Middle East North Africa Development Forum phase 5

Following a call for papers organized in the framework of MDF5, CAWTAR has collected papers submitted by high level researchers within and outside the MENA, under the theme of Gender and Trade in MENA region. Thanks to the financial support of the World Bank, this is one of the major contributions to the event, as the report will be disseminated to all participants and interested parties during the session CAWTAR will be leading under the theme of Considering Gender in Institutional Reforms. As MDF5 partner and workshop leader, CAWTAR motivation was to sensitize throughout this report, researchers, policy makers and think tanks to the implications of an accelerated process of liberalization and globalization in MENA region, and to be aware of its non gender neutral aspect, commonly and traditionally put in the front scene. For so doing, amongst the winners and competitors for the call, the Center has gathered rich empirical evidences transmitted through case studies prepared respectively by Assaad for the case of Morocco and Egypt, Ben Slama for the Tunisian case study, Nassar for the specific Egyptian case and finally Senesen for the Turkish case.

As an introduction to the report, Olmsted’s chapter raises the specificities in MENA countries comparatively to other regions, especially when it comes to dealing with the implications of Globalization on Women. Then, Assaad emphasizes the contrast existing between Morocco and Egypt which respectively experience feminization and defeminization of their labour force given the trend of liberalization. Indeed, Morocco stands out with Tunisia to be the only one which conforms with this trend to feminization, in opposition to their neighbour countries in the region such as Egypt; throughout his paper, he provides empirical evidences based on examination of the conditions which could enable the feminization of the labour force in each of the two countries. Moreover, Ben Slama focuses through his analysis on the case of Tunisia’s Labour market, which is, as mentioned by Assaad among the MENA countries experiencing the biggest trend towards feminization. He sheds the light on the evolution of female work at different levels of the process of liberalization, and the different factors that may encourage the feminization of sectors compared to others, which differ in terms of skills required, capital or labour intensive types of activities, etc. Nassar then places her survey in the Egyptian context stating on how difficult it is to encourage feminization of sectors, apart from public service jobs which remain women intensive, as well as the informal sectors. In parallel, she manages to recommend measures which could improve women’s position in the labour market. Finally, Senesen presents the Gender aspects of privatization due to liberalization, by focusing on the specific case of female tobacco workers in Turkey. Finally, Moghadam concludes by giving an assessment on female workers in the region, so as to keep in mind the challenges that remain in this field. Indeed, the region is still characterized by the lowest rate of female workers in the world economy. She also makes policy recommendations in order to foster gender mainstreaming in the field of international economics and local market structures.

In a nutshell, this high quality compiled research on Gender implications of Trade in MENA region has provided new patterns which are of main interest nowadays in relation to the internationalization of the economies, and which could hopefully contribute in enhancing the dialogue with policy makers and all stakeholders concerned in the region.

This report has been launched during the MDF5 event, which was held from April 6-9 in Beirut, Lebanon.

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