500,000 Jobs for Women Across the Middle East and North Africa Is the Goal of a New EU and UN Women Plan

Women across the Middle East and North Africa are the focus of a new jobs target unveiled in New York during the 81st UN General Assembly High-Level Week. The Surging Women's Employment Initiative, launched on 24 September by the European Commission with UN Women, will mobilise €25 million to help create 500,000 additional jobs for women and aims to contribute to a 5% rise in women's employment in the region by 2030. Nothing here is a job opening you can apply to today. It is a goal backed by money, business pledges and pilot schemes, and the useful question for a working woman in Cairo, Amman, Casablanca or Dubai is which of those channels will turn into real hiring. For Metaintro readers, the factsheets, pledge forms and pilot terms show where the jobs are meant to come from and who has to act first. Here is what the plan contains, which sectors it bets on and how women and employers can take part.

What Did the EU and UN Women Actually Launch on September 24?

The plan was unveiled by Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Šuica at an event with UN Women held in the margins of the 81st UN General Assembly High-Level Week in New York. It sits under the Pact for the Mediterranean, the Commission's plan for putting investment in people, skills and economic opportunities at the heart of stronger relations with its Mediterranean partners.

The Commission says the initiative will mobilise €25 million, including €10 million from the EU. The joint release on the EU's regional site names the other donors as Sweden, Spain and Finland, alongside financing from the Islamic Development Bank.

The wording of the target matters. The initiative aims to help create 500,000 additional jobs for women and to contribute to a rise in women's employment. Those are verbs of support, not a hiring commitment by any single employer.

Šuica framed the case in economic terms, calling women's economic empowerment a way of unlocking talent, driving growth and creating more prosperous societies across the Mediterranean. That framing matters for job seekers, because the Commission presents women's work as talent to unlock and a driver of growth.

How Is the Money Split, and Can €25 Million Create 500,000 Jobs?

The initiative's factsheet puts donor funding, including the EU, at 20 million euros, alongside about 215 million euros mobilised from financial institutions and the private sector. That donor figure is lower than the €25 million in the Commission release, so the two official documents do not match on the exact sum. The same factsheet names support from partners including the European Union, AECID and Sida, with financing that includes the Islamic Development Bank.

The factsheet also says the initiative intends to bring more partners on board. It describes the initiative's own work as policy reform, business engagement and piloting new employment models, not direct hiring.

The Commission's own wording of the goal is careful. The initiative aims to contribute to increasing women's employment in the region by 5% by 2030, alongside helping to create 500,000 additional jobs for women.

Why Are So Few Women in Paid Work Across the Region?

The starting point is low and has been stuck for a long time. Women's participation in the labour market in the region has remained at around 20% on average for more than two decades. A World Bank discussion paper published in March puts regional female labour force participation at 19 percent in 2023, against a world average of 48 percent, the lowest of any region, with men at 71 percent.

Schooling alone has not closed the gap. The same paper finds that women's educational achievements do not always translate into labour market opportunities, partly because of skill mismatches, especially in STEM fields where women are underrepresented, and partly because many women prefer public sector jobs with better conditions.

Unpaid care is the other weight. In Egypt, women spent 22.4 percent of their time in a day on unpaid domestic and care work, against 2.4 percent for men, and the region has one of the lowest pre-primary enrolment rates in the world. Care appears in the plan as a jobs sector, and the World Bank paper links the region's low pre-primary enrolment to women being less free to join the labor market. Women carrying that load at home can weigh how caregiving and work collide when they plan a return to paid work.

The country picture varies widely. A UN Women policy brief from May shows female labour force participation ranging from 11 percent in Iraq to 22 percent in Lebanon across the six countries it studied.

Female labour force participation in the region averaged 19 percent in 2023 against a world average of 48 percent, the lowest of any region.

Which Sectors Are the New Jobs Meant to Come From?

The initiative names three growth economies and spells out what each one covers. Its factsheet lists them as follows.

• Care economy. Childcare, elderly care and domestic care as areas for sustainable employment growth.
• Green economy. Climate-smart agriculture, eco-tourism and renewable energy, including women-owned enterprises.
• STEM economy. Transnational remote work, entrepreneurship and future-ready opportunities linked to global markets.

The STEM line is the one that reaches beyond the region. The factsheet ties it to transnational remote work and opportunities linked to global markets, which is work that does not depend on hiring in a woman's home city.

The plan works in three steps it labels Enable, Engage and Create. Enable is legal and macroeconomic reform for gender-responsive, private sector-led, job-rich growth. Engage is advocating for private sector commitment to gender equality in the workplace, including women-responsive procurement. Create is developing and piloting new employment models in the Care, Green and STEM economies, backed by public and private financing.

If you already work in childcare, elderly care, farming, eco-tourism, renewable energy or remote work for clients abroad, those are the fields the factsheet names as its focus sectors.

How Can Employers Sign On Through the Women's Empowerment Principles?

This is the most concrete action in the plan, and it has a public form. The initiative aims to get 1200 private sector companies in the Arab States to sign the Women's Empowerment Principles, up from 901 to date, as listed in the initiative's factsheet.

The principles were set up by UN Women and the UN Global Compact as guidance for business on gender equality in the workplace, marketplace and community. Signatories commit to practices that include equal pay for work of equal value, gender-responsive supply chains and zero tolerance of sexual harassment at work. Principle four covers education and training for career advancement.

The sign-up rules sit on the official application page for the principles. Private sector companies, industry associations, chambers of commerce, social enterprises and cooperatives are eligible. The highest-level decision maker has to sign the official CEO Statement of Support without changes, and processing typically takes around 10-15 business days.

At the time of writing, the WEPs site says nearly 12,000 companies in 160 countries have adopted the principles. For a woman weighing offers, a signatory's company profile page on the principles' website is a quick check. A signature is a pledge, not proof of good practice, but it gives you a documented commitment to raise in an interview about pay, training and flexibility.

What Does the UAE Hospitality Pilot Show About How the Plan Works?

The same initiative name was used earlier for a sector strand run with industry. On 2 July at Atlantis The Royal in Dubai, UN Women and Diversey, a Solenis company, launched a hospitality track that begins with a 90-day pilot programme in the UAE. The gathering drew 40 hotel decision-makers from 15 hospitality brands.

The target there is small and specific. The strand aims to support training and employment pathways for 9,050 women across the hospitality value chain by 2030, alongside targets for training, certification and placement. Hotel groups are invited to nominate pilot properties and programme champions, and participation is voluntary with no legal, financial or contractual obligation.

The gap it addresses is stark. Women make up just 9% of the hospitality workforce in the Middle East, against a global average of 56%, based on ILO data. A UN Women director described a time bound road map to move that share to 20% by 2030. The strand also features Karama, a digital training platform meant to give women structured pathways into and up through hotel work.

The UAE strand is a 90-day pilot designed around defined performance indicators, meant to help establish a model for wider use across the region's hotels.

Women hold just 9% of hospitality jobs in the Middle East, against a global average of 56% on ILO data, and UN Women and hotel partners are developing a road map to lift that share to 20% by 2030.

Which Countries Are Covered, and What Is Already Running?

The launch material describes the initiative's reach as the Middle East and North Africa and the Arab States as a whole. The initiative is aligned with the League of Arab States Cairo Declaration for Women 2030 and contributes to the Union for the Mediterranean declaration on strengthening the role of women in society.

Some EU programmes are already running on the ground. In Egypt, the EU partners with the National Council for Women and the Central Bank of Egypt on the Tahweesha initiative, through which 100,000 women are being supported to access savings, credit, assets, information and skills, with a focus on rural women.

At regional level, the SANAD Fund, run with the development bank KfW, has disbursed around €2 billion in loans since 2011, contributing to more than 350,000 indirect jobs, around one third held by women. The same factsheet counts over €100 million in ongoing EU programmes for gender equality and women's economic empowerment across the region.

For a woman who runs a small business, these finance channels already exist. The factsheet says they offer tailored finance and business advice, or combine access to finance with training.

How Is the 2026 Middle East Crisis Putting Women's Current Jobs at Risk?

The plan launches as the 2026 Middle East crisis is generating an economic shock across the Arab States, according to UN Women. The UN Women policy brief from May estimates that 34,000 to 56,000 private sector jobs for women are at risk across Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, the State of Palestine and Syria, and nearly 80,000 under high-stress scenarios.

Informality makes the shock worse. Across the six countries the brief covers, which add Egypt, the brief cites ILO data showing that informality among women ranges from 40 to 71 percent of total employment, which means many women have no contract, severance or social insurance to fall back on.

The brief also warns about a slower threat. Education, health and public administration together account for about 50 percent of employed women in those countries, so hiring freezes and wage erosion in public budgets threaten women's jobs, and the brief warns they could disproportionately shut young, educated women out of formal work.

Women-led firms are part of the answer. The brief cites World Bank data showing female-owned businesses hire more women, 25 percent against 22 percent for male-owned firms. Citing ESCWA data, the brief says that in Jordan during the pandemic, only 7 percent of bank loans went to women. Support for women-led enterprises features in both this brief and the new plan, whose green strand includes women-owned enterprises.

What Does Saudi Arabia's Experience Suggest Is Possible?

The region already has one case of fast change. The World Bank paper finds that in Saudi Arabia, female labour force participation more than doubled between 2017 and 2023 following legal reforms, active labour market programmes and work on social norms under Vision 2030.

The detail is instructive. Reforms opened all professions to women, allowed them to drive and improved maternity leave, backed by job services, training and childcare support. Women's participation in the country's ICT sector grew from 7 percent in 2017 to more than 33 percent by the end of 2022.

The lesson for the new plan is that money alone did not do it. The World Bank paper credits legal reforms, childcare support and private sector demand for female labour working together. The EU and UN Women plan also pairs legal reform with business engagement and new job models in care, green and STEM work, which is a reason to take it seriously and a reason to watch whether national governments move too.

What This Means for Job Seekers, and What Should You Do Next?

Our take is that this plan is worth tracking but not worth waiting for. The €25 million is seed money, and the jobs it hopes to unlock depend on employers and governments acting. The value for you right now is the map it draws. It tells you which sectors are meant to get pilots and investment, and which employers are putting their names to public pledges.

Two of the plan's sectors stand out for job seekers, care and remote technology work. Care is a jobs sector in the plan, and the World Bank paper finds that a lack of childcare keeps many women out of the labour market. The factsheet ties the STEM strand to transnational remote work linked to global markets, which does not depend on hiring in your home city. A candidate aiming at that strand can start with how to land a remote job.

Here is what we would do this month:

• Check the employer's pledge. Before an interview, see whether the employer has signed the Women's Empowerment Principles and ask what that means for training and pay.
• Build proof for remote work. Collect certificates, a portfolio or client references that a foreign employer can verify.
• Look at care credentials. Childcare, elderly care and domestic care qualifications line up with the plan's care sector.
• Use finance that exists today. If you run a small business, the SANAD Fund, backed by the EU with KfW, supports access to finance for small firms and households across the region.
• Watch for pilots. The UAE hotel strand invites hotel groups to nominate pilot properties and programme champions, so the partner hotels are the ones to follow.

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People Also Asked

Q: Can women apply directly for the 500,000 jobs?

A: No. The Surging Women's Employment Initiative is a regional flagship initiative that brings together governments, the private sector, financial institutions and UN agencies, and its stated work is policy reform, business engagement and piloting new employment models, so any jobs would come through the employers and programmes it works with.

Q: How much money is behind the plan?

A: The Commission puts it at €25 million, including €10 million from the EU, and the initiative's factsheet puts donor funding at 20 million euros alongside about 215 million euros mobilised from financial institutions and the private sector.

Q: How can a company join the Women's Empowerment Principles?

A: An eligible company applies through the online application form with a CEO Statement of Support signed by its top decision maker, and processing typically takes 10-15 business days.

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