Women-owned businesses (WOBs) in the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) region could make significant contributions to entrepreneurial activity and countries’ economic growth, but face challenges and barriers. This report examines access to finance in the United Arab Emirates for WOBs; describes government and private measures to promote women’s entrepreneurship; looks at global best practices and makes recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders to improve women-owned businesses’ access to financing.

With thanks to the Government of Japan, who generously funded the regional LEAP and COVID-19 programmes as well as the resilience monitoring efforts, UN Women was able to roll-out the gender-sensitive resilience capacity index in 5 countries, namely Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Yemen, through 11 of its implementing partners.

Thanks to the support of the European Union (EU), and the Government of Japan and other donors, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) implemented the ‘Strengthening the Resilience of Syrian Women and Girls and Host Communities in Iraq, Jordan and Turkey’ programme. Building on the programme implementation experience, UN Women set up a no-cost collaboration with FAO to conceptualize a gender-sensitive resilience index based on FAO’s Resilience Measurement Analysis (RIMA) Model (FAO, 2016). The analysis builds upon data collected through the Madad programme monitoring and sought to provide evidence around key resilience issues.

This year’s regular resources report analyses how UN Women mobilized its core contributions in 2019 to fulfil its normative, coordination, and operational activities mandate, in order to improve the lives of women and girls worldwide. Through the presentation of tangible results, this report presents case studies at the global, regional, and country levels to showcase the impact that regular resources have in the countries where UN Women is present.

UN Women Achievements Report gives a comprehensive overview on the main programmes implemented by UN Women Egypt during 2018 in collaboration with its various partners across the four impact areas: Women’s Political Empowerment (WPE), Women’s Economic Empowerment, Ending Violence against Women (EVAW) and Engaging Men and Boys in Gender Equality. It also features the main achievements of the programmes while highlighting the progress made under communications and partnerships.

This report represents the conclusions of two sessions held in Tunis, Tunisia on 12-13 May 2016 with members of parliament, representatives of ministries / government bodies responsible for monitoring and evaluating the SDGS, women national machineries and evaluators from across the Arab States region.