The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) will continue to raise awareness and promote women’s rights by providing policy recommendations to close the gender gap in the Euro-mediterranean region. In this sense, UfM will join the international celebrations for Women’s Day by releasing the first-ever Intergovernmental Monitoring Mechanism on Gender Equality for the UfM region report, which will be published on the 5th of March and will focus primarily on women’s economic participation.

The data clearly show that women entrepreneurs who own a business in Europe and in the MENA region represent just the 6,2% of the population, highlighting that there is still a lot of room for improvement in this field. 

To improve the general context for business women, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and the UfM have joined forces with Business Club Africa, to launch the first MENA Women Business Club. This initiative involves more than 130 women entrepreneurs and aims to create better networking opportunities and support them in this sense.