UN-Habitat, in cooperation with the General Organisation for Physical Planning in Egypt, has undertaken a capacity-building programme to sustain the women workforce in the country.

Development Diaries reports that 4.8 million women working in Egypt are struggling to balance their multiple roles.

According to the UN-Habitat, Egyptian women are increasingly representing a significant portion of the local workforce; and the percentage of female employees in the local government sector increased from 39 percent in 2014 to 45 percent in 2021.

SDG Five: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

A 2021 report by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) revealed that Egypt ranked 129th out of 156 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index.

The country also ranked 146th out of 156 countries in women’s economic participation and opportunity. The report also stated that only 20 percent of Egypt’s working-age women were participating in the economy, compared to 75 percent of men.

It is understood that during the training, the participants learnt how to address different types of stress in addition to prioritising their daily tasks.

‘I learnt how to analyse and plan my time to best manage my daily stress. I have already started applying what we learnt during the first day of the training and began setting my annual and secondary goals, with a time plan’, UN-Habitat quoted Hadeer, an engineer, as saying.

The UN-Habitat said the training was part of ongoing series of capacity-building activities under a project aimed at strengthening development planning and management in Greater Cairo.

Source: UN-Habitat

Photo source: UN-Habitat