Egypt's Minister of Planning Hala Al-Saeed said on Saturday that the the Sustainable Development Strategy: Egypt Vision 2030 targets raising the participation rate of women in the labour market to 35% by 2020 and to 40% by 2030. She made the remarks during her meeting on Saturday with the UN Women country representative in Egypt, Blerta Aliko, to review the organisation's work in the country, in addition to discussing means of providing the governmental support for the organisation's role in the service of women. Al-Saeed asserted that women's empowerment is part of the sustainable development strategy of Egypt Vision 2030, noting that the state is working to integrate women, reduce the gender gap, and provide proper work opportunities for women by the year 2020. She asserted that the state is taking distinct steps towards women's empowerment, pointing out to currently having six ministries led by women and 89 female members of parliament. According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS)'s latest statistics, women in Egypt represent a larger proportion of its population, as they reached 45.9 million in 2017. In terms of the labour force, the percentage of female participation in the country's workforce reached 22.9% (15 to 64-year-olds), which represents nearly one-third of men's share of the labour force, which was 69.9%, according to the latest statistics released by the CAPMAS. On the other hand, the "unemployment rate reached 23.6% for females compared to 8.9% for males in 2016," the CAPMAS stated previously. Furthermore, the CAPMAS explained that the percentage of female workers in the governmental sector reached 25.8%, versus 74.2% for males.
