With the aim of exploring forces that will improve the region's economic future, gender equality took center stage at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East. A seminar dubbed "Middle East Gender Parity Group: Vision for 2020 shed light on the progress of narrowing the gender gap in the region and ways to deal with the remaining challenges. The seminar brought together 50 experts Sunday to launch the Middle East Gender Parity Group, focusing on the benefits of integrating women in the workforce, giving them equal political rights and economic leadership. It stressed the human rights angle as well as acknowledging the difficulty of achieving long-term progress and development without fully engaging half of the population. Key figures from the region included Secretary General of the Arab League Amr Moussa, Jordan's Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Maha Khatib, and Egypt's Minister of Finance Youssef Boutros-Ghali. Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, also took part as facilitator. The initiative started in 2001, when the forum wanted to increase the number of female participants in its programs. That year, only 18 percent out of the 2,500 participants were women. Although the number of female participants has doubled since then, the group realized they were facing an "external ceiling resulting from the fact that the number of women in senior leadership positions worldwide is relatively small. Saadia Zahidi, associate director and head of the Women Leaders' Program, wanted to look beyond the participants and make a contribution to the world in gender-related issues. "We thought that one of the best ways to do this is not just look at it on the perspective of human rights . but it is also extremely important for the competitiveness of countries, she told Daily News Egypt. "One half of the human resources of any country are women, and if that one half is not healthy, educated, integrated into the decision-making processes or into the economy then the country will suffer from less human resources, less innovation, less ideas and less human capitals [in comparison to countries with more gender equality]. We must first quantify a problem in order to solve it, said Zahidi. To do so, the Global Gender Gap Report is issued on an annual basis. Each country is evaluated by comparing men and women's salaries, participation levels, access to high-skilled employment and educational attainment, political empowerment, life expectancy and gender ratio. This report aims to serve as a benchmarking tool to track inequality, monitor the progress and showcase best practices in the business world for increasing equality. The indicators are measured - based on numbers with no cultural or religious factors - by Laura Tyson, professor of business administration and economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and Ricardo Hausmann, director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University. Thirteen indicators on the index come from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO), and one indicator comes from the World Economic Forum executive survey. Based on the output, each country is ranked accordingly. In the November 2007 report, Egypt came in at number 120 out of 128 countries - making it one of the top ten countries with gender inequality, scoring 0.581. (Perfect equality is one and perfect inequality is zero). The lowest ranking country is Yemen, scoring 0.451. "The Middle East and North Africa region is among the worst on the overall ranking, but if you look for example at education and health, the Middle East it is starting to do well. so the message this gives us is that women are starting to be as healthy and educated as men in this region but they are simply nowhere in the decision-making structures, in terms of political empowerment and economics. This is the case in Egypt. When comparing women's health to men's, the gap has narrowed by over 97 percent. The gap in education is also doing well, narrowing by 90 percent. However huge gaps appear in incomes, where women earn about fifth of what men earn. Political power is also especially weak in the country, with only 2 percent female parliamentarians. "This is a pattern that is repeated over and over in the Arab region, adds Zahidi, "so it is a waste of resources. We have a work force of women that is almost as healthy and as educated as men ... clearly the region has made huge progress but it is not being channeled into the economy. It is an investment that could be used more effectively. There's always room for improvement, even in the highest ranking country: Sweden scored a 0.81, which means it still needs to close the gap by 19 percent. This content gathered is used as a catalyst for closing the gender gap through Regional Gender Parity Groups. Each region is represented by its own group - Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia - consisting of 50 leaders (25 women and 25 men). These parity groups meet at the summits of the World Economic Forum in Davos as well as in each of their regions. The aim of the group is firstly to highlight not just the challenges but also the opportunities of the region. Women are lagging far behind in terms of economic participation or political empowerment, but, according to Zahidi, that is also an opportunity because that means it is one way the region can push itself forward in the next 10-20 years. Secondly, to create an opportunity for exchange between countries that have been able to mend the gap. For example, even though Kuwait and Tunisia are in the bottom half of the ranking, they are doing better than other Arab countries, creating an example Egypt can follow. Another goal is to realize that closing the gender gap is something that can be achieved in a short time, with an aim of implementing the ideas that came out of the workshop over the next two years and see serious progress by 2020. Change can happen in a short time, Zahidi says, citing Spain, which jumped 10 percent in six years. During the workshop, participants were asked to imagine that it is the year 2020 and that gender parity has been achieved in the region. They were then asked to examine four different impact areas - educational opportunities, senior business leadership, entry-level employment and political leadership - and what was done in each of these areas to achieve gender parity. The group then came out with a list of recommendations, firstly to place more women in key public decision-making positions (as ministers, parliamentarians, local government leaders). Also, to develop more effective legislation for empowering women and ensure that this legislation is implemented. Changing the image of successful women is necessary. The group proposed creating targeted media campaigns aimed at changing mindsets about women's economic participation and leadership. They also recommended including more positive images of working women in school textbooks to change perceptions among girls and boys at an early age. It is also essential to make the working environment more women-friendly, which entails offering services such as childcare and transportation between homes and offices. To lead by example, the group also suggested publicly recognizing businesses that provide a supportive environment for female employees. This would create incentives for other companies as well as making women searching for jobs aware of the best employers. Another significant change would be to increase women's role in the religious leadership in the region to encourage societal change. Finally, to promote girls' education in high-tech fields since future growth will be driven by this sector
