Cairo, June 20th, 2017) As part of the Egyptian Mission to the United Nations – led by H.E. Ambassador. Amr Ramadan, Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nation -ECWR join’s Egypt’s delegation to the 35th session of the Human Rights Council currently being held in Geneva.
In the side-event, that was attended by a large number of countries and civil society organizations representatives, Dr. Maya Morsi, President of the National Council for Women (NCW), presented Empowering Egyptian Women Strategy 2030, which comes as the first strategy worldwide for empowering women in the frame of Sustainable Development Goals 2030. Dr. Maya also presented the methodology followed in formulating the strategy, its pillars and respective indicators.
Dr. Maya emphasized that the President declared officially that Empowering Egyptian Women Strategy2030 is the action plan for the coming years emphasizing that the plans, programs and projects included in this strategy and its economic, political, social, protection pillars, as well as its legislative and cultural interventions Will be implemented.
Dr. Majid Othman, NCW member, also spoke about the monitoring and evaluation frame of the strategy that will insure a periodic follow-up of the strategy at the level of the Cabinet Board of Governors, and the Egyptian women observatory of the NCW. It is worth mentioned that NCW will establish this observatory to periodically assess the Egyptian women status. The observatory will monitor the strategy indicators on a regular basis, promoting evidence-based monitoring and evaluation.
Mrs. Nehad Abul Qomsan, Chairwoman of the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, addressed the mechanisms of activating and monitoring the national strategy, which included reviewing the Strategy objectives and the implemented activities so far and the role of the partners, both at the governmental level – including ministries, partner bodies- and the civil society level. De-central action plans were developed at the level of each governorate in Egypt, which came after holding workshops across all Egyptian governorates. This comes in addition to designing the framework offer a one stop a unit to support female survivors of violence. The unit will provide legal and psychological support services.
Also, Dr. Abla Abdel-Latif, Director of the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies, discussed the main features of economic pillar in Empowering Egyptian Women Strategy 2030, its objectives and implementation mechanisms. . Dr. Abla also mentioned statistics on the contribution of women in the economy, referring to some of the studies conducted by the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies concerning women. This comes in addition to presenting the successful experience of the project “Your Job is by Your House” that currently implemented in 13 factories in Qalyoubia in and currently, we and will expand as it resulted in a remarkable increase in the rate of employment of women in this governorate.
It is worth mentioning that Ms. Nehad Abul Qomsan has been appointed by the National Council for Women and UNFPA as a consultant to develop an implementation and monitoring and evaluation frame work for the National Strategy for Combating Violence Against Women developed by the National Council for Women.
The 35th session of the UN Human Rights Council began on June 6, 2017 and runs until June 23 through which a number of human rights issues are being discussed. It is worth mentioning that the Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, is an intergovernmental body within the United Nations system. It aims to promote and protect human rights in all countries of the world.
