MENA Consultative Council on Gender [CCG]

Achievements:

Since 1999, the MNA Region has benefited from the advise and the perspective of the MNA Consultative Council on Gender (CCG), which consists of high profile and dynamic gender experts from a number of MNA countries. One of the CCG's important achievements is that the views of the CCG were very instrumental in helping the World Bank's MNA region identify Gender as one of the five focus areas of the Bank's current Regional Strategy. This further led to the World Bank's decision to select Gender as one of the themes of the four flagship reports for the Dubai Annual Meetings (the CCG was consulted throughout the process and endorsed its messages strongly).

The CCG enables the World Bank to consult with members of civil society and helps the World Bank in identifying and formulating solutions to the most pertinent gender concerns in the MENA region, ensuring that these are addressed as an integral part of socioeconomic development efforts supported by the Bank. Interaction between Bank management and staff with the CCG is an important vehicle of communications between the Bank and active members of civil society who often perceive issues from a different perspective. The existence of the CCG is in itself a small contribution to empowering women in the region both as partners in deliberations with an International Organization on development issues and as a forum where gender concerns are the focus of the Bank's MENA management.

History:

In recognition of the importance of increasing Bank efforts in promoting the socioeconomic, political and legal status of women as a means of narrowing the gender gap, the Bank held a MENA Gender Training Workshop for Bank staff in Washington in late June 1998, where the idea for a consultative council for women originated. The workshop brought women active in women's organizations from ten MENA countries to share their experience with Bank staff. During this workshop and again at MDF2 in Marrakesh, women from the MENA region expressed the need for a more pro-active Bank engagement in gender issues. To facilitate this, they suggested the establishment of a regional consultative and evaluation body. The MENA Consultative Council on Gender which consists of a core group of professional women from the MENA region, was formalized in January 1999.

The first working meeting of the CCG, which took place in October 1999 in Paris, focused on MENA Social Development Funds and Social Action Programs. The vigorous discussion drew especially from the experiences of the Egypt and Yemen Social Fund projects. Valuable recommendations for gender inclusion/mainstreaming and overall development strategy were made also in specific regard to the preparations of the Morocco Social Fund project. During this meeting a decision was made to provide gender-training for all MENA staff.

The CCG met again in Washington, DC, in June 2000. The main item on the agenda was gender and education in the MENA region, with both Bank and Council members presenting reports. The meeting also provided an opportunity to take stock of Council experience to date, this being its third semi-annual meeting, and to further clarify objectives, expectations, and organizational arrangements.

The third working meeting of the CCG, originally scheduled to take place in Washington, DC, on September 12-14, 2001, had to be postponed given the tragic events of September 11. However, the few CCG member who had succeeded in making it to Washington, DC, met with the MNA Regional Management Team, and their inputs on gender issues for a MNA Regional Strategy Paper were sought.

In December 2001, CCG members met with members of the MENA Regional Management Team via video link. This virtual meeting was organized as a prelude to a retreat to draft MENA's regional strategy, and is part of an ongoing effort by MENA's regional management team to mainstream gender into operations and, at the same time, ensure civil society's views are taken into account. Thus, gender played a prominent at the two-day regional retreat on the MNA Strategy which followed the video-conference. Today gender remains one of four strategic priority areas (next to water, public sector management, and education) for MNA, which are meant to serve as focus for all activities undertaken in the region.

The CCG met in Washington D.C. in March 2003. The main item on the agenda was the regional gender report "Women in The Public Sphere" which was launched a week prior to the Annual World Bank Group meeting in Dubai. The meeting also provided the CCG an opportunity to look, with a gender perspective, at the other parallel regional reports that were being prepared for Dubai, namely, the Trade, Governance, and Development reports. The CCG also met with the Bank's MENA gender advisory group to discuss the overall efforts, within the Bank, that have been achieved thus far in gender mainstreaming, and the challenges laying ahead.

During its last meeting held in Washington in April 2004, the CCG examined various alternative ways by which gender could be mainstreamed at the country level, given the specificities of each of the countries. The CCG discussed two approaches; namely the country gender assessment (CGA) approach and the gender mainstreaming approach at the project level. It recommended to the World Bank to continue with CGAs - one clear advantage being that CGAs mobilize a large range of key players and stakeholders. The CCG noted, however, that CGAs should not be a mere collection or survey of already existing material, but should leverage the World Bank's work and its comparative advantage in promoting women’s participation in the labor force.

CCG Members and Alumnae (Biographical Information)

Members:

Suheir Azzouni

Boutheina Cheriet

Shahida El-Baz

Mona Khalaf

Lilia Labidi

Golnar Mehran

Alumnae:

Camillia Fawzi El-Solh

Salima Ghezali

Asma Khader

Rabea Naciri

Fatima Kahtan Sallam

Bouthaina Shaaban