UfM wishes all women a Happy International Women’s day

Barcelona, 8 March, 2013. The prominent role that numerous brave women have played during the events that have recently swept across parts of the Southern Mediterranean demonstrates the longing of women in the region to decide on their future. The new societies have now been given a historic opportunity to use the strong social capital of women and put it to the service of major development goals. The amount and speed at which women’s social, political, economic and cultural integration in the region has taken place, will inevitably determine the level of the region’s prosperity and wellbeing in the years and decades to come.

The International Women’s Day is a symbolic and unique opportunity for the UfM to launch a call to join forces in an effort to achieve women’s stronger involvement in the region’s developmental agenda. The UfM has successfully developed collaboration with numerous civil society and non-governmental organizations, governments, various public authorities as well as academic and scientific communities, aimed at advancing women’s rights in the region via concrete and tangible projects. Together with AFAEMME, as one of its key institutional partners in promoting women empowerment, the UfM is strongly committed to contributing to the region’s inclusive growth, based on gender equality and a strengthened economic and entrepreneurial role for women in that process.

To that end, the UfM will launch, in the coming months, the first project entitled “Young Women as Job Creators” which will be promoted by AFAEMME. The project aim is to develop self-employment and entrepreneurship among young female university students who are about to graduate in Jordan, Morocco, Palestine and Spain, with an interest in starting their own business. The project’s focus is the organization of Women Entrepreneurship Days (WEDs), consisting of seminars which will provide the participants with free advice to create new businesses.

The project’s promoter is the Association of Mediterranean Businesswomen, AFAEMME, a European and Mediterranean platform of projects, working on gender equality and business, promoting equality at work and lobbying to enhance women’s legal, social and professional status.

More information about the project here.