Cairo – Finding Women at Work Should Not be this Hard

In  preparation  for  International  Women’s  Day,  UN  Women  Egypt  launches  new  print campaign titled “Finding Her” under the umbrella of UN Women’s global campaign “Planet 50-50 by 2030-Step it Up for Gender Equality” which calls upon governments to make national commitments to address the challenges that are holding women and girls back from reaching their full potential. Highlighting women’s persistent low labor force participation rate and the importance of supporting an enabling environment for young women and women to become economically independent, DDB Dubai created the campaign for UN Women Egypt. The campaign consists of three print advertisements where the audience is challenged to find the only woman in different workplace settings including technology, politics, and science. The main message behind the campaign is to shed light on the importance of equal opportunities for Egyptian women to participate in the labor force and contribute to the development of the Egyptian society.

“In  Egypt, according to CAPMAS (Central Agency for Public Mobilization  and Statistics), women’s participation in the labor force has been low and stagnant around 23 percent over the years, despite rising educational attainment among women, and the narrowing of the gender gap in education.  Research shows that gender parity in the workforce can increase Egypt’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 34%. So engaging women in the workforce does not only benefit the women and their families, but it also has great positive   benefits for the country’s economy as a whole”, stated Mr. Jorg Schimmel, UN Women Country Director a.i.

Commenting on the campaign, Firas Medrows, Executive Creative Director of DDB Dubai, says: “Even though the percentage of women in the workforce is so low, the issue still goes largely unnoticed. By creating these elaborate ads that you really spend time looking at, we wanted to raise awareness for the cause.”

The illustrations mark the beginning of a different activities to be carried out in the coming weeks by UN Women Egypt in relation to the 2017 theme of the International Women’s Day on 08 March “Women in the Changing World of Work”. UN Women Egypt and DDB Dubai are also discussing the expansion of the illustrations towards additional sectors of specific importance to Egypt.