The Sustainable Economic Opportunities for Women (SEOW) project was launched in 2006. SEOW is an extension of the WEEP project and is supported by the EU with the aim of increasing individual and community awareness of the issues involved in promoting and building women’s economic participation. The project’s main objectives are to provide a sustainable framework to assist and support women in five countries:
Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria.
The traditional patriarchal nature of the society within the MENA region, works to institutionalise gender inequality and preserves both de jure and de facto discrimination between men and women. Women are often constrained in their economic opportunities by social and legal issues and particularly by social norms which discourage them from entering the workplace. Increasing women’s access to employment, their conditions within the workplace, and attracting visibility to their contributions to their country’s
economy are all important factors in promoting women’s economic participation. Women must be supported in their family responsibilities so as to enable them to balance their home and work commitments. In addition, their role within the family as wives and mothers must be recognised as economic contributions. Women are a significant unexploited resource within the economies of the MENA region which can only benefit from increasing and improving their employment opportunities.