this whole paradox about women economic empowerment in our MENA region. Together, me and Yasmin, would like today to discuss and see if this paradox doesn't really exist, or maybe there are other aspects that we can shed the light on based on our research and experience that would help us demystify the paradox of women economic empowerment in the MENA region.
00:06:09
Speaker
Thank you so much, Yara. I'm so excited to be here with you and thank you for your invitation. This is a topic that we've worked on together a lot, but also it's been a passion of mine for a long time. So ever since I began so many years ago in the development field.
00:06:25
Speaker
So, yes, I would like to start by answering your question around what is the menoparadox, but also to question a little bit what we mean by women's economic empowerment, because sometimes there are different definitions or the the definition, it says one thing, but the practice is different. Let's start with the menoparadox, which was a term that was first coined back in 2012.
00:06:46
Speaker
in the World Bank report. You know, this the term lecture, it's still being used today. Although there has been over a decade that has passed, lots of events happening in the region, economic conflicts, social change.
Redefining Women's Economic Empowerment
00:06:59
Speaker
And still we are using a term that we have to ask ourselves, is it still a relevant term? Is it outdated?
00:07:05
Speaker
And the second thing I'd like to point out, but this is, you know, from my personal perspective, taking term from the World Bank report, is also very telling, right? Because we do know that it's coming from a very specific view of the world and paradigm of how development should look like. So anyway, so that's really quickly talking about the history of the term. And of course, we're going to be unpacking this together. What does the paradox mean today? And, you know, is it really such a mystery?
00:07:34
Speaker
But also before we delve into like, your you know, I'm sure you have a lot of questions for me. Before we move on, I'd like also to talk about, you know, what do we mean by women's economic empowerment? Beyond, you know, just women's participation in the labor force, whether it's, you know, through jobs or through setting up their own businesses and um as entrepreneurs or small or small enterprises, a lot of scholars and practitioners have discussed how women's economic empowerment involves as well their agency, their ability to make decisions with the assets that they have. Actually, in the first place, do they have ownership of assets? Or are these tools and assets and and things that you know have of value, are they actually owned by women? And do they have the decision making? Or are these not within their scope? And we we know from living in the region and anecdotal evidence from the programs that we have been working with over many, many years that
00:08:30
Speaker
you know Oftentimes, women do bring financial resources to the family, but they do not necessarily have the decision-making power, or they're not necessarily empowered within the household, and the kind of social issues that come out of that.
00:08:45
Speaker
So unfortunately, if you look at the programming that has been happening over the past decades that concerns women's economic empowerment, it focusing mainly on women's access to jobs, women's access to finance, so that they can make their own enterprises or create their social businesses, but there's very little in comparison that is being done on their ability to make decisions, their ability to
Macroeconomic and Informal Economy Contributions
00:09:08
Speaker
own assets. And these are issues that require policy and structural change and haven't happened at an equal level. more What's your take, Yara, about the MENA paradox?
00:09:21
Speaker
I totally agree with, you know, the different paradigms and entry points that could be telling us about the status of women, you know, contribution to the economy and that it is bigger than just part participation in labor.
00:09:34
Speaker
But I think, Yasmin, we cannot really... assess contribution to the economy and labor participation without looking also at the you know the macro outlook or the macro economic outlook in in the region. In particular, ah the employment market in the MENA region or the labor market, 60% of it is informal. It could exceed 60% to 75%. could be a little bit less.
00:10:00
Speaker
But this is a key feature of the economies of the MENA countries. In light of this, are we able really to say that women's contribution to to the economy or contribution to labor or labor participation is minimal? Is there really a paradox?
00:10:16
Speaker
Are we sure about this? From where do we drive the numbers that shows the huge contribution of women in the agriculture sector, for example, or in the informal urban types of jobs, or all of those women working from home doing catering or domestic workers.
00:10:33
Speaker
Are we sure really about the numbers of women who are really providing labor on daily basis in different informal sectors across the different countries of the MENA region?
00:10:44
Speaker
I think also one of the key issues here that we have to think about is their contribution through care, through the different unpaid care services that they provide within their families, to their children, to the elders. Is all of this calculated for? Is is all of this part of the economic assessments that are done on daily basis by the international financial institutions and key economic organizations or not? I think those are... Very important two questions when we are looking about women's contributions to the economy within our region, looking at the features of their economies. And a final thing that we have to think about in austerity measures and the debt crisis that has been hitting many of the countries of the MENA region and think about their implications.
Unpaid Care Work and the Invisible Economy
00:11:31
Speaker
on women's education and health as well, diminishing them because most of the cuts that happens due to the austerity measures happens in the sectors of education and health, impacting women's health and children and also impacting a lot of the services that would allow women to contribute in a better way or empowers them to contribute to the economy.
00:11:56
Speaker
So a paradox, maybe, but we have to ask ourselves why the paradox exists. Does it exist because women do not contribute or that we that they are invisible and we cannot see their contribution?
00:12:10
Speaker
Well, you're absolutely right, ah Yara. I think everything that you have mentioned so far is is a big, big reason why this apparent difference or gap between educational attainment and work is continues to appear. so There is definitely in the MENA economies across the region, with some few exceptions, for example, in the Gulf countries, but for the for the vast majority of the other countries, a lot of the economies are mainly informal. And because women usually have less access to skills development opportunities, less access to education, although these statistics have increased, but there's a preference of women to enter into the informal economy. the informal economy is support is helping women juggle the different responsibilities that they have in the home and at work. And we'll come back, ah I'll come back to the the point about the the care responsibilities. And, you know, it's worth talking about that in more depth. But so a large portion of women find themselves in the informal economy and the official statistics that are included in these global reports around women's participation do not reflect the informal role of women. So we need to ask ourselves, Why is this the
COVID-19 and Initiatives for Care Economy
00:13:21
Speaker
case? Like you mentioned, the world word invisible, this is exactly a term that applies to this phenomenon. So that women's care responsibilities and and care role is invisible, but also their contribution to the economy or because it's in the informal sector. this is rendered invisible as well. This is something that research centers, that governments, that multilateral organizations and anybody interested in understanding and supporting women's economic empowerment need to to look at. So once you get the data, you are going to be able to understand where women are contributing, what are their needs, and then start supporting them and providing them with the interventions that they require.
00:14:00
Speaker
You know, we all are aware that women's care contributions, like you mentioned, not just for children, but also the elderly, ah people perhaps in the family who are having a disability, all these have traditionally and continue to be the sole responsibility for women. The statistics show that in the MENA region in particular, things haven't changed much. So while other regions, there are statistics that show that men are taking up more of these responsibilities, especially with childcare, but this is not the case in the MENA region.
00:14:31
Speaker
And unfortunately, serious programming around this issue only began with COVID, right? So because COVID, with the pandemic and with the lockdowns, everybody suddenly began to realize, oh, that you know women are doing a lot of work. They're not just stay at home. there is a lot of work to be done. And here a momentum began where international organizations, including the World Bank, including the IFC, are now having programs around the the care economy. So the care economy is a new term where what they're trying to describe how to create jobs for women in care to free up other women to go out to work. So it's in layman terms, it's like ah creating a win-win situation, creating jobs for women in care but also freeing up women who are interested in other careers to be able to pursue that.
00:15:20
Speaker
Now, the issue with that is it's not as simple as it seems. And we've seen across the region, maybe you and I are also through our research that we've completed recently, we've seen some pilot programs across the region, but not all of them have been so successful because what you need to do is you need to build the infrastructure and the policies and the systems that can do that. So at a national level, you need to start ensuring that there is a care system, that it has certain standards that of care, that there are policies in place and to create trust among among families that they can be able to use this as a service. And then from there, think so. So it's it's something that doesn't happen overnight. It's something that requires a lot of investment.
00:16:06
Speaker
And now here we come to the austerity part, right? Because this is exactly what we started the conversation with, which is 2012, a term. We're talking now 2025, what has happened over the past 12, 13, 14 years, which is a very big period of economic hardships.
00:16:26
Speaker
because of austerity, all these you know potentially great programs for, for example, addressing the care economy or providing solutions are unable to be put in place.
Microfinance and Entrepreneurship in Empowerment
00:16:38
Speaker
Actually, Asmina, I totally agree with you. I mean, the austerity measures that has been taken and adopted by many of the Arab countries or the MENA countries in in the past 12 to 13 years have hindered and delayed a lot of the measures taken in place, in particular to tackle the issue of unpaid care and how to bring it visible into the different assessments and calculations of economic development in the region, but also putting in place programs that that would allow women to contribute further further and labor part participation. And we are talking here also about care facilities for children or also putting you know employment programming for women across the board and in different regions to get paid for their care work. for the elderly, for people with disability. And this would really be very interesting because it will empower women on level by providing them with income and contribution to the economy. But also it will have a different, completely different outlook to the numbers and the and the levels of economic development that are happening across the MENA countries.
00:17:50
Speaker
But also, I would like to take your opinion in an area that you have been working vastly over the past past years, which is the microfinance programs and entrepreneurship programs that has been recently seen and perceived as a silver bullet.
00:18:06
Speaker
You know, that that the best solution that has been out there for women's contribution to the economy. It gives women the flexibility to do to generate income through doing their own small projects within their community. And at the same time, they will be able to juggle the different care responsibilities. So, I mean, theoretically, this sounds like like a great idea, but I would like to hear more from you about in reality and based on your expertise in the field over the past 20 years, did this really empower women, if we can say so? Does it give them voice and agency or it's still putting us stuck in the area of assets?
00:18:46
Speaker
you know, generating income, maybe that they can contribute to themselves and their family, but voice, agency, what do you think? Yeah, thank you, Yara. entrepreneurship is a very important aspect of the types of interventions that have been implemented so far. You know, a simple mapping of the women's economic empowerment interventions across the region will show that there are three, four types, main types of interventions. One is ah training, and employment, and the other is microfinance slash access to finance slash entrepreneurship. And, you know, they were 50-50 in the past. Now, there's a lot more focus on entrepreneurship programming. And the question is why? It's it's interesting to ask ourselves that question when we know that globally, only one in 10 startups actually continue beyond the third or fourth year.
00:19:39
Speaker
So are we providing real solutions? Are we really empowering women or are we just providing temporary solutions so that we can get people off the poverty list? Right. So this is a very interesting question. Another thing is, of course, you know, entrepreneurship is being touted as the silver bullet, like you mentioned, or a solution for all kinds of women from the ladies who are maybe based in a rural area and that, you know, or street vendors, you all the way to somebody who is in an informal urban settlement and she has a sewing machine and trying to make a living, all the way up to university graduates who decide that they are love baking and they do niche keto kind of friendly foods.
00:20:21
Speaker
You know, what kinds of interventions are needed for these different kinds of women, right? And are the trainings and the capacity buildings that are being given on how to start your business and how you know, to understand the market and so on, are they sufficient? Or is there more need for accompaniment across a longer period of time, like a year or two years, for these businesses to really be able to stand up on their own feet? At the same time, in light of the austerity measures, in light of the grave economic crisis that we have been seeing in the region, what is happening is that, you know, economies are witnessing high inflation. So all these small businesses created by women
00:21:00
Speaker
They have increasing costs of raw material, salaries, transportation, And in the same time, there is like a decline in consumer buying capacity. So the risk is being taken completely by these women from the lady who is selling in the market like a street vendor all the way up to those who are better off. So really, we have to ask ourselves, why is entrepreneurship? Is it really the solution or is it just something and temporary you know to say that interventions have been happening? In short, what I'm trying to say is that entrepreneur entrepreneurship basically displaces the problem. We're displacing a macro level economic issue and putting the entire responsibility of your own income and so on on
Need for Holistic Economic Programming
00:21:43
Speaker
the individual. And this is something that is basically quintessentially neoliberal. And what I think what we're trying to say through our discussion today, looking at the MENA paradox, what we're actually saying is that it's a problem of the paradigm that we are The economies of the global economy and the economies of the region are a following, which is putting all the the onus and responsibility on the individual. Now, there are some voices across the region who are criticizing and providing alternative solutions, but they're not being heard as much as they should.
00:22:15
Speaker
I totally agree. And I have been seeing exactly what you are talking about in all of the different other projects and initiatives that are trying to look at the use of new technologies and digital labor and to provide employment for women.
00:22:31
Speaker
And I guess the key um common picture between entrepreneurship or digital entrepreneurship or digital labor and work is also the lack of social protection measures in place. I mean, um income generation for women. And ah im I'm now feeling that we have to call many of those projects and programs income generating rather than women women empowerment. and ah Most of them come by offering women definitely opportunities to generate income that would eventually fall into um and a better life standard or maybe just take them out of the poverty list, as you said, Yasmin rightly, and help their families a little bit more, but without having social protection measures in place that protect their rights and empower them further. I guess that moving away from the poverty line remains here at stake.
00:23:30
Speaker
But I mean, i think, Yasmin, we are in full agreement. Maybe we can think together of what what we would like to see in the future for the programming under the objective or the title of Women Economic Empowerment.
00:23:45
Speaker
Absolutely, absolutely, Yara. And I will try to also focus and reflect back on the paradox, the idea of the paradox, you know, so is there really a paradox like, you know, your opening question? So basically, unless we have long term programming, programming that is looking at the economy holistically and not just trying to do interventions at the level of women in such and such an area or using such and such a type of intervention. It really is about not displacing the macro level economics to the
Impact of Humanitarian Crises on Empowerment
00:24:17
Speaker
micro level. So this is an important part of why this paradox seems apparently to be there, because these macro level issues are still there. Another reason why the paradox is apparently there is like we already mentioned in terms of the informal sector. Women are engaged in the informal sector, and the informal sector is a very significant sector of the economies of the region for various reasons. Therefore, it seems like women are not contributing, whereas, in fact, there are very, very few households who can afford to not have women contributing to the incomes of their households. And, of course, the care, the care responsibilities and unpaid care work.
00:25:00
Speaker
I'd like to also, you know, we cannot talk about the region, especially over the past few years without talking about the grave humanitarian crises and how these affects the region. They do not only disrupt entire economies and create a lot of displacement. So people are leaving their homes, their assets, they're losing their savings, they're losing their jobs. But also it's affecting where the funds that donors are putting. So it's now shifted towards humanitarian interventions rather than the development work. so all of these factors really need to take to be taken into consideration. And once that happens, I think it will not be apparent that, you know, maybe the statistics are the ones that need to be reviewed, and seeing how they are being collected and how they're being researched.
00:25:45
Speaker
Thank you, Esmeen, very much also for highlighting the humanitarian aspect. And actually, because of those very difficult situations and conflict settings around many of the countries of our region, women are paying the toll twice. They are paying the toll of the conflict itself and the displacement that the whole community is going through, but also are paying the toll of being women, being the kid you know being the main caretaker of their families, being the main caretaker of their children,
00:26:17
Speaker
And all of those conflicts are hindering and hampering their, you know, their quest for empowerment and existence and development within their communities.
Growing Contributions and Advocacy
00:26:28
Speaker
I want to end our conversation on a positive note that in spite of all of the conflicts in our region and in spite of all of the economic hardships, women's contributions to our communities in every day is increasing, actually. They are part of the daily struggles for development and change in our communities.
00:26:50
Speaker
um And this doesn't only include women in urban settings or women in women rights organizations and are part of the feminist movement. Definitely, they are there on the forefront and front liners, but also all of the women in the rural areas. and All of the women who are struggling on daily basis just to bring in fresh water to their households or taking care of their children or going through a conflict or a setting where their own lives are at stake are also part of those daily struggles. and And I'm sure that with the collective engagement among women,
00:27:30
Speaker
all of the frontliners defending women's rights and their contribution to the economy in reaching out to those women and bringing in their voices globally, we will be able to see more advancement in the women economic empowerment programming in the future. Thank you, Yara. You've put it an amazing way. And I thank you so much for our chat and looking forward to you know potential discussions in the future.
00:27:57
Speaker
Thank you for listening to Instant Coffee, a podcast brought to you by the LSE Middle East Centre. To learn more about Yara and Yasmeen's work, follow the links in the podcast description. Our last episode of the season will be released next week, where AFSI fellow Ahmed Abu Hussain will share insights on urban exclusion in the Middle East and how new terminology might help us unpack and improve policy planning in the future.