UN Women and Diversey scale partnership to expand employment pathways for women in the Middle East and North Africa

[Press release]

Cairo – UN Women and Diversey, a Solenis company, are expanding their partnership under the Surging Women’s Employment Initiative (SWEI), with the ambition of supporting the employment of 9,050 women in the hospitality sector across the Middle East and North Africa by 2030.

The partnership brings together private-sector leadership from the hospitality sector in supporting training and employment pathways for women in the hospitality sector throughout North Africa and the Middle East region. The partnership was highlighted at the High-Level Roundtable on Surging Women’s Employment in the Middle East and North Africa on 23 September 2026, on the margins of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The roundtable, co-organized by UN Women and the European Union, brought together governments, international financial institutions, development partners, private-sector leaders and civil society to mobilize stronger partnerships and concrete commitments to accelerate women’s employment across the Middle East and North Africa.

Women’s labour force participation in the Middle East and North Africa has remained at around 20 per cent for more than two decades, leaving enormous economic potential untapped. In the hospitality sector, the gap is particularly pronounced: women account for just 9 per cent of the hospitality workforce in the Middle East, compared with a global average of 56 per cent.

Through the partnership, UN Women and Diversey are working with hospitality industry partners towards a shared goal of supporting training and employment pathways for 9,050 women by 2030.

The work began with a 90-day pilot programme in the United Arab Emirates, inviting leading hospitality organizations and hotel groups to nominate properties and programme champions. The pilot is intended to generate learning and help inform a model that can subsequently be adapted and expanded across the wider hospitality sector in the Middle East and North Africa.  Working with participating hotels, the initiative aims to expand opportunities for women to access relevant training and certification and strengthen pathways to decent employment and career advancement.

“Women remain significantly underrepresented in the region’s labour market, and changing this trajectory requires practical and measurable action from the private sector.  Our partnership with Diversey demonstrates what SWEI is designed to do: equip women with relevant skills, expand access to decent employment and career advancement, and work with businesses to develop approaches that can be adapted and scales across the region,” said Dr. Moez Doraid, UN Women Regional Director for the Arab States.

“Women make up 9% of the hospitality workforce in the Middle East — well below the global average of 56%. Through this innovative partnership between the hospitality sector and UN Women, we are developing a time bound road map to support the path from skills to employment and shift the current 9% women workforce to 20% by 2030. We believe its possible given the projected growth of the hospitality sector in MENA,” said Susanne Mikhail, Director, Women Employment in the Green, STEM and Care Economy, UN Women

“The purpose of the SWEI Hospitality Chapter is about turning shared ambition into practical opportunities for women,” said Dr. Lotta Kanto Öqvist, Chief Sustainability Officer, Solenis. “Hospitality depends on people, and this initiative gives us a way to help open more doors for women across the Middle East and North Africa. By working with UN Women, our customers and local partners, we can connect training, industry relationships and programs like Linens For Life™ in a way that is practical, measurable and built to last.”

Skills development and sustainability provide complementary entry points for the partnership through two Diversey programmes – Karama and Linens For Life™.

Karama, a digital training platform, is directly focused on skills development, equipping women with relevant skills and providing structured pathways to enter and advance within the hospitality workforce.

Linens For Life™ repurposes hotel linens that are no longer suitable for guest use into useful, sellable items such as bags, clothing and other locally made products. Through partnerships with hotels and local organizations, the program provides sewing training and equipment to help people in need to build income opportunities while reducing textile waste. In collaboration with the SWEI Hospitality Chapter, the program plans to support paid work for women while helping participating hotels reduce textile waste and track related environmental savings.

The partnership reflects SWEI’s broader approach to accelerating women’s employment at scale by connecting private-sector action with policy reform, strategic investment and employment-generation initiatives. Across the Middle East and North Africa, 901 companies have signed the Women’s Empowerment Principles, creating a growing foundation for businesses to advance equality between men and women in workplaces, markets and communities.

SWEI focuses on three interconnected areas of action: enabling legal and macroeconomic reforms that support private sector-led, job-rich growth; engaging businesses to increase women’s employment and procurement that takes women’s needs into consideration; and creating innovative employment models in the care, green and STEM economies, backed by public-private financing and strategic investment.

At the UNGA roundtable, the Diversey partnership was presented as a concrete example of how SWEI can translate regional ambition into practical private-sector action, while encouraging more businesses to make measurable commitments to women’s employment.