At least 45,000 new jobs for women are expected to be created across the Arab region next year through UN Women’s Surging Women’s Employment Initiative (SWEI), as the agency intensifies efforts to boost female workforce participation. The initiative, outlined during a panel at the Second World Summit for Social Development in Qatar, is designed to counter one of the region’s most persistent labour market challenges: women’s labour force participation in MENA has stagnated at around 20% for three decades, despite women now outnumbering men in universities and representing 57% of STEM graduates.
UN Women Regional Director for the Arab States, Dr Moez Doraid, said that SWEI aims to increase women’s workforce participation by five percentage points within five years, and is targeting 500,000 new roles over a five-year roadmap. Key growth channels include the green economy, STEM-driven industries, digital entrepreneurship, and the care economy, where women already make up a majority of workers. The initiative is supported by Arab governments and major international partners including the EU, Spain, Germany and the Islamic Development Bank.
The programme is focused on macro policy interventions, labour law reforms, enabling childcare infrastructure, financial access, and societal norm shifts, including efforts to reduce the 4.7 hours of unpaid daily domestic care performed by women compared to just one hour by men. UN Women said the region’s shifting mindsets, stronger STEM pipelines, and private sector collaboration through more than 700 WEPs-aligned companies will be critical to expanding employment pathways for women in 2025 and beyond.