Eighth meeting of “@NGED” in Dubai:
Towards more networking among “@NGED" and GERPA members

“Gender and Economics in MENA: from Theory to Policymaking”, the Center of Arab Women for Training and Research “CAWTAR” is holding, in partnership with the Dubai School of Government and the support of the World Bank, the second meeting between members of the Arab Network for Gender and Development “@NGED” and the members of the Gender Economic Research and Policy Analysis “GERPA.” The meeting will be held on November 16 and 17 in Dubai.

This meeting, the eighth in the history of “@NGED” will be dedicated specifically to its members in the Arab Gulf region. It will provide an opportunity to meet with important Arab and international political, economic and academic figures, including Dr. Fatima Al Balushi, Minister for Development and Social Affairs in Bahrain, Mrs. Suhair Al-Ali, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Mr. James D. Wolfensohn, former World Bank president, Mr. Mustafa Al Nabli, Director of the Department of economic affairs in the Middle East and North Africa at the World Bank and Dr. Gary Becker, Professor of Economics in the University of Chicago, in addition to a host of members of "@NGED" and of “GERPA” and members of the Gender and Public Policies Program at the Dubai School of Government.

The agenda of the meeting includes several topics to be discussed as part of forums of dialogue and related to the issues of health, education, poverty, participation in the labor market, potential and challenges facing women investors, the teaching of gender and public policy in the Arab world, improving data collection in the Arab world: the establishment of links between governmental agencies and research organizations and enhancing the role of national mechanisms for women in the Gulf Cooperation Council.

During the evening session of the second day, a roundtable will be held to discuss means to make the most of the results of researches carried out under the GERPA initiative to enhance advocacy for the empowerment of women.

The main objective of this meeting and of the coordination of efforts between “@NGED” and “GERPA” members in general consist in taking advantage from the expertise of members of the "@NGED" network among individuals and institutions, and make the most of their efforts to access decision-makers in order to integrate the gender approach in economic policies, thereby enhancing the capacity of women's access to economic opportunities, through the establishment of programs and plans to ensure political equality between the sexes in access to opportunities and resources.

The “Gender Economic Research and Policy Analysis” is an initiative launched by the World Bank in 2005. In the same year, “CAWTAR” was tasked with assuming the role of scientific and executing agency of its projects.

Given the strategic nature of the activities of this initiative designed to mainstream the gender approach into existing programs and projects, develop and conduct gender researchers and integrate the economic approach in research methods according to gender, a call was issued for participation with scientific researches and studies on the subject of the initiative under the form of a competition dedicated to researchers in the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and Iran.

The first round of the competition, whose results were announced in December 2006, led to the selection of 27 researches to be funded by the World Bank out of a total of 60 research projects which bid for the competition.

In order to promote the production of other gender economic approaches which focus on the analysis of the role of women in the economic process, the second round of the competition of “GERPA” was launched in 2008 to select best researches in the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and Iran. The most notable areas of research that have been suggested to researchers and that are supported by GERPA are women's participation in the labor market in the Middle East and North Africa, education and training as a means to empower women, reform of the health system and the role of women as recipients and beneficiaries of health services, health and reform of the role of women as suppliers and users, the role of civil society in promoting the status of women, globalization and the new opportunities for women ...

Participants will discuss in the Dubai meeting the advocacy potential for researches selected in the first round and how to make the most of them in developing programs to empower women in the Middle East and North Africa, especially in the economic sphere.
Media people have been strategic partners in all activities of “@NGED” since its creation and over 7 years. For this reason, “CAWTAR” was keen to ensure their involvement in the activities of the “GERPA” initiative. Hence, they took part in the meeting organized in Washington during the month of April under the theme "Gender and Economy: from theory to decision-making "to contribute to the development of the media strategy associated with the strategy of the deployment of the major recommendations of the meeting and convey the results of researches to policy-makers.
“CAWTAR” also made the most of the information tools it used to deploy such as the “CAWTARYAT” newsletter by publishing its 29th issue dedicated to the “GERPA” initiative and the various activities held within the framework of networking between it and “@NGED,” including the meeting to be held in Dubai.