The last day I went to the office was August 15. On that day, I was dismissed from my job and told that the Taliban had entered the city. Out on the streets, the city was gripped with terror: people running everywhere, cars stuck in traffic, policemen removing their uniforms, and parents frantically trying to pick their children up from school and rush to their houses. When I finally got home, I found my daughters in despair and the neighbors hoisting a Taliban flag over their gates. Overnight our lives had changed.

It took me three days to venture outside after the Taliban’s military takeover. With a friend, I walked through the Shahr-e Naw neighborhood and posted on social media, encouraging other women to come out, so that the Taliban could not deny our existence. Nearly three weeks later, on September 3, I participated in the first protest at Fawara Aab, or “Water Fountain,” square in Kabul. As I published photos and videos on social networks, I began receiving messages from friends seeking to join. I created a WhatsApp chat group and, after adding those I trusted, we organized another protest the following day. This time, however, the Taliban were prepared and quickly suppressed our rally, beating people and firing tear gas into the air. Most protesters dispersed but some of us continued on to another location, growing along the way to include men and women from the public. We felt so energized we decided to organize more protests.

With no previous experience in organizing protests, I learned quickly that it was a lot of work. We began coordinating through the WhatsApp chat group I had started while also establishing media contacts and trying to get our voices heard inside and outside the country. At first, we were a loose coalition of many different protest groups, at least fifty, but soon we operated under one large umbrella group, united as a movement in our opposition against gender apartheid, tyranny, restrictions, and the exclusion of women.

Taliban members responded to our growing protests with ever more suppression and violence. They knocked us to the ground, punched and kicked us, and destroyed our phones and property. Many of us were detained for days and subjected to threats and insults. Some were imprisoned and tortured for longer. Until I was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Taliban, I participated in thirty-eight protests against its oppressive apartheid regime.

Over time, Taliban intelligence infiltrated our organization, and the regime knew about our protests before they even took place. On September 19, 2023, I received a call alerting me that the Taliban had kidnapped a fellow organizer along with her husband and child, and warning me that I could be next. I fled my home that day, leaving my daughters with my mother for their safety. But when I secretly returned a week later to attend a funeral, I was accosted on my street by a man who shouted, “It’s her.” Within minutes, twelve Taliban military vehicles arrived. The men put a black hood over my head, forced me into a car, and took me to a police station with my hands tightly and painfully bound for hours.

On arrival, they pointed a gun at me and demanded the password for my mobile phone. I resisted at first but relented when they threatened to torture and arrest my children. They threw me into a room where I sat, worried for my fellow female protesters who were unaware that my phone was now in Taliban hands. Half an hour later, the person who arrested me entered the room with my son’s and daughter’s phones. When I saw my nineteen-year-old son’s unlocked phone, I realized that he too had been arrested and I collapsed to the ground.

I was held in solitary confinement in a damp room for nearly two months and routinely interrogated and tortured for a confession. They would show me videos of my son, wearing a prison uniform and growing weaker by the day. I later learned that he was also being held in solitary confinement. Twice during my imprisonment I was hospitalized, once due to severe pain and swelling, the other because I broke down after witnessing the suicide of a young boy who took his life after being tortured.

Still, I was lucky compared to other prisoners, who were subjected to whipping, electric shocks, and forced starvation. They didn’t torture me in these ways. Instead, they inflicted psychological torture, placing my room across from the men’s torture chamber where I lay awake listening to their screams for days. During my interrogation sessions, I was forced to sit upside down with my hands tied to the arms of the chair. At one session, I overheard the Taliban interrogators say, “If she is released, she will talk about this. After all, she is the leader of these movements.” I realized then that they were afraid of my voice, just as all apartheid regimes fear the voices of their citizens.

On the forty-fifth day, I was allowed to see my family for five minutes. They told me they had been searching for me and submitted endless petitions to the Taliban before the regime finally confirmed my detention. This was the first time I was allowed to see my imprisoned son, though only for five minutes.

About eighteen days later, I was returned to the general cells, where other women prisoners recounted their stories and those of other friends, including one who repeatedly tried to escape and fought fiercely every time Taliban soldiers took her for interrogation. She was eventually released after nine months.  

I too was desperate for release and to see my family, but I never showed my despair to the prison guards. Even when they punched and kicked me—or worse, when they called my son “de caper zoi” (son of the infidel), I kept my composure. No one was willing to bail me out of prison because they feared becoming targets as well. Eventually, however, a former Taliban governor agreed to be my guarantor, and I was released into my family’s custody.

Although free, I was confined to my house, the streets of my city closed off to me. Taliban fighters kept a constant watch on me and my home. They also offered me a proposition: Spy for them, and I could live comfortably wherever I wanted in Afghanistan. Betraying my homeland and the freedom of its women was never an option for me.

Ultimately, I was forced to accept exile. Late one evening, I received an email notifying me of my transfer outside the country. I cried through the night, mourning the loss of my home and homeland. When I crossed the border out of Afghanistan, I screamed in anguish. I considered staying behind and secretly working under an assumed identity, but it was not a viable choice for my family.

I am now a stranger in a foreign land, without a home and without an identity. I count the minutes until I can return to Afghanistan and witness the fall of the Taliban. In exile, my greatest hope is that our protests, our sacrifices, our rebellions were not in vain.

Zholia Parsi is a member of the leadership of the “Spontaneous Women’s Protest Movement of Afghanistan” and was imprisoned and tortured by the Taliban for protesting against gender apartheid. This article was edited from an interview with Parsi by Nayera Kohistani and Mursal Sayas.

This article is part of the Inside the Taliban’s Gender Apartheid series, a joint project of the Civic Engagement Project and the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center.

The post I was imprisoned and tortured by the Taliban for protesting gender apartheid in Afghanistan appeared first on Atlantic Council.

An initiative led by the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center in partnership with the US Department of State continues to focus on facilitating greater constructive exchange among multisectoral thought leaders and government leaders as they work to implement commitments made at the ninth Summit of the Americas. This readout was informed by a private, information-gathering roundtable and several one-on-one conversations with leading experts in the digital space.

Executive summary

At the ninth Summit of the Americas, regional leaders agreed on the adoption of a Regional Agenda for Digital Transformation that reaffirmed the need for a dynamic and resilient digital ecosystem that promotes digital inclusion for all peoples. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the digital divide globally, but these gaps were shown to be deeper in developing countries, disproportionately affecting women, children, persons with disabilities, and other vulnerable and/or marginalized individuals. Through this agenda, inclusive workforce development remains a key theme as an avenue to help bridge the digital divide and skills gap across the Americas.

As part of the Atlantic Council’s consultative process, thought leaders and practitioners evaluated progress made in the implementation of the Regional Agenda for Digital Transformation agreed on at the Summit of Americas, resulting in three concrete recommendations: (1) leverage regional alliances and intraregional cooperation mechanisms to accelerate implementation of the agenda; (2) strengthen public-private partnerships and multisectoral coordination to ensure adequate financing for tailored capacity-building programs, the expansion of digital infrastructure, and internet access; and (3) prioritize the involvement of local youth groups and civil society organizations, given their on-the-ground knowledge and role as critical indicators of implementation.

Recommendations for advancing digitalization and workforce development in the Americas:

Report

May 31, 2024

PACC 2030 objectives: The road to implementation

By Wazim Mowla, Charlene Aguilera

The Atlantic Council organized a PACC 2030 Working Group and worked closely with governments, the business community, and civil society organizations to support the implementation of PACC 2030’s objectives.

Caribbean Climate Change & Climate Action

Report

Apr 16, 2024

Advancing health and resilience policies in Latin America and the Caribbean

By Isabel Chiriboga, Martin Cassinelli, Diego Area

During an off-the-record private roundtable, thought leaders and practitioners from across the Americas discussed how to further enhance access to and finance for health services and products in the region.

Coronavirus Latin America

Summit of the Americas

Amid global uncertainties and new challenges, the ninth Summit of the Americas is a renewed opportunity to bring about hemispheric cooperation and consensus to reach regional prosperity and security.

Staff

Isabel Chiriboga

Assistant Director

Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

Colombia Corruption

Staff

Maite Gonzalez Latorre

Program Assistant

Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

Americas Education

Staff

Diego Area

Deputy Director, Strategic Development

Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

Crisis Management Democratic Transitions

The Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center broadens understanding of regional transformations and delivers constructive, results-oriented solutions to inform how the public and private sectors can advance hemispheric prosperity.

Learn more

The post The future of digital transformation and workforce development in Latin America and the Caribbean appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Introduction

I. Addressing the Soviet legacy

II. Pre-war policies

III. The ethnic variable

IV. Wartime policies undermine population growth

V. Conclusion

About the author

Russia’s future will be characterized by a smaller population. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war has virtually guaranteed that for generations to come, Russia’s population will be not only smaller, but also older, more fragile, and less well-educated. It will almost certainly be ethnically less Russian and more religiously diverse. While some might view diversity as a strength, many Russians do not see it this way. In a world with hordes of people on the move to escape war, persecution, poverty, and the increasing impact of climate change, xenophobic political rhetoric sells well.

Putin has spoken frequently about Russia’s demographic problems, beginning in his first months as president. Despite spending trillions of rubles on high-profile “national projects” to remedy the situation, population decline continued. Putin’s choice of timing for military aggression in Ukraine might have reflected an understanding that Russia’s demographic (and economic) situation would not improve in the next two decades. However, the war is turning a growing crisis into a catastrophe.

The demographic consequences from the Russian war against Ukraine, like those from World War II and the health, birth rate and life expectancy impact from Russia’s protracted transition in the 1990s, will echo for generations. Russia’s population will decline for the rest of the twenty-first century, and ethnic Russians will be a smaller proportion of that population. The ethnic and religious groups that embrace the “traditional family values” Putin favors are predominantly non-Russian.

United Nations scenarios project Russia’s population in 2100 to be between 74 million and 112 million compared with the current 146 million. The most recent UN projections are for the world’s population to decline by about 20 percent by 2100. The estimate for Russia is a decline of 25 to 50 percent.

While Russia is hardly unique in facing declining birth rates and an aging population, high adult mortality, and infertility among both men and women, increasingly limited immigration and continuing brain drain make Russia’s situation particularly challenging. Population size is determined by a combination of natural factors—birth rates and life expectancy, along with the emigration-immigration balance. Putin’s war on Ukraine has undermined all the potential sources of population growth.

There have been four important inflection points in demography policy since Putin became president. The first came in 2006, when Putin’s rhetoric about demography finally resulted in specific policies: demography was one of the first four national projects he launched at that time. The second significant change came following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. The reaction to that aggression in Ukraine, Moldova, and other former Soviet republics narrowed the number of countries providing labor to Russia.

A third key moment was the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack near Moscow in March 2024. Tajiks made up half of the immigrants to Russia in 2023, but that has become politically problematic in the aftermath of the Crocus attack. The most recent policy shifts accompanied the formation of a new government in May 2024. Initial reports promise a long-term approach that perhaps begins to recognize Russia’s new demographic reality. It comes too late, and the measures proposed fail to offer new solutions.

The paper begins with a summary of the demographic problems the Russian Federation inherited from the Soviet Union and its ineffective initial response. The second section reviews the deteriorating situation after 2013. The third section focuses on ways Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine is exacerbating all of these challenges. The conclusion suggests what impact population decline will have on Russia’s future.

Addressing the Soviet legacy

The Soviet Union experienced multiple demographic shocks in the twentieth century. Following Joseph Stalin’s death, recovery appeared possible. Yet by the 1960s, Russia’s high infant mortality and low adult life expectancy were outliers compared with most highly industrialized countries.

The population shock from World War II echoed for decades. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol campaign in 1986–1987 generated a brief improvement in life expectancy, but this was hardly enough to change the dynamic.

Economic disruptions, beginning with Gorbachev’s perestroika and continuing into the 1990s, resulted in fewer births, higher mortality, and significant emigration. The dissolution of the Soviet Union spurred massive population relocation, as millions of Russians and non-Russians returned to their titular homelands. Every former Soviet republic became more ethnically homogeneous. This trend has continued within the Russian Federation, as some non-Russian republics continue to become less Russian. Russians relocating within the Russian Federation have reduced the population in the Far East.

Russia’s immigration-emigration balance involves several population flows. Russians have moved back to Russia from newly independent former Soviet republics. As Russia’s economy improved, labor migrants, primarily from former Soviet republics, have found formal and informal work in Russia. Prior to the war, the immigrants compensated for the multiple waves of (mostly Russian) people emigrating from Russia.

The breakdown of the Warsaw Pact —and then the Soviet Union itself—disrupted economic linkages and supply chains that had existed for decades. Economic insecurity reduced already-declining birth rates across much of the post-Soviet space. Russia’s total fertility rate (TFR)—the number of births per woman—dropped from just below replacement level in 1988 to 1.3 in 2004. Maintaining a population level requires a TFR of at least 2.1 without positive net immigration; Russia’s high adult mortality rate requires one even higher.

In his initial inaugural address in August 2000, Putin warned that Russia could become “an enfeebled nation” due to population decline. Despite the warnings, little was done. Russia’s TFR increased from 1.25 in 2000 to 1.39 in 2007. This slight improvement reflected better economic conditions due to rising oil prices, and a (temporarily) larger number of women in the 18–35 age cohort.

One reason for persistent difficulty in achieving higher birth rates or TFR numbers has been the legacy of Soviet polices. Lack of access to effective birth control and male resistance to condom use resulted in abortion being the widely used solution for unwanted pregnancies. Murray Feshbach calculated that the Soviet-era abortion rate averaged seven per woman. Far less attention has been devoted to male infertility. Alcohol and substance abuse have resulted in unusually high infertility rates among Russian men.

Low birth rates are only one part of the population problem. Unhealthy diet and lifestyle, binge alcohol consumption, and accidents contribute to the high adult mortality numbers. When Putin was first elected president in 2000, Russian men aged 18–64 were dying at four times the rate of European men. Russian women were perishing at about the same rate as European men.
Until early 2005, Putin’s public position was that Russia could offset its population decline by attracting more Russians living in former Soviet republics to return to Russia, bringing with them needed skills while augmenting the ethnic Russian population. This immigration offset much of the population loss in the 1990s but has increasingly declined since Putin became president. Significantly, non-Russians became the dominant labor migrants.

Data from the Russian state statistics service Goskomstat indicate legal immigration peaked at 1.147 million in 1994 and declined each year thereafter, shrinking to 350,900 in 2000 and 70,000 in 2004.

Despite the declining numbers, the Russian government adopted a highly restrictive law in 2002 limiting legal immigration. When the Security Council discussed immigration again in 2005, Putin called for a more “humane approach,” dropping the racial and religious criteria. Yet he followed this with a “clarification” prioritizing Russian speakers. It is possible that Putin understood the situation but adjusted his rhetoric in accord with public opinion.

Russian media reports of a massive influx of Chinese immigrants in the 1990s were wildly exaggerated. By 2000, as oil prices rose, workers from Central Asia, Ukraine, and Moldova found formal or informal work in Russia. Russia incorporated the populations of Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014, and additional territories since 2022, which accounts for official claims of a larger “Russian” population.

Immigrants to Russia have come overwhelmingly from former Soviet republics, which account for 95–96 percent of the total. Just five countries that were part of the Soviet Union (Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) had population growth between 1989 and 2004. Migrants from two former Soviet republics with declining populations, Ukraine and Moldova, continued to provide labor until 2014. Putin reiterated the importance of demography in his inaugural addresses in 2012, 2018, and 2024, and in many of his annual call-in programs. Several times he has acknowledged the failure to achieve promised increases in births. Yet there appears to be no learning curve regarding policies. Putin’s 2024 address promised more of the same: paying Russians to have larger families, accompanied by invoking the need for more soldiers to defend the motherland.

Pre-war policies

As the price of oil increased in the 2000s, Putin’s government debated how to use the windfall to address persistent demographic challenges. As in many countries, immigration remains politically fraught. Russian nationalist groups adopted “Russia for the Russians” as a campaign slogan. Improving life expectancy is an ideal solution, but it is slow and expensive, depending on adults taking care of their health. Putin’s government opted for pro-natal policies. In his presidential address in 2006, Putin cited demography as “the most serious problem in Russia today.” Rather than listening to advisers familiar with the basket of diverse policies that improved birth rates in France and Sweden—prenatal and postnatal care, parental leave, daycare, preschool programs, housing support, and other incentives—Russia’s government emphasized “maternity capital.”

The initial maternity capital program offered incentives to women for the birth or adoption of a second or additional child. The funds, paid when a child turned three, could be used for housing, the child’s education at an accredited institution, the mother’s pension, or assistance for children with disabilities. Over time, changes have included payment for a first child and improved housing. The annually indexed funding was enough to encourage additional births in rural areas and smaller towns but had little impact in higher-priced urban areas that are home to 70 percent of the population. Moreover, many women who experienced giving birth in a Russian maternity hospital decided once was sufficient.

The pro-natal policy coincided with slightly higher Russian birth rates, raising the TFR from 1.3 when the maternity-capital program was launched in 2007 to nearly 1.8 in 2015. Most demographers, however, attribute the higher numbers to a (temporarily) larger cohort of women in prime child-bearing years, economic growth due to higher oil prices during Putin’s first two terms, and hopes that nationwide protests over the 2011–2012 elections augured real change. After 2012, the reduced number of returning compatriots offset the gains in births.

Despite the augmented maternity-capital program, Russia’s TFR dropped back to 1.5 by 2019, prior to COVID-19 and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian official sources continued to report the rate as 1.8. Without immigration, even a TFR of 1.8 would result in Russia’s population decreasing by about 20–25 percent in each generation.

The other endogenous factor in natural population change is life expectancy. Russia is hardly an outlier in experiencing lower birth rates. Most countries outside of Africa are projected to have smaller populations in the coming decades. Yet Russia continues to be exceptional among developed countries in the rate of mortality among adults aged 18–64. Russia’s economic recovery during Putin’s first two terms as President did lead to some improvement. While Russian men died at four times the rate of European men in 1990, by 2022 the rate was merely double the European rate.

The modest improvements during Putin’s first two terms were due to the economic recovery, greater stability, and efforts to improve healthcare. Yet the major focus of the healthcare program was not the badly needed primary and preventive care. Instead, most of the funds were used to purchase expensive new equipment, creating opportunities for graft.

The improvements in life expectancy began to reverse by 2019. Russia’s COVID-19 response was deeply flawed, resulting in the highest per-capita death rate among industrialized countries, though official statistics have consistently concealed the impact.

Economic benefits from people living longer are double edged. The impact depends on individuals’ capacity to work and the related dependency ratio for the population. Societies need enough able-bodied workers to support the young, the old, and the disabled.

Russia’s demographic issues involve quality as well as quantity. Even before Putin opted to invade Ukraine, Russia was experiencing another significant brain drain. Just before the war, Valerii Fal’kov, Russia’s Minister of Science and Higher Education, told Putin that the number of scientists in Russia was declining. Outside of atomic energy and the defense industry, Russia’s best specialists preferred to work in the US, Europe, and “even China.” Nikolai Dolgushkin, Academy of Sciences Chief Scientific Secretary, reported that emigration by scientists had increased from 14,000 in 2012 to 70,000 in 2021. Russia was the only developed nation where the number of scientific personnel was shrinking.

The challenges have become more serious, as the war on Ukraine has resulted in as many as half a million young men killed or wounded, women choosing to forego having children, women being sent to fight in Ukraine, and more than one million mostly young and highly educated people choosing to leave Russia.

Replacing them has been increasingly undermined by shortsighted government policies. In a country with a history of claiming to be multinational while viewing Russians as the system-forming ethnicity, recent government policies are creating additional difficulties. One of the great ironies of the situation Putin has created is that, in addition to poor rural villagers, the demographic groups best matching his August 2022 decree advocating “preservation and strengthening traditional Russian spiritual-moral values” are Russia’s non-Russian and non-Russian Orthodox populations.

The ethnic variable

Russia’s birth rates vary across regions and ethnic and religious populations. The rates in major urban centers resemble those of Central Europe, with later marriages, widespread use of birth control, and a large number of single-child families. Rural regions and small towns tend to retain more traditional values around child-rearing. People in these venues marry and begin having children earlier and are far more likely to have two or more children. Yet 70 percent of Russians live in the urban centers. The citizens most likely to have large families live in villages, small towns, and Russia’s non-Russian regions and Republics. In 2023, the non-Russian share of the population was about 30%.

Putin-era policies have persistently undermined the principles of federalism enshrined in Russia’s 1993 constitution. Some non-Russians believe the assault on their special status stems, in part, from Russians fearing their higher birth rates.

Significant differences in birth rates among ethnic and religious groups within Russia pose serious policy challenges. Some groups have been more resistant to the “demographic transition” than others. The predominantly non-Russian and Muslim republics of the North Caucasus are experiencing the “demographic transition” more slowly than most Russian regions. The Chechens in particular have responded to their deportation to Central Asia during World War II with a strong pro-natal ethos.

Comparative studies find relationships between high birth rates and traditional religious beliefs in multiple places. Some accounts emphasize higher birth rates among Muslims, despite wide variation across communities. Religious conservatives in many faiths record higher birth rates: evangelical Christians, Mormons, Hindus, Orthodox Jews, and others. Some groups have historically been known for large families. In Russia, some non-Russian ethnic groups have higher birth rates than Russians. The birth rates in the largely Muslim North Caucasus have been a particular concern for Moscow. Despite birth rates among many ethnic populations declining, births in many non-Russian communities continue to remain higher than those of ethnic Russians.

Several analysts call attention to a phenomenon of ethnic groups that feel threatened responding with high fertility rates. Russia’s “punished peoples”—those accused of sympathizing with the Germans during World War II and deported from their homelands—have received particular attention. Marat Ilyasov, a scholar from Chechnya who now teaches in the US, makes a strong case for the Chechens, one of the groups that managed to return to their ancestral territory, striving for high birth rates to guarantee the nation’s survival. They have the highest birth rates in the country.

Chechens are hardly the only ethnic group in the North Caucasus with birth rates higher than the Russian average. Some official sources intentionally downplay the numbers of Chechens and other non-Russian groups in an attempt to emphasize “Russianness” and downplay the significance of non-Russian populations.

Some Russian demographers suggest that non-Russians are increasingly experiencing the “demographic revolution,” but at a slower pace. While this is plausible, complaints about changing definitions and undercounting in recent Russian censuses provide ample grounds for skepticism regarding the official numbers.

Even the official data show that birth rates continue to be higher among many of the non-Russian groups in Russia. Many leaders of non-Russian peoples claim that these populations are being sent to fight in Ukraine in far larger numbers than ethnic Russians. Russian officials try to emphasize that it is the rural population that provides most of the soldiers, due to the high wages the military offers.

Data show that individuals from ethnic republics in Russia’s far east and south have a far higher chance of being mobilized for combat. While proving intent is complicated, the numbers are shocking. Men living in Buryatia have a 50- to 100-percent greater chance of being sent to fight in Ukraine than a resident of Moscow or St. Petersburg.

It is too early to gauge whether the high numbers of deaths and injuries will stimulate a response by some groups to try increasing birth rates. It does appear that the war is resulting in a more serious decline in births among ethnic Russians in urban centers than in both Russian and non-Russian rural communities. Russia’s non-ethnic-Russian citizens increasingly perceive their populations as being singled out as cannon fodder in Ukraine.

Immigrants have also been pressed into military service, causing a precipitous drop in immigration.

Wartime policies undermine population growth

Russia’s natural population growth has been curtailed by mobilization, casualties, emigration, and widespread reluctance to have children. Illegally annexing Crimea added 2.4 million people to Russia’s population, but significantly reduced immigration from Ukraine and Moldova. After 2014, labor migration to Russia was limited to five countries in Central Asia. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine stalled, the Kremlin has consistently needed more troops, forcing increasing numbers of these workers into military service.

Offering high salaries has attracted mercenaries from Cuba, Syria and elsewhere, but devious tactics have discouraged many labor migrants. In 2023, half of Russia’s labor migrants came from Tajikistan. The Crocus City Hall terror attack in March 2024, which Russian law enforcement alleges was carried out by Tajiks, is curtailing this pipeline. Tajiks have been rounded up for deportation and subjected to physical violence. Efforts to develop new sources of labor migration from Southeast Asia have been undermined by Russia continuing to send labor migrants to Ukraine.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine also provoked another large exodus of Russians from Russia. Some families had their bags packed and were ready to leave when Russian troops crossed the border in February 2022. Mobilization in September 2022 caused an additional exodus, primarily by young men. Many information technology (IT) specialists left, believing they could continue to work while abroad.

Emigration by hundreds of thousands of young men, and an unknown number of young women, is reducing the already small cohort of Russians in prime reproductive years. Hundreds of thousands of men being sent to serve in Ukraine further limits reproductive potential. Russian women have increasingly opted to avoid pregnancy in the face of economic difficulties and growing uncertainty. In the first half of 2023, a record number of Russians applied for passports for travel abroad “just in case” (na vsyaki sluchi).

The regime has responded with efforts to prevent abortion and limit birth control. This comes at a time when abortions are less frequent. Some Russian women are choosing sterilization instead. This represents an ironic shift from the Soviet-era legacy of many women being unable to have children due to multiple abortions. Births in 2023 reflected the lowest fertility rate in the past two or three centuries.

The declining value of the ruble and raids on immigrant communities to conscript workers to fight in Ukraine have reduced the number of Central Asians seeking work in Russia. The number willing to become paid mercenaries is limited.

Russia’s leadership apparently did not anticipate the need to recruit additional soldiers for a protracted war in 2022. Doing so now represents a serious challenge. Data in 2015 indicated that Russians were pleased that Crimea was under Russian control. However, fewer than 20 percent of Russians surveyed thought their government should spend large sums to rebuild occupied areas of Ukraine, especially the Donbas region. Fewer than 10 percent said it was worth risking Russian lives to keep these territories.

The Russian government’s polling consistently reports approval for the war as high as 70–80 percent. Some Western analysts accept these numbers, and some have commissioned their own polling that confirms strong support for the war. Others are dubious, reporting data similar to those of 2015, when respondents were asked about financing reconstruction or the need to suffer casualties.

One indication that Russia’s leadership understands the problem of sending Russians to fight in Ukraine is an increasingly desperate and shortsighted attempt to find alternatives to mobilizing more Russians. After the February 2022 invasion provoked a large exodus of Russians of all ages, the “partial” mobilization conducted in September 2022 resulted in tens of thousands more, primarily young men, leaving the country. No one has precise data, and many of these Russian citizens have moved on from their initial refuge. If seven hundred thousand Russians now registered as living in Dubai is any indication, the émigrés may number far more than one million.

The people mobilized are overwhelmingly from low-income rural and non-Russian regions. Stories have emerged about recruits needing to provide their own equipment, including bandages in case of injury. Some received less than a week of training before being sent into combat. These conditions confirm the belief that the authorities view them as expendable cannon fodder. The result is widespread efforts to evade serving.

In an attempt to reduce the need for mobilization, other tactics were developed. Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the paramilitary Wagner Group, toured Russian prisons to offer convicts the opportunity to serve six months in Ukraine in return for presidential pardons. Tens of thousands took him up on the offer and died at the front. Survivors have returned to Russia, with some resuming their criminal activity, including rape and murder.

Prigozhin perished when his plane was shot down a few months after he staged an aborted march to Moscow to convince Putin to fire military commanders the Wagner leader deemed incompetent. But his program lives on, and recent reports indicate it is being expanded to include female prisoners.

Ironically, while the convicts who survive their six-month contracts have been allowed to return home, Russians who have been fighting for two years or more are still on active duty. Their families are furious. One of the few significant protest groups left in Russia, “the Council of Wives and Mothers,” that has protested the length of time their husbands and sons have been forced to serve, was declared a foreign agent in July 2023 in an effort by Putin to stifle public awareness of the treatment of soldiers and overall casualties in the war.

Despite major recruitment efforts, Russia is not experiencing a major influx of new immigrants or returning compatriots. The full-scale war has further limited the already diminishing prospects of inducing a large share of the 30 million Russians living outside of Russia to return home. In 2006, Putin signed a decree establishing a program to encourage Russians to return, and some eight hundred thousand did so between 2006 and 2018. The number of both applications and returns declined in 2020 due to COVID-19. The numbers recovered slightly in 2021 but declined after the start of the full-scale war in 2022. In 2023 the number applying to return was the lowest in a decade. The number who did return dropped below the 2020 COVID-19 level:

Legislation designed to prohibit Russians—especially mobile IT workers—from working while abroad has provoked sharp battles between security services and Russian companies that depend on these employees in a tight labor market.

Treatment of Central Asian and other foreign labor migrants has increasingly shifted to forced labor and sometimes outright slavery. Central Asians working in Russia have been rounded up and sent to join the war on Ukraine. A study of the Uzbek community reports that many Uzbeks have been arrested for minor or contrived offenses and sentenced to terms of fifteen, twenty, or even twenty-five years. Once in prison, they are offered the Wagner option of “volunteering” to fight in Ukraine.

Predatory practices have extended beyond Russia’s usual sources of migrant workers. Individuals from Nepal, Syria, and India have been recruited to work in factories or as guards at various venues in Russia. After they arrive, their passports are confiscated and they are sent to fight in Ukraine. As during World War II, punishment squads are deployed to prevent soldiers from retreating. These predatory tactics differ from the treatment of Cuban and African mercenaries who are attracted by the money.

In addition to money, another inducement to attract foreign fighters is the offer of Russian citizenship. If these commitments are honored, the result will be to add more non-Russians to the country’s population. The disastrous long-term impact of the predatory recruitment policies is clear. As information (and bodies) reach families, word spreads. Russian programs to increase labor recruitment in Southeast Asia are being undermined as word of these tactics spreads.

Conclusion

Why would a leader who has proclaimed demography to be one of the most serious threats to a nation’s future launch an unprovoked war against a neighboring country that was a significant source of labor before 2014? We may never be able to answer this. We can conclude that Putin has turned a daunting crisis into a cataclysm.

Putin’s policies cannot solve these demographic problems. He has been reiterating the importance of Russia’s dire demographic situation for a quarter-century. Manipulating demographic data, adding people in occupied Ukrainian regions to Russia’s population, and omitting war casualties from the census do not generate sustainable population growth. These tactics cannot meet the needs of employers who report serious labor shortages in nearly every sector of the economy. Russia’s defense industry is operating “three shifts” by requiring workers to work sixty to seventy hours per week. The sustainability of these measures and the impact on quality raise significant questions. Financial incentives are undermined when workers are compelled to make “voluntary” contributions to fund the war effort.

In 2022–2023, the most serious labor shortages were reported in agriculture and construction, sectors that rely heavily on Central Asian migrants. Now Russia’s government is endeavoring to attract labor from India, Pakistan, and North Korea to replace the war casualties and émigrés. Firms involved in production, retail, logistics, and e-commerce face labor shortages. While manufacturers continue to prefer Russian workers, one company told journalists that bringing workers from India required paying salaries at the same level as those for Russian staff, plus the cost of transporting and registering the workers. Yet the company was looking for a contractor to arrange providing five hundred workers from India. The reasoning was that workers who lack Russian language are less likely to be recruited by competitors, while foreign workers who know Russian are more mobile.

A Russian entrepreneur noted that labor brokers in Kazakhstan smuggle thousands of workers from Bangladesh into that country in containers each year. They are now offering their services to Russian employers, suggesting that the same tactics can be used to bring workers from India. Others point out that labor from India remains crucial in several Middle Eastern countries where wages are higher, making Russia the option for the least skilled and least desirable migrants.

Sources of labor globally are increasing due to population growth in developing countries that face serious impacts from climate change. Demographers project that the major growth in global population during the rest of the twenty-first century will be in Africa. Yet the six African countries with the largest populations also appear on most lists of the places likely to face the greatest threats from climate change. As in Latin America, this will result in “green migration.” These are not traditional sources of labor for Russia, and the regime may choose to rely on these countries for mercenaries.

Putin’s government has not evinced visible concern that Russia’s population might be cut in half by century’s end. Unless Russia’s leaders can develop and finance a more effective set of policies, the only solutions to population decline will be a combination of incorporating non-Russian territory and/or immigration from Asia and Africa.

If Putin truly believed that demography is an existential problem for Russia, he might have calculated how many Ukrainians lived or worked in Russia before annexing Crimea and launching an invasion.

Putin’s regime is both seeking and discouraging repatriation by compatriots. On February 1, 2024, Russian media reported new legislation allowing the government to seize property belonging to Russians outside the country who criticize the war on Ukraine. Multiple instances have been reported of Russian diplomats and security personnel demanding that other countries detain and repatriate Russians who speak freely. Threats to seize their property in Russia are a logical extension of policies threatening family members still living in Russia.

At the same time, Russia’s policy does encourage compatriots to return, even as other citizens continue to depart.

One possible solution to the problems compounding Russia’s labor shortage would be to decentralize policy, allowing Russian regions to make their own decisions about attracting foreign labor. The resulting competition could go a long way toward improving conditions for foreign workers. Regional development was the prime mover in China’s massive urbanization and industrialization after 1978. While this involved horizontal mobility within the country, the model would resemble the significant influx of immigrants that, at least thus far, has kept the US population at well above replacement level. As Russia’s population continues to decline, immigrants will be increasingly vital to economic recovery.

Invading Ukraine while facing a catastrophic demographic challenge appears to have been a massive folly for the Kremlin. Hubris based on an astonishing intelligence failure might account for the miscalculation. Another possible explanation is that Putin understood that Russia’s economic and demographic challenges mean the country would not be in a more favorable condition any time in the coming decades.

Every corner of Russia’s economy is experiencing personnel shortages, while war casualties continue to shrink the able-bodied population. Russians and their leaders must learn to value diversity, or Russia will have an increasingly smaller and older population. Either way, there will be fewer ethnic Russians.

Harley Balzer retired in July 2016 after 33 years in the Department of Government, School of Foreign Service, and associated faculty member of the History Department at Georgetown University. He was founding director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies from 1987-2001. Prior to Georgetown he taught at Grinnell College and Boston University, and held post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard’s Russian Research Center and the MIT Program in Science, Technology and Society. In 1982-83 he was a congressional fellow in the office of Congressman Lee Hamilton, where he helped secure passage of the Soviet-East-European Research and Training Act (Title VIII).

In 1992-93 Balzer served as executive director and chairman of the board of the International Science Foundation, George Soros’s largest program to aid the former Soviet Union. From 1998 to 2009, he was a member of the Governing Council of the Basic Research and Higher Education (BRHE) Program, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, and Russian Ministry of Education. BRHE established 20 Research and Education Centers at Russian Universities, and was significantly expanded by the Russian government using their own resources.

His publications have focused on Russian and Soviet history, Russian politics, Russian education, science and technology, and comparative work on Russia and China.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to promote policies that strengthen stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

Russia Tomorrow Feb 2, 2024

Russia Tomorrow: Five scenarios for Russia’s future

By Casey Michel

A new Atlantic Council report explores five paths that Russia future might take in its future. What forces will shape Russia’s future?

Europe & Eurasia Political Reform

Russia Tomorrow Mar 14, 2024

All the autocrat’s men: The court politics of Putin’s inner circle

By Mikhail Zygar

A new Atlantic Council report by journalist Mikhail Zygar explores how Russia’s war on Ukraine has affected Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

Elections Europe & Eurasia

Russia Tomorrow May 23, 2024

Oil, gas, and war: The effect of sanctions on the Russian energy industry

By Vladimir Milov

A new Atlantic Council report explores the effect of sanctions on Russia’s energy industry. Are oil and gas still Putin’s lifeline?

Economic Sanctions Europe & Eurasia

The post A Russia without Russians? Putin’s disastrous demographics appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif made international headlines on August 1, when she knocked out Italian boxer Angela Carini just forty-six seconds into their match. After two forceful strikes to the head, Carini quit and fell to her knees in tears before walking away, refusing to shake Khelif’s hand. At one point, Carini could be heard on camera telling her coach, “It’s not right, it’s not right,” before exclaiming to the media that she had never been hit this hard in her career. Shortly after this, the hashtag #IStandWithAngelaCarini started to trend on social media.

Prominent public figures, like former US President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, accused Khelif of being a transgender athlete and promised to keep “men out of women’s sports.” Others have called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ban her from competing in future matches, noting that she was disqualified by the International Boxing Association (IBA) from the Women’s World Championships in New Delhi last year. The IBA said recently the disqualification was for failing to meet eligibility criteria.

Some have erroneously claimed that the disqualification was because Khelif was biologically a male, despite the fact that Khelif was born female. The IBA stated that, ahead of the world championships in 2023, Khelif underwent a test (the nature of which is confidential, but the IBA stated it was not a testosterone examination). The IBA president later told Russian news agency Tass that her disqualification was because “it was proven they have XY chromosomes.” (There is no evidence that Khelif has XY chromosomes.) IOC spokesman Mark Adams told reporters that the committee could not confirm the IBA test results and that “this is not a transgender issue.” (The two organizations no longer work together.)

Although Carini has since apologized for not shaking her opponent’s hand and said she felt badly that an online debate had transpired as a result, it wasn’t enough to stop the personal attacks on Khelif’s gender identity.

Several media outlets have speculated that Khelif could have differences in sex development (DSD), a group of rare medical conditions, but there is no verification that she has DSD or any medical condition related to sex traits. Khelif is not transgender and does not identify as intersex, contrary to what many have claimed about her on social media. In the face of criticism after her disqualification last year, Khelif responded, “To say that I have qualities and abilities that do not qualify me to compete with women is illogical. I did not create myself. This is God’s creation.”  

Middle East and North African (MENA) social media users were quick to stand behind Khelif, using the English and Arabic hashtags #IstandWithImaneKhelif and #إيمان_خليف (#Iman_Khelif) and calling her “brave” for standing her ground. The themes of discourse found online, mainly in Arabic, highlighted colonial-linked narratives about the “West” attempting to steal this win from an Arab athlete by fabricating lies about her gender identity. This also comes at a time when transgender rights in the West remain a highly contentious topic, especially in the lead-up to the US presidential election in November. 

Some Algerian fans, in particular, have described the West’s reaction to Khelif’s win as “anti-Arab,” maintaining that Western notions of Arab womanhood remain entrenched in a profoundly Eurocentric and racist understanding. On X, Algerian cartoonist Nime posted a drawing of Khelif with her boxing shorts pulled down to reveal her pink undergarments to affirm her identity. Meanwhile, Algeria’s official football X account posted a picture of Carini at the press conference with the caption “cry more,” which has now gone viral with 59 million engagements.

Many Algerians have highlighted the hypocritical nature of the accusations, noting that other Olympic female athletes, like US rugby player Ilona Maher, have been praised for taking a stand against body negativity and supporting women of “all the different body types,” while Khelif was harassed online for hers. Maher told her fans stories about how she was shamed for her masculine body type in a now-viral TikTok post with the caption, “All body types can be Olympians.” Yet, that same understanding was not extended to Khelif. Unfortunately, as the Associated Press noted, “Female athletes of color have historically faced disproportionate scrutiny and discrimination when it comes to sex testing and false accusations that they are male or transgender.” 

Shortly after Khelif defeated Carini, far-right Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni posted a picture with Carini on X, stating, “I know you won’t give up, Angela, and I know that one day you will earn with effort and sweat what you deserve in a finally fair competition.” Other conservative public figures, like X’s Elon Musk, reposted videos of Khelif’s match and commentary warning US voters that “Kamala Harris supports this” in a bid to link the incident to domestic right-wing narratives about sexual identity amid a critical election cycle. Author J. K. Rowling, who has made transphobic comments in the past, also posted a picture of the match on X with the caption, “Could any picture sum up our new men’s rights movement better? The smirk of a male who’s knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment.” This strain of Western discourse portrays a bigoted understanding of womanhood, one rooted in anti-LGBTQI sentiments. 

The contrast between both sides of the discourse highlights gaps in the social understanding of womanhood and sexuality. By denying Khelif’s womanhood and leveraging her win to disseminate miseducated narratives that fuel anti-LGBTQI sentiments, critics are essentializing the definition of gender and perpetuating stigmas. 

This dangerous narrative, coupled with a rise in anti-Arab sentiments amid the ten-month Gaza war, has brewed the perfect storm for right-wing figures to launch baseless attacks on Khelif’s gender identity.

Analyzing the sentiments behind these narratives can paint a picture of how divisive gender and sexuality discourse can be, especially amid a global election cycle. With the backdrop of race and nationality, these sentiments can be used to sustain a limited understanding of gender and LGBTQI identities. There is no “one box fits all” definition of these themes. Instead, using a nuanced approach to these complex issues could help shed light on the many unique experiences of womanhood. Like all Olympians, Khelif has dreamed of this moment since she was a young girl, growing up in an impoverished neighborhood where she and her family used to sell bread and plastic to afford her boxing lessons. Having beat Carini, Khelif won the quarterfinals against Hungarian boxer Anna Luca Hamori and is set to advance to the semifinals on August 6. With thirty-seven victories and nine defeats in her career, Khelif has earned her spot at the Olympics. Barring Khelif’s participation would only let misguided ideologies concerning gender identity win. 

Yaseen Rashed is the assistant director of media and communications at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs.

The post Imane Khelif is a woman, contrary to what the internet says appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Female political representation is important. According to 2023 data, only fifty-nine of the 193 member states of the United Nations had a woman head of state or government in their history. Against this backdrop, four countries in the Caribbean have had or currently have women leaders: Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Barbados. But representation still lags behind, with an average of 22 percent of ministerial portfolios and cabinet positions in the English-speaking Caribbean held by women. And according to World Bank data, only four Caribbean countries—Dominica, Guyana, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Grenada—have 30 percent or more seats in national parliaments held by women.

At the same time, greater and more effective female political representation must go hand in hand with bringing gender equity perspectives into all aspects policymaking in ways that improve the lives of citizens. In the Caribbean, women and girls face significant vulnerabilities, and gender mainstreaming is needed to address them, in particular gender-based violence.

The Caribbean has one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world. According to UN Women data, 46 percent of women in the Caribbean have experienced at least one form of violence in their lifetime. Jamaica, for example, has the second-highest femicide rate in the world, while 55 percent of Guyanese women have experienced at least one form of violence, including intimate partner violence or nonpartner sexual abuse. And data on gender-based violence is often underreported.

To tackle gender-based violence through gender mainstreaming in policymaking, governments in the Caribbean should work closely with civil society organizations that focus on gender and gender-based violence. They should also work with victims of gender-based violence to understand the bottlenecks of the system and its inadequate responses. With this deeper understanding, governments can map out specific areas to improve support for women victims of gender-based violence.

Governments should also include chief gender officers in key government institutions, particularly within the judicial system and the police. Chief gender officers can help ensure appropriate support, accountability, and sustainability of policies for victims of gender-based violence. These officers should be appropriately trained to bring a gender-sensitive perspective to decision-making processes, and their authority and dedicated office to these issues can help to overcome institutional inertia.

In the legal sphere, these officers should revise and help update legislation through a gender lens, as a mechanism to avoid the perpetuation of laws and norms that might have pervasive negative consequences for women and girls. Within the police, chief gender officers can be trained to welcome and support victims of gender-based violence, helping them as victims instead of discriminating against them. Focus groups commissioned by the Atlantic Council in Jamaica and Guyana, for example, found a lack of trust that institutions, such as the police, can support women victims of gender-based violence. One Jamaican woman explained, “But sometimes you go to the police and the police take your statement and look at you and be like if you wear that then you don’t think the man is going to see you.”

Ensuring that women victims of gender-based violence feel heard and supported could lead to more accurate data on this issue, as underreporting is a significant challenge. This, in turn, could help governments gain a better understanding of gender-based violence and the policies and programs that can help solve it.  

Valentina Sader is a deputy director at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, where she leads the Center’s work on Brazil, gender equality and diversity, and manages the Center’s Advisory Council.

The post The case for chief gender officers in Caribbean states appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Kharlan’s Olympic victory has additional significance for Ukraine as she almost missed out on participating in Paris altogether due to her principled stand over the Russian invasion of her homeland. During the 2023 World Fencing Championship, Kharlan refused to shake hands with a Russian opponent in protest over the war, offering instead to tap blades. The Russian declined this offer and staged a protest of her own, leading to Kharlan’s disqualification and making it virtually impossible for her to take part in the 2024 Olympic Games.

The incident sparked a heated debate over the role of politics in sport and the continued participation of Russian athletes in international events at a time when Russia is conducting Europe’s largest military invasion since World War II. Following a considerable outcry, Kharlan was reinstated and received the personal backing of International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, himself a former fencer. Meanwhile, Kharlan’s gesture made her a hero to millions of Ukrainians.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

The controversy over Kharlan’s refusal to shake hands with her Russian opponent has been mirrored elsewhere in the sporting arena, highlighting the complex moral issues facing Ukrainian athletes as they compete internationally while their country is fighting for national survival. Ukrainian tennis star Elina Svitolina in particular has attracted headlines for her decision to avoid handshakes with Russian and Belarusian players.

Some critics have accused Ukrainians of politicizing sport, and have argued against holding individual Russians accountable for crimes committed by the Kremlin. Meanwhile, supporters of Ukrainian protest efforts have noted the Kremlin’s frequent use of sport as a propaganda tool, and have also pointed to the often close links between some Russian athletes and the Putin regime.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event Thu, August 15, 2024 • 9:00 am ET

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

For Ukraine’s Olympic team, participation in this year’s Summer Games is an opportunity to provide their war weary compatriots back home with something to cheer, while also reminding the world of Russia’s ongoing invasion. Since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, many of Ukraine’s Olympic athletes have had to train in exceptionally difficult conditions. Some have been forced to relocate from areas that have fallen under Russian occupation, while all have grown used to the daily trauma of the war and the regular disruption caused by Russian air raids.

Ahead of the Paris Olympics, Olga Kharlan was widely seen as one of Ukraine’s best medal hopes. Born in Mykolaiv, she has been fencing since the age of ten. Prior to the 2024 Olympics, she had already amassed four Olympic medals in a glittering career that has also seen her win six world titles. The thirty-three-year-old Ukrainian star demonstrated her mental strength during the third place playoff in Paris, overcoming South Korea’s Choi Sebin in a dramatic comeback win.

Thanks to her new bronze medal, Kharlan now shares top spot among Ukraine’s leading Olympians with a total of five medals. She claimed her first medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 before securing further honors in 2012 and 2016. However, the Ukrainian star says her success in the French capital stands out. “This medal is totally different,” commented Kharlan in Paris this week. “It’s special because it’s for my country. This is a message to all the world that Ukraine will never give up.”

Mark Temnycky is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jul 25, 2024

Putin is convinced he can outlast the West and win in Ukraine

By Mykola Bielieskov

The West’s collective fear of escalation and reluctance to commit to Ukrainian victory have convinced Putin that he can outlast his opponents and achieve an historic triumph in Ukraine, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Conflict Defense Industry

UkraineAlert Jul 22, 2024

Andriy Yermak: Ukraine and NATO are restoring Europe’s security architecture

By Andriy Yermak

Together with the country’s allies, Ukraine has set out on the path to restore the European security architecture, writes the head of Ukraine’s Office of the President Andriy Yermak.

Conflict Defense Industry

UkraineAlert Jun 12, 2024

Ukraine is making the Russian occupation of Crimea untenable

By Olivia Yanchik

Ukraine’s growing air strike capabilities are decimating Russian air defenses in Crimea and making the occupation of the peninsula increasingly untenable, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Technologies

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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The post Paris Olympics: Ukrainian dedicates medal to athletes killed by Russia appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Public Event Thu, July 25, 2024 • 8:30 am ET

Shaping the global economy: From food security to digital transformation

Shaping the global economy conference will develop a blueprint for the G20 to address the range of challenges facing its member states from global economic governance and digital transformation to food security and hunger. 

Brazil China Digital Policy Energy Markets & Governance

“We’ve lost all the progress that we’ve made in the past fifteen years” on lowering global hunger levels, World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Cindy McCain warned on Thursday.

McCain spoke at an Atlantic Council event hosted on the sidelines of the Group of Twenty (G20) meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors in Rio de Janeiro. She pointed out that one in eleven people globally faced hunger last year.

On Wednesday, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced that Brazil—which holds the G20 presidency—will later this year launch the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty to bring countries together in sharing knowledge and resources.

“We have the capability as a planet to feed everybody on the planet—we grow enough food,” McCain said, “but we don’t” due to funding and other coordination issues.

With those challenges, the Global Alliance is “a great opportunity for all of us . . . to get together, exchange ideas, brainstorm” and to “develop science and technology” tools to help, McCain said.

Below are more highlights from the conversation, moderated by Valentina Sader, deputy director at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

Food security

• Food security is a “national security issue,” and “it should be labeled as one,” McCain argued, pointing out how access to food has shaped broader security crises in Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
• Yet, food security “gets kicked down” the list of priorities every time “something else happens in the world,” McCain warned.
• She said that the WFP and United Nations agencies, because they provide critical aid, are “on the front lines” of crises and the “first in and last out.”
• The WFP previously got most of its grain from Ukraine. But it has had to diversify its sources in the wake of the agricultural disruptions caused by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. WFP is also working with other countries to help them mitigate the effects of the conflict on global food supplies.
• In the global hunger crisis, “women and children are taking the brunt,” McCain said. “You’ve never seen more of an example of it than in Gaza.”
• She added that equity and gender inclusion are important to factor into food security efforts because “a woman will feed her family,” and while doing so, “she will make sure everybody else eats” before she does.
• Moreover, with women making up around half of smallholder farmers, McCain argued that it is important to make sure that these women have the tools, expertise, seeds, and access to water that they need to farm effectively. “If a woman farms and can feed her family, she will wind up feeding the community,” McCain said.

Farm to negotiating table

• McCain noted that G20 countries include not only the world’s leading economies but also some of the planet’s largest agricultural producers. That, she said, empowers these countries to work together to address the full spectrum of food-security challenges, from poverty to improvements in agriculture.
• She added that the G20 is an optimal forum for raising the urgency around hunger because of how it brings together both governments and civil society organizations from countries that represent 85 percent of the world’s gross domestic product and over 60 percent of its population. “So the voice is huge,” she said, adding that “governments simply cannot do it all. We need everybody in on this.”
• She urged global stakeholders to “continue to elevate the conversation” about the urgency of food security—and advised countries “most affected” by food insecurity to keep conveying the plight they face. “The problem is [that] around the world, people don’t understand what’s going on” or believe that hunger and malnutrition are only problems in Africa rather than globally, she said. “It’s all about. . . making sure that people understand.”

Katherine Walla is the associate director of editorial at the Atlantic Council. 

Watch the full event

The post ‘We’re back to square one’ in fighting the hunger crisis, warns Cindy McCain appeared first on Atlantic Council.

“Bringing women on board is not only a women’s rights issue. It brings benefits to the whole of society and to our collective security,” Icelandic Foreign Minister Thórdís Kolbrún Reykfjörd Gylfadóttir said on the first day of the summit. “It’s not about waiting for the time when you can afford focusing on women, peace, and security, or gender equality for that matter, or empowering women,” she added. “You become stronger because you focus on those points, not when you afford them.”

WPS commitments at the Washington summit

The show of support for advancing the WPS agenda during the summit was not just rhetorical. It included concrete commitments, such as adopting a new NATO policy on WPS that is “fit for purpose” for the twenty-first century security environment. Several allies also committed to fund more than ten thousand uniforms and body armor sets for Ukrainian female servicemembers defending their country against Russia’s full-scale invasion.

If the Alliance is looking for something that increasingly earns bipartisan support in the United States, then it should look to the importance of women’s inclusion in national security strategies. In 2017, then President Donald Trump signed the first national law that took steps to institutionalize a United Nations mandate to make the security sector more inclusive of female leadership and more responsive to the needs of women and girls, including freedom from conflict-related sexual violence. In 1994, then Senator Joe Biden was an original cosponsor of the Violence Against Women Act that year, and the Biden-Harris administration continues to make important reforms to the military code of justice on sexual assault in the military.

One of the highlights of the Washington summit was the announcement that as of 2024, twenty-three allied nations have met the commitment to spend 2 percent of annual gross domestic product on defense spending, a change that is applauded by both sides of the aisle in the United States. What is less known is how those fiscal commitments relate to national aspirations for a more inclusive force. According to the most recently published NATO Committee on Gender Perspectives report, released in 2020, twenty-seven members of the Alliance, including the United States, have national action plans on WPS. NATO’s newest members, Sweden and Finland, also have national action plans on WPS. Furthermore, twenty-five NATO nations reported an increase in female participation in the armed forces in the years before 2020. On average, 13 percent of allied forces were comprised of women that year.

In the Washington Summit Declaration, allies committed to integrate an ambitious WPS and human security agenda across all of NATO’s core tasks. NATO had previously committed to women’s meaningful participation in the security sector. But the new policy recognizes the conditions that make women’s leadership possible, including their full, equal, safe, and meaningful participation in decision making in national institutions.

The declaration also referred to the human security trends shaping today’s conflicts, including disregard for international humanitarian law and the protection of civilians, cultural property protection, and forced displacement that fuels human trafficking and irregular migration. These human security trends disproportionately affect women and girls, who make up more than half of the 117 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, according to the United Nations. In Washington, the Alliance also renewed its commitment to international law and the fundamental norms of armed conflict, which distinguishes between military targets and civilians.

Lessons from Ukraine

Although NATO did not welcome Ukraine into the Alliance at the summit, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in his closing press statement that it is a matter of when, not if, Ukraine will become a member. This followed NATO commitments at the summit to establishing a new NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training, and Education Center and NATO Security Assistance Training for Ukraine to increase Kyiv’s interoperability with the Alliance.

For the last decade, and especially since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has shown that the conduct of war involves more than military strategy. Providing security has become a whole-of-society effort, involving women in uniform and civilians providing support to the front lines. The evolving nature of conflict can blur the distinction between civilian and military action and change societal norms on what roles are appropriate for men and women. These dynamics are important for understanding the human domain, which is adaptive to evolving threats. Supporting female soldiers and addressing civilian harm caused by the war should be an integral part of NATO plans to train for the future operational environment and to secure peace in Ukraine.

The NATO Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for WPS, which has responsibility for a broader umbrella of cross-cutting human security policies, can continue working toward integrating lessons from the human domain in military training. While NATO continues to identify military lessons from the war in Ukraine, these lessons should also include concrete steps to protect civilians from air missile attacks, mitigate the use of sexual violence in conflict, and protect children against forced deportations to Russia. NATO can emphasize the lessons allies have learned about how to protect civilians in other conflicts, such as in Iraq and Libya, as it establishes new security cooperation training centers.

The war in Ukraine is a test case for whether the Alliance can help partner nations achieve stability and whether its actions are inclusive of the whole-of-society approach that has characterized the mobilization of the Ukrainian population. While volunteerism, patriotism, and the inclusion of women have sustained Ukraine’s war effort, the need to protect the civilian population from attack remains paramount.

Sarah Dawn Petrin is a nonresident senior fellow at the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She previously advised the US Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute on integrating women, peace, and security and human security in US military operations.

The post The Women, Peace, and Security agenda made important strides at NATO’s Washington summit appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On Thursday, April 25, the Atlantic Council’s WIn Fellowship hosted a panel discussion on the vital role Arab women ambassadors play in shaping the field of diplomacy, both in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and globally.

The conversation was moderated by Lynn Monzer, Deputy Director of the Atlantic Council’s WIn Fellowship and featured H.E. Sheikha Al-Zain Al-Sabah, Ambassador of the State of Kuwait to the United States of America; H.E. Hanene Tajouri Bessassi, Ambassador of the Republic of Tunisia to the United States of America; and H.E. Amal Mudallali, former Ambassador to the Permanent Mission of Lebanon to the United Nations (UN).  

Deciding on diplomacy

H.E. Sheikha Al-Zain Al-Sabah initiated the conversation by sharing insights from her background in journalism, where she encountered diverse mindsets through storytelling. This experience highlighted her natural diplomatic skills, as navigating complex systems and creating sustainable solutions in business mirrored key aspects of diplomacy. These experiences and insights logically paved the way for her career in diplomacy.

Similarly, H.E. Hanene Tajouri Bessassi transitioned from an initial aspiration to become a physician to recognizing the diplomatic field as another form of healing. In her view, diplomacy involves listening to those in distress, diagnosing societal issues, and crafting viable solutions, thus paralleling the healing processes in medicine.

Like Al-Sabah, H.E. Amal Mudallali started in journalism, with ambitions centered on reporting at the UN. After achieving this, she ventured deeper into politics, eventually serving under two Lebanese prime ministers and later as the Ambassador of Lebanon to the UN. She emphasized the critical role of male allies in politics, where men predominantly hold power but greatly benefit from women’s collaborative and problem-solving skills.

In addition to winding career paths, all three diplomats agreed on the importance of a robust support system for success in diplomacy. Bessassi thanked her parents and husband specifically for the strength, independence, and commitment necessary to work in the diplomatic field. Echoing the sentiment on support systems, Mudallali highlighted her grandmother’s empowering role during her upbringing. She also stressed the crucial need for political backing, citing the potential difficulties and injustices faced without such support. Al-Sabah, similarly, underscored the significance of a nurturing ecosystem for achieving success. For her, the focus is on contributing back to this ecosystem and the broader community, often through mentoring other women, providing support, advice, and honest guidance on their professional journeys.

Navigating the field’s challenges

Bessassi then turned to the challenges facing women in diplomacy. She noted that despite Tunisia’s rich history of influential women leaders, gender parity remains elusive. This disparity is underscored by prevailing gender stereotypes that still hinder women’s effectiveness in all fields, including diplomacy. Bessassi argued against the perception that empathy—a trait often associated with women—is a weakness. Instead, she illustrated how empathy enhances diplomatic efforts by fostering consensus and compromise, bringing more people into the fold while working toward peace and cooperation.

The underrepresentation of women in global diplomacy was further addressed by Al-Sabah, who pointed out that women make up only 21 percent of ambassadors worldwide. She emphasized the importance of improving representation and noted that the participation of women on the panel, along with other women ambassadors in the United States from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Mauritania, represents significant progress in altering public perceptions about women in diplomacy.

Mudallali echoed these concerns with specific examples from the United Nations, where women’s representation has been backsliding; the number of women UN representatives decreased from 52 in 2020 to 46 today. She linked this trend to a global phenomenon such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as countries have become more brazen in rejecting previously held norms such as equal gender representation. She also noted the decrease in women’s participation in peace negotiations. In 2020, women represented 23 percent of negotiators in active peace processes, dropping to 16 percent in 2023. Based on analysis of real-world peace processes, agreements between negotiators are much more likely to be reached when women have a strong influence on the negotiations.

Al-Sabah added that 2023 saw a 50 percent increase in war-induced violence against women, reinforcing the necessity for women’s voices in peace negotiations. This backslide in gender representation, Mudallali argued, demands urgent attention and action in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which focuses on women, peace, and security.

Bessassi acknowledged these recent challenges nut also emphasized the power of collective effort among women ambassadors, which has the potential to catalyze global change. Mudallali shared this sentiment,expressing her feeling of responsibility to do everything possible to elevate women, believing that these challenges require structured, codified solutions. Al-Sabah concluded by underscoring the importance of integrating advocacy into diplomacy to empower women effectively. In Kuwait, for instance, the government established the Department of Human Rights within the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in part to address women’s empowerment. Internationally, too, organizations with similar aims must work together to implement Resolution 1325 to ensure countries adhere to international principles of women’s empowerment. For young women in the MENA region and beyond, seeing women in these roles not only offers a glimpse of what is possible but also instills hope and inspiration.

The future of diplomacy

Building on the theme of hope, Al-Sabah discussed a significant shift toward civic diplomacy following Israel’s invasion of Gaza, with women taking on an increased role in this space. She highlighted the courageous efforts of journalists like Shireen Abu Akleh, Plestia Alaqad, and Hind Khoudary who have used their personal cameras and cellphones to broadcast their voices are around the world. Al-Sabah stressed the urgent need for greater protection of journalists in Gaza and around the world, who face harassment and life-threatening dangers in their line of work.

Continuing the conversation, Bessassi emphasized the increasing importance of multilateralism now more than ever in addressing global challenges. She called for consistency in the international community’s approach, as the international community’s engagement on issues like the war in Gaza must avoid “double standards” to effectively address challenges in diplomacy.

Mudallali echoed the sentiments of her colleagues, concluding the panel with a call for strong advocacy for peace. She pointed out that recent global tensions have shifted the focus from collaboration to competition. By supporting women in diplomatic roles, Mudallali argued, societies will not only lift but also enhance their prospects for achieving lasting peace.

The way forward

Over a century since the first appointment of a women ambassador in 1920, women remain severely underrepresented in the predominantly male diplomacy sector. As of 2023, women account for only 20.54 percent of ambassadors worldwide, a decrease from 23 percent in 2020. The disparity is even more pronounced in the MENA region, where women make up just 10 percent of ambassadors, the lowest regional rate globally, highlighting a significant challenge for women in MENA diplomacy.

Despite these daunting numbers in MENA, there have been some encouraging signs of progress. The United Arab Emirates, for instance, has increased its proportion of women ambassadors by 5.5 percent between 2018 and 2023, reaching 12.5 percent. Additionally, a recent Arab Barometer report has shown a marked decrease throughout the MENA region over the past decade in the belief that men are better political leaders than women, suggesting growing acceptance of women in political and diplomatic roles.

However, effectively capitalizing on these openings requires systematic and sustained support. Algeria serves as a cautionary tale where a 2011 gender quota led to increased opposition to women in political leadership due to the absence of systemic improvements or societal readiness for such changes. Conversely, Tunisia witnessed an increase in openness toward women political leadership after the implementation of a similar quota and was further bolstered by President Kais Saied’s appointment of Najla Bouden Romdhane as the first female prime minister in the MENA region. These moves demonstrate that political backing and continued support of women is a crucial component to increasing women’s representation at both the political and diplomatic levels.

In addition to national efforts, international initiatives are crucial. UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for women’s equal participation in preventing violent conflicts, is particularly significant. Supporting this resolution could significantly legitimize women’s roles in conflict mediation. This is supported by data showing that peace negotiations involving women are 35 percent more likely to last for at least fifteen years. Therefore, in the midst of shifting attitudes, a global drive for greater women participation in diplomacy, and the myriad conflicts necessitating peace negotiations, reform toward gender parity in diplomacy is as pressing and timely as ever for the MENA region.

Charles Johnson is a Young Global professional in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs

Jun 14, 2023

The WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 cohort

Building on the success of its inaugural cohort, the Women Innovators Fellowship (WIn) is expanding to Bahrain and the UAE, in addition to Saudi Arabia, as it continues to empower more women entrepreneurs from the Middle East. The program is thrilled to announce this year’s eighty-six recipients of its 2023 WIn Fellowship. The participants will receive a year-long program of executive education, mentoring, and networking opportunities in collaboration with Georgetown McDonough School of Business and with the support of the United States embassies in the three target countries and PepsiCo.

May 3, 2024

2024 WIn Fellowship Roadshow

WIn Fellows participate in a fully sponsored trip to the United States for leadership training at Georgetown and meetings with US business and government leaders.

Feb 24, 2023

2023 WIn Fellowship Roadshow

The WIn Fellowship roadshow is led by the Atlantic Council’s empowerME Initiative in cooperation with Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business with support from US Embassy Riyadh, UPS, and PepsiCo. The WIn Fellowship Roadshow participants, chosen from a highly competitive cohort of more than thirty applicants, receive a fully sponsored trip to the United States for leadership training at Georgetown and meetings with US business and government leaders.

Event Recap Jul 31, 2023

Empowering the future: The rising women workforce in Saudi Arabia’s private sector

By Lynn Monzer, Nibras Basitkey

Event recap on the empowering future of the workplace in Saudi Arabia and its impact on the private sector.

Economy & Business Future of Work

Event Recap Jul 24, 2023

Bridging the gender gap in venture capital

By Lynn Monzer, Nibras Basitkey

Event recap on the significance of venture funding for women entrepreneurs in the UAE.

Economy & Business Middle East

Event Recap Jul 18, 2023

An overview of gender parity in Bahrain: Progress, challenges, and the path forward

By Lynn Monzer, Nibras Basitkey

A recap of the First Workshop in Bahrain

Economy & Business Inclusive Growth

empowerME

empowerME at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East is shaping solutions to empower entrepreneurs, women, and youth and building coalitions of public and private partnerships to drive regional economic integration, prosperity, and job creation.

Explore the initiative

The post Gender parity in MENA diplomacy and its impact on peace appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Despite initial promises of moderation and a pledge to the United Nations (UN) when the group seized power in 2021, the Taliban has swiftly restored oppressive policies reminiscent of its previous rule in the late 1990s.

In less than three years, the Taliban has issued more than fifty edicts and directives imposing strict measures to bar women from participation in public and political life. These measures include restricting women’s access to education, employment, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, access to public spaces, health care, and access to justice.

A UN experts report said the situation may amount to “gender apartheid,” with the Taliban “governing by systemic discrimination with the intention to subject women and girls to total domination.” 

Violations of international law

As reported by the UN Human Rights Council, the Taliban significantly restricts women’s participation in society and denies them avenues for seeking justice and redress. Women who speak out against these restrictions or advocate for their rights face severe consequences, including harassment, violence, imprisonment, and death. The Taliban also targets women activists, professionals, and both men and women who are supporters of women’s rights, viewing them as threats to their authority. The situation has deteriorated further in the past few months, as evidenced by recent extrajudicial arrests and forced disappearances. There has also been an alarming increase in gender-related killings (femicide).

The Taliban’s gender apartheid policies deliberately violate international legal frameworks to which Afghanistan is still bound, perpetuating a cycle of gender-based discrimination and brutality. International law on the protection of women’s rights is unequivocal. It emphasizes the fundamental responsibility of governing authorities to promote and safeguard the rights of women in all aspects of their lives.

The International Bill of Human Rights—which is comprised of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights—guarantees the right to equality and nondiscrimination. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women explicitly prohibits gender-based discrimination, obligating state parties to ensure gender equality in all spheres of life. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) criminalizes gender persecution as a crime against humanity under article 7. 

The ICC’s 2022 Policy on the Crime of Gender Persecution broadens the scope of targeted individuals beyond direct members of a particular group to include that group’s sympathizers and affiliates. This inclusive stance is particularly relevant for Afghanistan. In schools that ban girls, staff—including male teachers—who teach girls can also be targeted. Similarly, journalists are targeted and face persecution for their coverage of violations of women’s basic human rights. Such incidents, which fall under the ICC’s purview, highlight the interconnectedness of gender-related issues and the diverse ways individuals can be affected by gender-based persecution.

The Taliban’s capital and corporal punishments target women more often than men. Despite Afghanistan’s ratification of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Taliban persists in brutally treating and punishing women. Taliban punishments, ranging from public floggings to executions, demonstrate a deliberate effort to instill fear and maintain control over women’s lives, flagrantly violating the Convention against Torture.

When the Taliban shields perpetrators from accountability, including insulating its own system, it further perpetuates a cycle of violence. Under the current regime, documentation of human rights abuses has become nearly impossible. The Taliban’s restrictions on international and local human rights organizations and media, including censorship and intimidation tactics, have severely hindered their ability to document and report these violations. The absence of comprehensive reporting on human rights abuses under the Taliban not only obscures the true extent of the violations but also allows perpetrators to act with impunity.

The broader international significance

The ongoing violations perpetrated by the Taliban in Afghanistan, particularly on women, have sparked diplomatic condemnation from the international community. However, this condemnation exposes a deeper issue: the weakening consensus among members of the international community on how to effectively respond to such crises. One of the primary risks associated with this trend is the normalization of the extremists. Engaging with the Taliban and normalizing relations without meaningful concessions on human rights encourages the Taliban and other repressive regimes, signaling that they can flout international norms with impunity.

This impunity gravely undermines more than two decades’ worth of efforts to achieve justice, reconciliation, and sustainable peace in Afghanistan. The Taliban has not only refused to acknowledge its past atrocities but also enjoys impunity for its current actions.

The continued impunity not only denies justice to women survivors but also sends a dangerous message that violence against women can be tolerated and even condoned, with far-reaching implications. The denial of education and participation in public life hinders the development and empowerment of women and girls, perpetuating cycles of poverty, inequality, and marginalization. It also undermines fundamental principles of justice and human rights, eroding trust in the ability of international institutions to provide justice and accountability. This lack of accountability also enables the Taliban to spread extremist ideologies, creating a nurturing environment for conflict and terrorism, with dire implications for regional stability.

What the international community can do

Considering the dire situation in Afghanistan, the UN should take a lead role in establishing robust accountability mechanisms. This may entail creating an independent investigative body to monitor and document human rights abuses and violations of international law.

The UN should also change its approach to the Taliban. Instead of engaging with the regime without conditions, the UN should work with regional and global partners and directly with the Afghan people, including civil society, to develop a unified strategy that prioritizes women, human rights, and security, rather than legitimizing a regime that promotes oppression and instability. Taliban leaders’ rigid ideology means dialogue with them is futile. Moreover, targeted sanctions and travel bans on Taliban leaders should be imposed. The UN can leverage its authority and resources to coordinate efforts among member states and ensure a unified approach to the crisis within the organization.

At the same time, the international community can use diplomatic engagement to exert pressure on the Taliban to respect international human rights standards. Diplomatic recognition, aid, and other forms of cooperation should be conditioned on tangible improvements in human rights and accountability.

Human rights organizations outside Afghanistan play a crucial role in amplifying the voices of Afghan women and advocating for their rights. These organizations should mobilize support for Afghan civil society groups and grassroots organizations, particularly those championing human rights and women’s rights. By collaborating with local activists and providing resources, these organizations can help promote accountability and protect vulnerable populations—particularly women.

Samira Abrar is human rights activist currently working in the field of immigration law in the United States.

The post Don’t look away: The Taliban’s mistreatment of women has global ramifications appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The region has an urgent need to prepare for the scope of climate change. Many of the region’s countries rely on tourism to drive economic growth, with ten of the world’s twenty most tourism-dependent economies residing in the Caribbean. When hurricanes roll through the region, damaging infrastructure and halting flights, the tourism industry halts as well, diminishing economic prospects. Most Caribbean countries face the brunt of the Atlantic hurricane season, which is producing stronger and more frequent tropical storms. At the same time, most of the region’s populous cities are coastal, making sea level rise a threat to homes and the day-to-day functions of society. Further, changing precipitation patterns and higher average temperatures result in agricultural degradation and more acidic oceans, decreasing crop yields in rural areas and limiting fishery supplies.

While the entire region faces daunting consequences from climate change and related natural disasters, women and girls face disproportionate effects across four areas.

First, women and girls are “especially vulnerable to sexual violence and coercion” in the wake of a natural disaster, according to the United Nations Population Fund. This risk includes and extends beyond domestic violence, which is known to spike in crisis situations, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic in Trinidad and Tobago. Disproportionate risks mount, the World Bank notes, “in the face of uprooted housing and traditional support structures, disrupted access to services, and both structural and social obstacles to accessing food, relief, supplies, and latrines.” A lack of privacy and security in shelters is problematic, especially for young and teenage girls.

Second, women are responsible for a greater share of caregiving for families and households. After Hurricane María knocked out the power grid in Puerto Rico and made potable water scarce, it was women who bore a greater burden in doing the cooking, laundry, and cleaning to keep households going. Moreover, across multiple climate change events, when schools close, women with school-age children are often unable to return to work or attend school themselves.

Third, Caribbean women tend to work in the informal economy, including small-scale businesses and the hospitality sector, both of which are adversely affected by tropical storms. Storms can damage crops and roads, making it difficult to get produce to markets, while also leaving restaurants, shops, and hotels closed for days, affecting incomes.

Finally, women often have unequal access to finance, capital, and other assets, which can affect their resilience after a disaster. In addition, as governments finance the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure after natural disasters and fortify existing structures, there are fewer resources devoted to the education and health sectors—both of which are integral to providing care to and lifting family responsibility burdens from women.

Caribbean governments and regional partners must factor in the disproportionate challenges facing women and girls at the earliest stages of climate resilience and adaptation policymaking. Policy designs should incorporate government funding or subsidies dedicated to women-owned businesses adversely affected by climate change. Historically, Caribbean women face barriers to accessing finance and capital to start or invest in their businesses. Limited track records in operating a business relative to men and frequent climate events increase the risk profiles for women-owned firms. Here, governments can work with regional institutions like the Caribbean Development Bank to level the playing field for women-owned firms by providing grants to businesses in climate-affected sectors, like hospitality and agricultural work.

Further, resources can and should be dedicated to women-owned firms that are physically affected by climate events and to create shelters where at-risk women and girls can stay after natural disasters to limit spaces where gender-based violence can occur. This should include shelters that can care for children and allow working parents to return to their jobs to offset the disproportionate costs borne by women resulting from family responsibilities.

Involving women in policy designs also includes making them part of the decision-making process. Only women and girls can provide first-hand information to contextualize policies and streamline resources that address the unique challenges they face due to climate change. One way to do this is to incorporate perspectives from gender-focused civil society organizations.

Civil society organizations are uniquely intertwined with the realities of each country at national and subnational levels, allowing them to understand the day-to-day challenges facing women and girls across different communities. Governments can work with civil society organizations to ensure that policies are not blanket approaches but are bottom-up in nature, so that each community of women and girls receive the resources and attention they require. Regular consultation with these groups, particularly in the advent of hurricane season, during rainy seasons, and in the lead-up to drier months can provide real-time insights into the types of government resources that should be devoted to women and girls.

Given that the Caribbean is a heterogeneous region, with different climate events affecting different countries, it is essential for policy design and decision making to be country-specific as well as gender inclusive to best serve local populations. Climate change does not have to result in increasing gender inequity in the Caribbean—as long as the voices and interests of women and girls are incorporated in policy design and resource allocation in regional planning to combat climate change.

Wazim Mowla is the associate director and fellow for the Caribbean Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. 

This article is part of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center’s partnership with the UN Women Multi-Country Office–Caribbean.

The post Climate change doesn’t have to result in greater gender inequity in the Caribbean appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On April 23, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Marc Polymeropoulos wrote a book review for The Cipher Brief of Hala Gorani’s “But You Don’t Look Arab and Other Tales of Unbelonging.”

The review covers the story of Emmy Award-winning international journalist Hala Gorani, from her time as a globe-trotting correspondent and anchor with her own lifelong search for identity as the daughter of Syrian immigrants.

Fellow

Marc Polymeropoulos

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Afghanistan Europe & Eurasia

Forward Defense, housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, generates ideas and connects stakeholders in the defense ecosystem to promote an enduring military advantage for the United States, its allies, and partners. Our work identifies the defense strategies, capabilities, and resources the United States needs to deter and, if necessary, prevail in future conflict.

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The post Polymeropoulos book review of “But You Don’t Look Arab and Other Tales of Unbelonging” in The Cipher Brief appeared first on Atlantic Council.

According to recent studies, violence against women in Mexico has surged, with more than 70 percent of Mexico’s 50.5 million women and girls over the age of fifteen experiencing some form of violence. This brutal reality is heightened by the fact that many crimes in Mexico often go unreported, hindering governmental efforts to address the disproportionate impact of criminal violence on women in rural states such as Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Chiapas. It is a serious problem in Mexico, and it is also a concern for its northern neighbor. It’s in the United States’ best interest to take a closer look at the increased effect of organized crime on women in Mexico and the growing migration pressures it is generating.

It is no secret that Mexico stands as one of the most violent countries for women. For years, Mexico has struggled with inadequate resources and institutions to safeguard victims and prosecute offenders.

Even urban areas such as Mexico City, which have more access to resources and investment than rural areas, have struggled to create a holistic security agenda that can ensure women’s safety. However, between February 2020 and 2024, the incidence of femicide in the capital decreased by 20 percent, according to the Secretariat of Citizen Security in Mexico City. Although this value does not encompass the full dimension of the violence women face in Mexico, the decrease may be a result of certain components of the city’s security agenda. This agenda includes implementing gender-sensitive training for military and police personnel, bolstering female representation in law enforcement, improving access to mental-health and victim-support services, and streamlining abuse reporting mechanisms through preventative policing measures.  

The most severe violence against women predominantly occurs in remote Mexican states characterized by pervasive poverty and the presence of criminal organizations. States such as Oaxaca, Veracruz, and Chiapas, plagued by poverty and host to multiple cartels, pose significant threats to women’s safety. These states are notorious for their danger to women, even though they do not always report the highest number of femicides or other cases of gender-based violence given the fear of victims to come forward and lower law-enforcement presence. A 2021 United Nations Development Programme study in Mexico indicates that in areas controlled by drug cartels, violence against women intensifies, with relatives often refraining from reporting crimes out of fear of retribution. Such violence becomes a tool of intimidation and a display of dominance for these criminal groups, perpetuating a cycle of violence. These mostly rural states serve as hubs for organized crime due to weak state presence and proximity to key transit routes. As a result, the convergence of poverty, crime, and violence has prompted mass emigration to urban centers and the United States, particularly among vulnerable populations.

To address this dire situation, it is important for the administration that takes office later this year to pay closer attention to violence against women in these states. To start with, reliable data is needed. In Mexico, an estimated 93 percent of crimes go unreported. In 2023, 2,580 women were murdered but only 830 were categorized as femicides. Strengthening transparent and trustworthy institutions that collect accurate data in these areas is crucial to fostering an environment where victims feel safe to come forward.

Security plans that have shown some success in urban areas are often difficult to apply as a whole in more rural areas, due to the lack of infrastructure and resources. However, there are certain transferable steps that can help improve women’s safety. For instance, recruiting more and better female police officers to ensure greater representation in police forces can make women feel safer when coming forward about their experiences. Failure to address these urgent needs perpetuates inequality and undermines Mexico’s potential as an economic powerhouse.

Furthermore, the increase in gender-based violence in Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Chiapas is greatly impacting migration dynamics, particularly toward those migrating to the United States. A 2021 report from the International Organization for Migration sheds light on the reasons behind this migration trend, revealing that 11 percent of respondents left Mexico due to gender violence. Moreover, 7 percent of those women interviewed mentioned encounters between criminal groups as a main reason for migrating. This migration pattern shows the immense need for addressing the root causes of gender-based violence in rural Mexican states, as it directly influences migration flows and exacerbates the ongoing migration crisis at the US-Mexico border.

The United States can help address gender-based violence in rural Mexican areas. For example, the US State Department’s Safe from the Start ReVisioned program is dedicated to eradicating all forms and threats of gender-based violence that women and girls encounter. Given adequate resources and attention, such collaborative efforts between the US and Mexican authorities can bolster capacities to prevent and respond to violence effectively. Other potential initiatives, such as skills transfer, training in conflict resolution, and trauma-informed care programs, can empower local communities to address violence comprehensively. By implementing innovative strategies and comprehensive support services, the incoming Mexican administration, along with its US counterpart, can make important progress in addressing the root causes of gender-based violence while cracking down on organized crime and undocumented migration.

As Mexico prepares for this year’s historic election, there is a unique opportunity to prioritize the issue of gender-based violence and enact meaningful change. Now more than ever, it is imperative for political leaders to recognize the urgency of this issue and commit to implementing policies and programs that prioritize the safety and empowerment of women, particularly in rural Mexican states.

Charlene Aguilera is a program assistant in the Caribbean Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

Isabel Chiriboga is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

The post Mexico’s next president must address violence against women in rural areas appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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A major obstacle is that the Caribbean’s development model does not yet utilize the full extent of its human capital. Too often, women are not part of the Caribbean’s current development equation, with gender disparities limiting economic opportunities for women and thus holding back economic growth across the region. As Caribbean countries navigate the global financial landscape, governments should look at how increasing economic empowerment opportunities for women can be a new development tool for the region.

Caribbean countries face a host of economic challenges. The region houses small market and import-dependent economies that rely on tourism to drive economic growth. Strong tropical storms, global inflation, and supply chain constraints all have adverse effects on Caribbean economies. Often, as countries import goods and services at high prices, the cost is passed down to the consumer. At the same time, the region has a relatively small population compared to its neighbors in Latin America. This means that capacity is a barrier to economic growth. Simply put, there are not enough people in the region, and by extension, not enough technical expertise and businesses to carry out needed functions that stimulate growth and drive innovation.

But the Caribbean’s small populations are even smaller given that fewer women than men are in the workforce. In many Caribbean countries, female participation in the labor force is around 60 percent, and in some nations it’s closer to 40 percent, according to the World Bank. Compare this with male labor force participation, which often approaches or surpasses 80 percent. The gap is further amplified when taking into account the region’s human capital constraints. While the gap for Caribbean countries is smaller than their neighbors in Latin America, the estimated 20 percent difference has an outsized effect on the region’s economic potential. Tens of thousands of new workers in countries with populations below a million can significantly boost economic prospects. Further, since the Caribbean experiences above-average brain drain and many countries such as Guyana, Jamaica, and Barbados have trouble filling skills gaps, it begs the question: What would development in the Caribbean look like if every bit of the population’s potential was realized?

For more women to participate in the workforce, the root causes need to be addressed. First, despite high educational attainment for women—relative to men—this does not always translate into job opportunities. A new Atlantic Council report looks at educational attainment, measured as a percentage of adults who have completed at least primary education. In Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, and Saint Lucia, educational attainment ranges from just under 80 percent to about 86 percent for women, whereas for men it hovers between 74 percent and 81 percent. Yet workforce participation for women remains lower than for men. Second, when women do enter the workforce, there is a significant wage gap. In Jamaica, women earn about 83 percent of their male counterparts and 88 percent in Barbados. Finally, women are often expected to be home and child caretakers—a responsibility that is unpaid but places an inequitable burden on them relative to men. Unpaid work is a significant barrier to entry for women in the workforce, as offloading these responsibilities comes with expenses that can be covered only by women of a higher income bracket.

Fortunately, Caribbean countries have partners—such as outside nations and international institutions—that can support work on gender equality and economic empowerment. To be sure, Caribbean countries have made progress in gender equality, such as facilitating increases in political participation for women. But the structural barriers facing gender equity are partially a result of the region’s economic makeup, and they require more than just national attention to overcome.

Here, Caribbean countries and their partners should consider undertaking two policy initiatives. First, the focus should be on making it easier for women to enter the workforce while also making the workforce more equitable for them. Women aiming to start new businesses need access to finance mechanisms that are tailored to the realities they face. Many women in the Caribbean do not have a credit history, making it difficult for them to take out loans. If they can access loans, they are usually at high interest rates, meaning that businesses that take longer to return profits can put women-owned enterprises in severe debt. To address these issues, development banks should work with governments to create grant-to-loan mechanisms for women-owned start-ups. Metrics and monitoring mechanisms can be put in place where businesses that return medium-to-high profits over a certain period have their grants turned to low-interest loans. But Caribbean governments cannot afford these mechanisms if they themselves cannot access financing, meaning that a pool of resources from, for example, the World Bank and the Canadian government should help subsidize these costs. 

Second, at a regional level, Caribbean governments should work with partners to create an incubator program for women in the workforce. Success in business, particularly in the private sector, takes more than capital. Time and professional networks are important but are hard to come by for women taking most of the household and childcare burden. An incubator program can help women be part of an active peer-to-peer network that understands their realities. Such a program can help provide access to resources and institutions that ease many of the challenges women face. Many countries have existing women’s chambers or networks, but a region-wide effort would allow for members to share best practices and potentially, resources.

With Caribbean countries facing economic headwinds, governments need the active participation of all their citizens. Women and girls should be the first and immediate resource utilized. But doing so requires ensuring that their participation does not come at an adverse socioeconomic cost. Providing them the same opportunities as men and amplifying their empowerment can be the key to a new development tool in the Caribbean.

Wazim Mowla is the associate director & fellow of the Caribbean Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

This article is part of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center’s partnership with the UN Women Multi-Country Office–Caribbean.

The post Gender equality can drive economic development in the Caribbean appeared first on Atlantic Council.

That was the main takeaway from the latest group of Women Leaders in Energy and Climate Fellows to go on their study tour to Washington, DC, an experience offered as part of their fellowship program. For this tour, the 2023 fellows met with government officials and civil society groups to discuss women’s participation to drive progress toward a cleaner and more efficient energy system. Below are our fellows’ takeaways from the trip—supported by the Royal Bank of Canada—touching upon how leaders should prioritize a more sustainable and inclusive environment for women in the energy sector to not only accelerate the adoption of cleaner technologies but also foster social equity and economic empowerment. 

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Maitha Al Shimmari

2023 Women Leader in Energy and Climate Fellow

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Jeanette Gitobu

2023 Women Leader in Energy and Climate Fellow

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Georgette Udo

2023 Women Leader in Energy and Climate Fellow

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Lin Yuan

2023 Women Leader in Energy and Climate Fellow

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The Women Leaders in Energy and Climate study tour in Washington, DC, was a transformative, inspirational, and thought-provoking experience. Throughout the week, we had the opportunity to engage in direct and open conversations with esteemed leaders from Iceland, Sweden, the UAE, and the United States who shared invaluable insights into global energy dynamics and climate challenges from their perspectives. 

The conversations underscored the critical role women play in shaping the energy transition. From navigating policy landscapes to driving innovation, it is evident that our voices are indispensable in addressing climate change. Each discussion emphasized the urgency and importance of cross-sector collective collaboration to combat ongoing geopolitical tensions and the global energy crisis. 

This experience has reaffirmed my commitment to advocating for sustainable solutions in the energy and climate sector. I am inspired to leverage my newfound knowledge and network to drive meaningful change in the upcoming years. The strong connections made with my fellows in the program and lessons learned will undoubtedly shape my approach as a woman leader in energy and climate. 

Maitha Al Shimmari is a 2023 Women Leader in Energy and Climate Fellow currently studying at the University of Oxford to obtain a DrPhil (PhD) in engineering science.

My week in Washington, DC, illuminated the pivotal role women play in the global energy transition. The welcome dinner and icebreaker fostered a collaborative spirit, setting the tone for shared insights.

Interactions with industry experts underscored the resonant theme that “energy security equals national security.” The ongoing conflict in Ukraine and Russia spotlighted the vulnerability of our energy systems, emphasizing the need for resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges.

The alumnae roundtable reinforced the idea that the energy sector’s success hinges on the full participation of women. Data-backed insights affirmed that diversity is not just a buzzword but a catalyst for better performance and innovative problem-solving.

As I reflect, the call for mentorship, networking, and capacity-building programs for women in the energy sector resounds. Collaboration across sectors emerges as the linchpin for maximizing results and ensuring accountability. 

Moving forward, I see my role not merely as an individual participant but as part of a collective force advocating for a more secure and sustainable energy future. This journey has affirmed the urgency of our mission, emphasizing that our actions today are intrinsically linked to the broader fabric of national security and global resilience. In this collaborative pursuit, energy security becomes synonymous with national security.

Jeanette Gitobu is a 2023 Women Leader in Energy and Climate Fellow who currently serves as the director of the Women in Wind Global Leadership Program and policy advisor on Africa at the Global Wind Energy Council.

The Women Leaders in Energy and Climate Fellowship has fostered career growth through trainings and coaching, bringing together a cohort of women passionate about championing change and soaring in their careers. At the midpoint of the fellowship, the cohort takes a study tour to garner experience and learn from key stakeholders in this field. This year we had the opportunity of having the tour in Washington DC.  

This tour reinforced the role energy plays in economies of the world, the role of women in contributing to energy transition, and the interrelationship between the government, the private sector, and education. I had the opportunity to learn about cross-sectoral pathways to net zero, meeting with high-level officials from Iceland, the United States, Sweden, and the UAE, distinguished alumni, and executives. The conversations revealed unique perspectives from these leaders, and I left inspired to continue leaving my mark as a woman in the energy sector. 

Georgette Udo is a 2023 Women Leaders in Energy and Climate Fellow and the CEO of the Renewable Energy for the African Girl Initiative.

The three-day study tour in Washington, DC, convened this year’s cohort of Women Leaders in Energy and Climate Fellows, and created a space for sharing diverse perspectives on the clean energy transition.

It was undeniable from the conversations with many global climate policy leaders that the shift to a low-carbon economy is creating a window for more inclusive and sustainable growth for both the Global North and South.

Through dialogues with leaders from the US Department of State, the Department of Energy, the International Trade Administration, and the Development Finance Corporation, we heard the importance of energy transition as a key driver of growth for the US economy and a central principle to the US diplomatic agenda. The push to expand the domestic low-carbon transportation and renewable energy manufacturing industries will create numerous opportunities for cross-sectoral and cross-border collaboration to ensure the resiliency of a worldwide green industrial supply chain. The flow of investments in the process could create a catalytic effect to elevate the economic, social, and environmental standards for development for many communities, particularly those in emerging markets.

The conversation with the Icelandic Ambassador Bergdís Ellertsdóttir and her team provides a hopeful beacon of what this development opportunity could look like. By embracing geothermal, hydropower, and the fledgling climate technology industry, Iceland has attracted significant foreign investments from Europe and the United States, and at the same time championed gender-inclusive development that led to the growth of women-led climate startups and women’s participation in the clean energy workforce.

While we recognized in our discussion there are limitations to the replicability of Iceland’s development model, one can imagine the potential for a more sustainable and inclusive future that will be unleashed through the wave of government policies and market-based incentives from the United States. and beyond. It is therefore crucial for public and private sector partners to collaboratively create the enabling conditions for investments, scale capital mobilization, and set the common standards for impact and safeguards to maximize the potential socioeconomic benefits brought by the global energy transition.  

Lin Yuan is a 2023 Women Leaders in Energy and Climate Fellow and an associate director at Pollination.

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Yet, the international community, defined loosely as the collection of United Nations (UN) member states, finds itself unable to emerge as a powerful and unified voice for the women of Afghanistan despite its stated commitments to gender equality. For years, international conventions and declarations have served as inspirations of hope and offered guidelines and principles aimed at safeguarding the rights of women worldwide. Now the people who wrote and advocated for these international standards must translate them into concrete actions to address the world’s most severe women’s rights crisis. These efforts should include codifying gender apartheid as a crime against humanity and prosecuting Afghanistan at the International Criminal Court. Moreover, any international engagement with the Taliban regime must prioritize ensuring its compliance with international law in its treatment of women.

International legal frameworks

Despite critical reports by prominent international organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, the standing of women and girls in the country continues to deteriorate rapidly. Women inside Afghanistan have bravely taken to the streets, and their counterparts outside the country have advocated for them in numerous international meetings, conferences, and private roundtable discussions. But these demands and protests have so far failed to garner a robust response from existing international legal mechanisms, obligations, or conventions.  

Bridging the gap

The fundamental human rights that the women of Afghanistan are demanding are clearly defined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and elsewhere. These pivotal frameworks mandate governments and international institutions to actively address women’s needs and provide robust protection against any violations, especially in the complex landscapes of conflict and post-conflict situations.

UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security, while nonbinding, expands upon binding conventions by clarifying women’s rights standards, even in states experiencing conflict or those not party to conventions such as CEDAW. The resolution extends its reach beyond governments and states to all parties participating in conflicts.

While UNSCR 1325 does not have direct legal enforcement mechanisms, it carries significant political weight. The resolution “calls upon all parties to armed conflict to respect fully international law applicable to the rights and protection of women and girls” under the relevant conventions and to “bear in mind the relevant provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.” The resolution further calls upon all parties to armed conflicts to “take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, and all other forms of violence in situations of armed conflict.” The resolution has promoted actions at the national, regional, and international levels. Civil society organizations, international actors, and UN bodies regularly monitor and assess progress on the implementation of the resolution and call for greater accountability mechanisms to ensure that commitments are translated into action.

As a United Nations member, Afghanistan ratified CEDAW in 2003 and adopted UNSCR 1325 in 2015, affirming its commitment to international legal obligations and the promotion of the rule of law. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan successfully submitted its periodic reports to the CEDAW committee and its status reports on the implementation of the national action plan on UNSCR 1325. Under the Taliban’s rule, Afghanistan has disregarded such established international mechanisms and is no longer abiding by any of these international obligations. 

The group’s continued enforcement of oppressive policies and the lack of international accountability has reduced international standards aimed at protecting women’s rights to nothing more than empty rhetoric. Consequently, Afghan women and girls turn to the international community for robust advocacy and support, urging for their voices to be heard and for the use of all available international mechanisms on their behalf.

To date, the international community has failed to deliver. Countries with feminist foreign policies have sought to exert pressure on the Taliban regime and demand the protection of Afghan women’s rights through soft diplomatic meetings and statements. The recent statement issued by the foreign ministers of the Feminist Foreign Policy Network regarding the plight of women in Afghanistan, for example, employed significantly stronger language than their previous statements since August 2021, as they called on the international community to redouble its efforts to leverage all available legal instruments to end the systematic and egregious violations of international law against women. This call has not yet led to meaningful action.

The way forward

To effectively protect and promote women’s rights, it is imperative that members of the international community first agree to refrain from any form of engagement with the Taliban that contradicts their commitments and obligations under international law. This requires a coherent and unified approach, as well as proactive accountability measurements, to avoid contradictory behavior that would undermine the objectives of promoting women’s rights and ending violence against women in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, expecting an illegitimate group such as the Taliban to adhere to international frameworks concerning women’s rights is unlikely to yield significant results.

But the international community, in collaboration with civil society organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and human rights groups, can take proactive measures toward ensuring accountability. One significant step would be to codify gender apartheid as a crime against humanity. By leveraging the instruments provided by binding conventions such as CEDAW, the international community could establish legal frameworks that explicitly recognize and condemn systematic gender-based discrimination and persecution. Over the past three years, there has been significant documentation of gender-based persecution in Afghanistan, including last month’s report from the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan. The next step would be for state parties to CEDAW to pursue a case against Afghanistan at the International Court of Justice, either individually or through joint initiatives.

The CEDAW committee should support the re-establishment of Afghanistan’s CEDAW steering committee, technical committee, and drafting committee, both within the country and among Afghan communities in exile. While the current authorities of Afghanistan refuse to provide periodic reports, the committees of experts should be tasked with providing shadow reports.

Moreover, it is imperative for the International Criminal Court to collaborate closely with relevant states and international organizations such as UN bodies, as well as civil society organizations and other stakeholders, to garner support for its investigation into the Taliban’s treatment of women, particularly regarding crimes against humanity such as gender persecution.

The United Nations must adhere to fundamental principle before considering any form of “structured engagement” with the Taliban—a form of cooperation recommended in the independent report by UN Special Coordinator Feridun Sinirlioğlu. The UN should first prioritize the implementation of UNSCR 1325 and other relevant resolutions, ensuring that the rights and needs of women are fully integrated into its strategies and initiatives, including by facilitating direct discussions between women and the Taliban.  

UN Women, in close collaboration with relevant states, must prioritize the revitalization of the focal points in Afghanistan’s UNSCR 1325 national action plan, which was established in 2017. These focal points, people who represented the relevant ministries and civil society organizations before the Taliban takeover, play a pivotal role in guaranteeing the participation of Afghan women in all dialogues. New focal points could be established under the auspices of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UN Women, or even the European Union delegation in Afghanistan. The international community must prioritize Afghanistan as a paramount concern in its policy agenda and cease engaging in actions and diplomatic meetings that inadvertently bolster the Taliban’s sense of superiority and embolden similar fundamentalist groups worldwide. The future of Afghan women and the international commitment to gender equality hangs in the balance.

Parwana Paikan is the minister counsellor of the embassy of Afghanistan in France and co-founder of Conseil des Femmes Franco-Afghan. She previously served as deputy director general of human rights and women’s international affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan.

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Public Event Wed, February 14, 2024 • 1:00 pm ET

Justice and accountability in the MENA region: The importance of women’s stories

A panel discussion about the crucial role women and their testimonies play in the pursuit of justice in accountability in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Human Rights International Norms

On Wednesday, February 14, the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project hosted a hybrid panel event about the crucial role women and their testimonies play in pursuit of justice and accountability in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

The panel discussion featured Dalal Mawad, award-winning Lebanese journalist and author of All She Lost: The Explosion in Lebanon, the Collapse of a Nation and the Women who Survive; Mai El-Sadany, executive director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy; and Haydee Dijkstal, an international human rights lawyer and nonresident senior fellow with the Strategic Litigation Project.

Moderator Patricia Karam, a nonresident senior fellow at Arab Center Washington DC, set the tone for the panel with her opening remarks, which outlined the political, economic, and social challenges women still face in MENA despite some discrete attempts at reform. Karam highlighted the heightened violence against women during periods of instability, pointing to current situations in Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. She also noted the insecurity that women face under authoritarian regimes generally, highlighting the Islamic Republic of Iran’s violent crackdowns on protests following the death of Mahsa Jina Amini.

Elevating voices and confronting injustice

Dalal Mawad began the panel discussion by explaining her two primary motivations for writing All She Lost. First, she wanted to provide a space for women to tell unique histories from their own perspectives. So often in the Middle East, women lack a safe space to share their experiences, but, Mawad explained, that once they find this space, women become powerful storytellers. Second, she wanted to challenge the culture of impunity in Lebanon. After the Beirut blast, Mawad realized that generations of Lebanese women, having lived through decades of economic crises and war, had never been given the opportunity to process and come to terms with their experiences by documenting their stories.

Mawad elaborated on this system of injustice, explaining how Lebanon’s legal system compounds trauma for women victims of tragedies like the Beirut blast. She shared stories from interviews that she had conducted for the book, including one about a woman who is still struggling to gain custody for her two children after her husband died in the blast due to the court’s mandate for a male custodian.

Holding institutions accountable

Mai El-Sadany delved into possible responses to gender-based violence. She began by explaining the multifaceted nature of these abuses, occurring across the region both online and offline, in conflict and in peacetime, at the hands of both individuals and state actors. Each of these dynamics pose unique challenges for activists, and ideally states, to address. El-Sadany also expressed some hope, citing the widespread reaction to a spate of femicides in Egypt, which prompted many women to organize and propose new solutions. This action demonstrated the important efforts by feminist organizations in MENA to tackle gender-based crimes, moving their ideas toward the mainstream and recruiting men to act as allies.

Haydee Dijkstal then discussed the role of journalists in accountability, explaining that the media can contribute to systems of justice in two major ways. First, journalists cover events as they unfold, often bearing witness to and documenting crimes in the process. This evidence is vital for investigators, who can only begin collecting evidence after a crime has already occurred, making the task of establishing an accurate narrative difficult without the help of journalists. Second, reporting helps to keep the justice system accountable. The media can demand answers from governments and courts and serve as a bullwork against corrupt officials and institutions.

The truth as a legal remedy

Reparations are a crucial form of redress for victims, but, Dijkstal explained, the challenge in obtaining them is the legal process’ order of operations. At the International Criminal Court (ICC), for example, several avenues exist for reparations, but these options are only available after convictions and the establishment of the scope of harm and affected victims. Even reaching this point is difficult, as charges against perpetrators often take years to bring, sometimes long after the alleged crimes were committed. Dijkstal suggested reframing the notion of reparations to fulfill a broader range of victims’ needs, including their right to the truth. This form of reparations could come earlier in the legal process through fact-finding efforts.

Karam connected this need for truth to the context of the Lebanese Civil War. She said that Lebanese society has dealt with the conflict through a collective amnesia, contributing to the current culture of impunity among political elites in the country. Mawad added that the truce at the level of warlords and politicians has provided amnesty for the war’s perpetrators. Likewise, no official narrative exists for the blast. The initial investigation has stalled because corrupt officials blocked the investigating judge at every step. The lack of government fact-finding efforts elevates the importance of an independent media.

The intersection of conflict and gender

El-Sadany then spoke about the position of women during times of conflict. Abuses against women in conflict zones fall largely into two categories: gender-based and compounded harms. Gender-based or sexual crimes often occur in order to specifically harm women, as is the case with the reported increase in sexual violence in the civil war in Sudan. Compounded harms arise as the result of simply being a woman in the context of conflict. This dynamic is currently at play in Gaza, where women have difficulty finding sanitary pads and are experiencing disproportionate harm during pregnancy. These conflicts make headlines, but all too often, women’s experiences do not. El-Sadany underscored the importance of women journalists and advocates to change this reality.

Dijkstal applied this understanding to refugees and stateless persons. Conflict, statelessness or refugee status can amplify women’s hardships. Refugee women are more likely to face education deprivation, poverty, and lower access to work. Dijkstal explained that protection mechanisms exist at the international level, but they need to be reinforced by state signatories. Many states in the region are party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, for example, but these laws lack practical tools for enforcement. Dijkstal prescribed international pressure to incentivize states to bring their domestic policies in line with international human rights standards.

The path forward

Mawad noted that United Nations fact-finding missions can be a powerful tool in uncovering the truth and securing justice for women, but also noted that this process can be complicated by abstention of countries in calling for these investigations. This was the case for example when the United States failed to sign a joint letter calling for a fact-finding mission into the Beirut blast. If the United States put its weight behind such measures and lobbied allied countries to do the same, an investigation would come more swiftly.

Where possible, El-Sadany recommended pursuing legal battles domestically, highlighting the reemergence of universal jurisdiction cases as a promising development since under domestic universal jurisdiction frameworks, human rights abuses can be heard in national courts regardless of the crime’s location.

Dijkstal pointed to the international legal system as a possible bright spot in tackling gender-based offenses. Most notably, the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor recently released a report detailing its policy on gender-based crimes. The Office urged addressing gendered aspects to international abuses at earlier stages in prosecution to ensure a higher success rate and speedier process to convict perpetrators.

In conclusion, all three panelists emphasized the need for strengthened local approaches. Women’s and victims’ groups in the MENA region are already tackling these issues directly. The international community can aid in these grassroots initiatives through providing vital monetary, legal, and journalistic support. Enhancing civil society plays a critical role in constructing social and political attitudes that can have the greatest long-term effect on women’s experiences.

Charles Johnson is a Young Global Professional with the Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council. 

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Online Event Thu, March 7, 2024 • 2:00 pm ET

Courage to seek justice: Addressing the unjust political imprisonment of women

The Atlantic Council and the Department of State’s Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues co-host a discussion with the 2024 International Women of Courage award recipients.

Belarus Eastern Europe Europe & Eurasia Political Reform

The unjust imprisonment of women affects far more than those detained and their families, warned Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US representative to the United Nations.

“It’s devastating for entire communities,” she explained. “It hollows out civil society. It creates a culture: a culture of fear. It squashes hopes for a democratic future.”

Thomas-Greenfield spoke at an event last week cohosted by the Atlantic Council and the US Secretary of State’s Office of Global Women’s Issues designed to amplify the voices of women who have survived unjust imprisonment or other human-rights abuses.

“We all must do more to familiarize ourselves with the stories and with the facts regarding political prisoners, including women political prisoners,” said Geeta Rao Gupta, ambassador-at-large at the Office of Global Women’s Issues. “We must help give voice to those who remain unjustly behind bars and those whose voices are stifled.”

The event, moderated by Atlantic Council Executive Vice President Jenna Ben-Yehuda, gathered three recipients of the US State Department’s 2024 International Women of Courage Award to share their experiences and highlight the need for international support. Below are their stories.

Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello: Why it is now “very difficult” for prisoners

• Roque, a Cuban political dissident and human-rights activist, talked about her experiences working with political prisoners and their families. “I cannot even distinguish which is worse, being imprisoned or being a relative of a prisoner,” she said.
• Speaking from Cuba—having been blocked from traveling to the United States by the Cuban government since 2018—she added that the economic crisis there, which has led to severe shortages of food and other supplies, has made the situation “very difficult” for prisoners.
• Roque herself has spent decades protesting against the Cuban government and was imprisoned twice. She now provides support to political prisoners. “I believe that being with them, even in thought, is something that will help them,” she said.

Fariba Balouch: “Pay attention” to minority groups and hold Iran’s regime responsible

• Balouch, a London-based Iranian human-rights activist, recounted how—when she lived in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan Province—she had escaped an abusive marriage. She said she was “afraid to speak up about that” at the time, but then realized that, as women, “we have to raise that awareness.”
• Balouch said that she felt it was her “duty” and “responsibility” to speak up for women in Sistan and Baluchestan Province; she also said that she had to make a “difficult choice” between being a mother and lifting the voices of marginalized people around her. “I decided to go with the people’s voice,” she said.
• Balouch explained that in Iran, being a woman political prisoner comes with a lot of harassment. But “if you’re representing an ethnic minority,” she said, “that even doubles your problems and challenges.” As for being an activist: “That would make it even triple.”
• She added that even once Baloch women leave Iran, they—and their families—continue to face similar threats and other pressures. She explained that she has received threats and that her son and her brother are currently imprisoned in Iran—her son was detained after having traveled to visit Balouch in the United Kingdom.
• Balouch called upon the international community to support women activists and their families and to “pay attention” to minority communities “so the Islamic Republic of Iran knows that it has a responsibility” to ensure that no Baloch is killed in prison.

Volha Harbunova: This is a “global crisis”

• Volha Harbunova, a Belarusian human rights defender, recounted how she fled Belarus after being released from prison and was later appointed the representative for social issues in the Belarusian United Transitional Cabinet, the government-in-exile led by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. She called upon Belarusians who have fled and live outside of the country to keep up communication with people inside the country who face repression. The Lukashenka regime “doesn’t want [us] to have that communication,” she said. “They want to isolate us. They want to stop that solidarity.”
• Harbunova argued that violence against women is a “global crisis,” which she said has recently been made clear by the rape and killing of a Belarusian refugee in Poland.
• Harbunova recalled having faced psychological torture and violence after being imprisoned by the Lukashenka regime. She also noted that political prisoners are restricted from accessing medical care, food, and hygienic products—and that they are not allowed to communicate with family or their attorneys. LGBTQI+ people in prison, she added, often face more severe sexual violence. “The issue of political prisoners is a humanitarian issue; it’s a matter of life and death,” Harbunova said. “We really need help in securing the release of those prisoners.”

Katherine Walla is an associate director on the editorial team at the Atlantic Council. 

Watch the full event

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The divergences caused by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) situations are particularly stark, as the incidence of conflict events has increased 40 percent since 2020, to the highest number of events since World War II. Half of the world’s poor live in FCV-affected countries and that number is expected to rise to 60 percent by 2030, in part as the duration of conflicts extends—to now an average of twenty years. In addition to the death, destruction, and disruptions they cause, conflict and fragility are disincentives to investment and further undermine economic growth. One-fifth of International Monetary Fund member countries are considered fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS) and twenty of the most climate-vulnerable economies are also on the World Bank’s FCS list.

According to the most recent Women, Peace, and Security Index: “In 2022, approximately six hundred million women—15 percent of women in the world—lived within fifty kilometers of armed conflict, more than double the levels in the 1990s.” These numbers don’t lie, but they also don’t necessarily tell the whole truth. And the truth is that women and girls are disproportionately impacted by fragility and conflict economically, socially, and politically. The impacts are well-documented. The data show, for example, that women and girls are more likely to see their educations disrupted, are more vulnerable to gender-based violence, and are more likely to be displaced or become refugees.

Women often face much greater economic hardships than men in conflict-affected areas, as well. Notably, six out of ten of the World Bank’s FCS countries are in the lower quartile on the “Economic Participation and Opportunity” subindex on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index, indicating wider gender gaps and more challenges facing women in conflict contexts. Similarly, a majority of FCV countries can be found in the bottom of the latest Women Business and the Law rankings released on March 4. These impacts also further undermine economies: The World Bank estimates that gender-based violence costs some countries up to 3.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and a 1 percent increase in violence against women lowers economic activity by 9 percent.

The roles women hold during conflict and reconstruction

But there can be opportunities for women’s economic empowerment in conflict and reconstruction, as well. Women are experiencing these outcomes despite the important role they play in economies during conflict, in post-conflict reconstruction, and in efforts to sustain peace.

Most of today’s FCV economies are characterized by low female labor force participation. For example, in 2022, the United Nations estimated that closing gender gaps in women’s labor force participation in Yemen would increase the country’s GDP by 27 percent. War has historically created windows of opportunity for women to fulfill workforce shortages—including in male-dominated fields—since men make up a majority of combatants. War—often coupled with crippling inflation—makes finding paid work more acceptable and, importantly, this openness tends to continue as income generation changes women’s economic value and power in society. In the United States, for example, women took to manufacturing and government administration for the war industry and beyond during World War II, with nineteen million women entering the US workforce during this period. Today, women continue to join or rejoin the workforce—including in the informal sector—at higher rates amid conflict and take on more culturally nontraditional jobs. For instance, Ukrainian women have joined the mining workforce, filling the gaps left by conscription after Russia’s invasion.

Like most economies worldwide, micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises dominate the market landscape of fragile and conflict-torn countries.

Even though these smaller businesses face more start-up and operational constraints, they provide a key pathway for women’s economic participation during conflict and on the road to recovery. A study in Syria estimated that the proportion of female entrepreneurs increased from a low base of 4.4 percent in 2009 to 22.4 percent by 2017. This includes women-owned and -led businesses engaging in supply chains; including in the logistics, information, and communication technology, infrastructure, and public works sectors, all of which are critical to reconstruction.

And as women workers and their businesses earn more, especially in the formal economy, they can mitigate the otherwise dampening domestic resource mobilization associated with reduced economic activity, investment, and government administration during conflict or destabilization. Women’s greater participation in the economy during conflict and reconstruction can also increase consumption and income utilization (including from cash transfers or other social protection mechanisms) as women recirculate their earnings with spending on their families.

How to wield prosperity and peace dividends with and for women

Gender inclusion cannot be an afterthought. Policymakers must address the immediate economic security and income needs of women during conflict, while empowering them to contribute to and benefit from recovery, reconstruction, and growth. This means providing context-specific, targeted social protections and addressing the issues that undermine women’s economic participation. It requires mitigating and responding to gender-based violence, as well as improving accessibility and affordability of child and elder care. It also means supporting women entrepreneurs and women-led small businesses, closing education or skill gaps, and addressing social and cultural norms that limit career choices or workforce participation with conflict or fragility-sensitive knowledge, design, and delivery mechanisms.

Depending on the type, level, and stage of FCV, as well as the economic landscape, certain FCV-specific interventions can also make a difference in women’s economic empowerment. These include, for example, enabling women’s earning, employment, and entrepreneurship by expanding opportunities in gig and home-based economies and increasing safe and reliable transportation to and from work or school. Policymakers should also take steps to improve access to education and training with attention to language, as well as the demand for and portability of skills and certifications. In addition to addressing persistent systemic and policy hurdles, women business owners and entrepreneurs need targeted support with more risk financing, knowhow, and market entry and development.

This includes leveraging sizable development and humanitarian assistance and procurement. The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), for example, bought over $1.8 billion worth of goods and services in 2022 from suppliers worldwide, with 56 percent local spending. Aligned with system-wide UN gender-responsive procurement initiatives, UNOPS is piloting and beginning to scale programs to train and prepare women business owners to successfully bid and execute their tenders. These women can then use the investment, experience, and credibility gained from working with UNOPS to obtain other public and private sector contracts and optimize supply chain opportunities.

Increasing digital inclusion can be transformative for women’s financial inclusion and economic participation, as well; including by training women for information and communication technology jobs in the digital economy, like the World Bank-Rockefeller Foundation’s Click-On Kaduna project in Nigeria. Policymakers should prioritize increasing women’s access to and utilization of digital tools and platforms, including digital money and financial services, as well as remote learning and government technology. Digital mechanisms can also serve as useful aspects of larger initiatives that empower women’s participation and leadership, which is critical for conflict mitigation and durable peacebuilding. 

The evidence that expanding economic opportunities for women is intertwined with building inclusive and sustainable growth, as well as peace and social progress, is only accruing with time, experience, and data. On this International Women’s Day, aptly themed “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress,” it is incumbent upon all leaders, investors, and policymakers to heed this call. Public and private sector actors would do well to invest and enable increased women’s economic participation to catalyze prosperity and peace.

Nicole Goldin is a nonresident senior fellow at the GeoEconomics Center.

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For the past two and half years, the Taliban has systematically subjugated women, girls, and other people in Afghanistan, depriving them of their most fundamental rights and eviscerating their autonomy. The Taliban has issued more than 150 decrees, with more than eighty of them directly aimed at women, surpassing the number of decrees issued for all other sectors. Through these decrees, the Taliban has banned women’s rights to education, work, freedom of assembly, and speech. The regime has also severely restricted women’s access to justice and health care—as enforced by forceful and violent mechanisms, such as the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, among others. In response, women have protested on the streets of Kabul and other major cities in Afghanistan, demanding their rights by risking their lives. The Taliban’s response has been violent, with civil resistance by women against these decrees met with beatings, lashings, the use of pepper spray, arbitrary arrests, torture, and even death. In recent weeks, the Taliban has arbitrarily detained and tortured women simply for not following the Taliban’s dress code, predominantly in Hazara and Tajik areas.

The situation continues to unfold with the Taliban regime consolidating its power and institutionalizing a system of governance that systematically dehumanizes, oppresses, and subjugates women, girls, and LGBTQI+ persons, as well as ethnic and religious minorities. There are no innocent bystanders in their dystopian project. Everyone is caught in the vortex.

There’s a term for the situation unfolding in Afghanistan: gender apartheid. On February 22, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, presented his most recent report to the Human Rights Council. He explained that since the Taliban’s takeover, human rights have continued to worsen in the country. The report describes the situation as unparalleled and frames the Taliban’s systematic and widespread discrimination against women and girls as “gender apartheid.” Other UN experts and international rights groups have come to similar conclusions. Last month, for example, the UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls specifically called for codification of the crime of gender apartheid in the Draft Crimes Against Humanity Convention before the UN, in direct response to the situation in Afghanistan. Six UN member states have also referenced the potential inclusion of the crime of gender apartheid in that convention. The draft convention will next be discussed before the UN in April.

The struggle against gender apartheid is not new for the women of Afghanistan, given the Taliban’s first period in power in the 1990s. Then, too, women referred to and denounced the Taliban’s institutionalized gender-based discrimination and systematic oppression of women as “gender apartheid.” Nevertheless, the term gender apartheid has remained unenumerated as a crime under international law, leaving a legal gap for accountability. This raises a question: Would women, girls, and others in Afghanistan have to struggle against dehumanization by the Taliban today had gender apartheid been codified and criminalized in the 1990s? 

The End Gender Apartheid Campaign believes that male superiority and the dominance over women, girls, and LGBTQI+ persons form the core of the Taliban’s ideological system of governance. Such systematic oppression and subjugation are both ideologically and pragmatically existential for the Taliban’s regime. 

Dismantling the Taliban’s institutionalized regime of systematic gender-based subjugation requires new legal and diplomatic tools. A standalone crime of gender apartheid would provide the appropriate legal mechanism to hold the Taliban accountable. The crime of apartheid is distinct due to its animating context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination, and the perpetrator’s intent to maintain that regime. The proposed crime of gender apartheid would complement and reinforce the existing crime against humanity of gender persecution. Gender persecution comprises the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law, with such targeting based on gender. It would also cover a distinct scope of acts and intent that further captures the nature of the crimes committed in situations like Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. 

As International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month acknowledge the significance of women’s rights achievements throughout history, the situation in Afghanistan stands out as a setback for gender justice and gender equality everywhere, undermining hard-fought battles over generations. The international community should stand with the women of Afghanistan in solidarity and demand accountability for the atrocities committed by the Taliban. Gender apartheid must be included as a standalone crime against humanity in the Draft Crimes Against Humanity Convention, including in advance of the UN Sixth Committee (Legal)’s resumed session next month.

Azadah Raz Mohammad is a legal advisor for the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council and a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne.

Metra Mehran is the gender and policy advisor for the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council.

The post This International Women’s Day, hold the Taliban to account for gender apartheid appeared first on Atlantic Council.

By Sahar Halaimzai, Metra Mehran, and Marika Theros

To protect these women from the significant risks associated with speaking out against the Taliban, we’ve taken several precautions: Their names have been changed, and, in some instances, their stories have been merged. We have also not used their real voices. Instead, the audio stories you will hear were recorded by women and girls who have been evacuated from Afghanistan since 2021. These women’s stories of endurance and resistance reveal the stark realities of life under a legal system that curtails freedom, stifles potential, and erodes dignity, yet they also illuminate the unyielding spirit and strength of each woman and girl. Their voices are a reminder of the interconnected struggles of all people globally in the pursuit of dignity, rights, and equality.

Afghan women did not have a real seat at the table in the United States’ “peace” deal with the Taliban. They are now demanding the world’s help in dismantling systems of oppression and rebuilding a society where equality and human rights are realities for all.

This initiative is a joint project of the Civic Engagement Project and the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center.

The onslaught of decrees

In 2020, after nearly twenty years of war, the United States signed an agreement with the Taliban to unilaterally withdraw US forces from Afghanistan. The so-called peace process did not substantially include or account for Afghan women, whose concerns about the escalating, targeted violence against them and pushback against the myth of a reformed “Taliban 2.0” were largely ignored. By August 2021, Taliban soldiers were on the doorstep of Kabul; by August 15, they had taken over the city, signaling the collapse of the Afghan republic.

Ten days later, the Taliban issued its first directive, instructing women and girls in Kabul to remain indoors, justifying it on the grounds that Taliban soldiers were not trained to respect women and therefore could not guarantee their safety outside. The rise of the Taliban regime has not only marked a significant political upheaval and one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today, but it has also ushered in a rapid regression for women’s rights in Afghanistan. Despite initial pledges of moderation, the Taliban has aggressively dismantled two decades of progress made by Afghan women and girls.

The group has done this by issuing around eighty decrees that directly target women and girls, demonstrating the systematic, institutionalized, and punitively enforced nature of gender apartheid in Afghanistan. In some instances, these decrees are punitive, particularly in places where women are resisting the Taliban. With about 60 percent of Afghanistan’s population under the age of thirty, the vast majority of Afghans are encountering the Taliban’s oppressive rule for the first time. “The shapes and sounds of girls and women evaporated from our streets with every new decree,” observes Malalai.

Some foreign officials distort or diminish the severity of gender apartheid in Afghanistan by framing it as a reflection of cultural or religious norms, reinforcing Taliban propaganda. However, international law unequivocally rejects the use of culture or tradition as justifications for infringing upon fundamental human rights. Moreover, Afghan and world Islamic scholars have condemned many Taliban decrees against women as un-Islamic. And prior to the Taliban takeover, women were making major strides in gender equality across every sphere of life—economic, cultural, social, and political—indicating that these decrees are not a reflection of culture so much as a mechanism of control.

These concerns are particularly acute for women from ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities, such as the Hazara, Tajik, Hindu, and other communities. Women from these groups face compounded vulnerabilities due to their distinct identities and increased visibility, making them even more susceptible to targeted violence in Afghanistan’s current climate. This double burden borne by minority women under these decrees is a harsh reality that often goes unnoticed.

The Taliban’s movement restrictions have effectively trapped women within their homes and within Afghanistan’s borders. Prohibiting international travel without a mahram quashes any possibility of seeking refuge or opportunities abroad, leaving female activists and those in peril with no escape. The Taliban’s movement restrictions have created an environment where female-headed households face disproportionate hardships, because they cannot travel without a male guardian to sites for aid distribution. Their struggle for basic rights and survival under these oppressive decrees requires urgent international attention and support.

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A vicious cycle of oppression

The significant increase in the systematic oppression of women and girls has touched every aspect of daily life, as reported by international organizations. This includes bans on their employment with United Nations (UN) offices and non-governmental organizations. The implications of these decrees are extensive and complex, beyond immediate issues such as access to health care or economic opportunity.

In the long term, the systematic denial of basic human rights, particularly the lack of educational access for girls, exacerbates disparities in wealth, health, and education. These challenges create a cycle of disadvantages with profound ripple effects that will take generations to rectify.

The result is a severe mental health crisis among Afghan women and girls. Afghanistan has now become one of the few countries globally where suicide rates for women surpass those of men, an alarming indicator of the extreme psychological impact of the Taliban’s oppressive policies. Observations from UN representatives and human rights advocates corroborate this connection. Increasingly, UN officials and international expert assessments declare the treatment of women by the Taliban as tantamount to gender apartheid. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres said last year, “in Afghanistan, unprecedented, systematic attacks on women’s and girls’ rights and the flouting of international obligations are creating gender-based apartheid.” 

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The Taliban’s mechanisms of enforcement

Through coercion, the establishment of new institutions dedicated to policing women, and the repurposing of existing security infrastructures, the Taliban has enforced its decrees with efficiency. On their very first day in power, Taliban officials closed the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and reinstated the Ministry of Vice and Virtue, deploying Taliban soldiers to strictly enforce their decrees. Women have been arbitrarily detained, subjected to torture, and released only under conditions that their families enforce strict compliance with Taliban rules at home. The number of cases of women detained and released is not public, nor are the suicides of women after their release reported adequately.

Furthermore, the Taliban has repurposed the security infrastructure established by previous Afghan governments, turning it into a tool for the systematic oppression of women and girls. This infrastructure, once meant for public security, now perpetrates enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture, and even executions. Any organized resistance is crushed through raids, violence, arbitrary arrests, and torture, showcasing the Taliban’s unwavering dedication to maintaining their regime of gender-based restrictions.

This enforcement strategy also extends to punishing male family members for the perceived transgressions of their female relatives, compelling men to ensure the women in their families obey the Taliban’s decrees. This policy both directly subjugates women but also coerces men into participating in this oppressive system.

The Taliban has also dismantled nearly all mechanisms for legal recourse previously available to women. The Attorney General’s Office has been transformed into the General Directorate for Monitoring and Follow-up of Decrees and Directives, granting Taliban leaders unchecked authority to enforce their will without due process. By abolishing foundational legal structures, including the constitution, human rights commission, penal code, special courts, and units dedicated to combating violence against women and children, the Taliban has obliterated any legal protection for Afghan women.

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Accountability under international law

The international community should utilize its extensive network of international laws, treaties, commitments, and partnerships to find ways to counter the Taliban’s actions in Afghanistan and hold the regime accountable for crimes against humanity.

This requires a multi-pronged strategy and mutually reinforcing actions that can enable women of Afghanistan to seek justice and protection. Individuals and advocacy groups can undertake impact litigation or another nation could file a case against Afghanistan under existing legal frameworks such as the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women or the UN Convention on the Political Rights of Women. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been examining the situation in Afghanistan following the release of its Policy on the Crime of Gender Persecution in late 2022. To date, however, the ICC prosecutor has not filed any charges against Taliban members, nor have there been any state-initiated proceedings at the International Court of Justice.

While current legal frameworks on gender persecution and discrimination provide some pathways to justice, they do not capture the full extent of the crimes perpetrated against the women and girls of Afghanistan. The Taliban is committing inhumane acts involving arbitrary arrests, imprisonment, and torture in the unique animating context of an institutionalized regime of systematic gender-based oppression and domination for the purpose of entrenching power and maintaining the regime. Therefore, Afghan women, in solidarity with international human rights organizations, gender and legal experts, and activists, have been demanding that it must be called out for what it is: gender apartheid.

Today, there is a movement to expand the definition of apartheid to include gender apartheid in both international and national laws. In March 2023, dozens of women’s rights defenders launched the End Gender Apartheid Campaign. In October 2023, the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project, with the Global Justice Center, issued a joint letter and legal brief urging UN member states specifically to codify the crime of gender apartheid in the draft crimes against humanity treaty presently under consideration by the UN General Assembly’s Sixth Committee (Legal). Codification of gender apartheid in the potential crimes against humanity treaty would open up pathways to accountability not only for individual perpetrators but also for third-party states and institutions. It would also foster international solidarity, highlighting the severity of the situation in Afghanistan and leveraging the accompanying stigma to criminalize Taliban actions.

By combining existing legal frameworks related to gender persecution and discrimination with activism for recognizing the crime of gender apartheid, the international community can formulate a coordinated and complementary response. This approach employs a range of international and domestic legal tools and recognizes that these pathways are not mutually exclusive but rather mutually reinforcing, working together to tackle the ongoing plight of women and girls in Afghanistan squarely, effectively, and holistically.

For a comprehensive list of all Taliban decrees, visit the US Institute of Peace’s Tracking the Taliban’s (Mis)Treatment of Women.

Stories of resistance

Sahar’s story

Sahar, an employee at a government institution in a northern province of Afghanistan, found her world transformed with the collapse of the republic and Taliban takeover. Today, more than 65 percent of women feel physically unsafe and 90 percent of women report high mental distress, according to UN Women. Sahar, like many, navigates the repercussions of a complete erosion of women’s rights with little or no support. Driven to improve the collective resilience of Afghan women facing adversity, she initiated psychotherapy programs in her province. These programs, tailored for women and girls, offer a sanctuary where they can share their experiences and find support.“ In the darkest hours, we find our true strength,” Sahar says “My hope is that every Afghan woman remembers her worth and the power she holds. We are the backbone of this nation.”

Aisha’s story

Despite the dire circumstances enveloping the region, women in a northern province of Afghanistan recently launched more than ten workshops focusing on sewing and carpet weaving, helping women earn an income and come together in solidarity. Moreover, several women in the group have started language and mathematics classes linked to religious schools, catering to girls beyond the seventh grade. However, as Aisha reflects on the way in which women in her community have come together, she cannot help but acknowledge the broader, alarming context. Around 20 percent of households in Afghanistan are headed by women. With the majority of job opportunities now inaccessible to women, the ramifications for Afghanistan’s fragile economy and the Afghan people are severe. Today, close to nine million Afghans are facing acute hunger. The Taliban-imposed restrictions on freedom of movement for women have exacerbated the crisis, as many vulnerable women and families are trapped and cut off from life-saving support.“ In the face of these adversities, it’s remarkable to witness the surge of determination among our women,” Aisha says. “The recent rise of workshops represents so much more than just skill-building; it’s an act of hope, a way for countless women and girls to find meaning and sustain their families. And the most incredible part? Every single one of these workshops is a testament to women’s resilience, as they are all led by women themselves.”

Hanifa’s story

New Atlanticist Mar 7, 2024

Twice under the Taliban: The repeated nightmare of my generation

By Horia Mosadiq

The deepening human rights crisis under the Taliban underscores the dire need for global attention on the plight of Afghanistan’s women.

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By Azadah Raz Mohammad

Codifying gender apartheid as a crime against humanity is an important step toward holding the Taliban accountable.

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Inside the Taliban’s gender apartheid Mar 21, 2024

Afghan women’s rights are not a lost cause. Here’s what the international community can do.

By Parwana Paikan

The United Nations must prioritize Afghan women’s rights in its policy agenda and avoid forms of engagement that could embolden the Taliban.

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Inside the Taliban’s gender apartheid Apr 30, 2024

Don’t look away: The Taliban’s mistreatment of women has global ramifications

By Samira Abrar

The Taliban’s impunity for its violations of international human rights law poses grave risks to women’s rights worldwide.

Afghanistan Human Rights

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Since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, the landscape of rights for women and girls has deteriorated drastically. For Afghan women like me who are in their forties and fifties, this dehumanizing discrimination is not a surprise. The Taliban’s use of ideological and systematic discrimination has remained consistent over the decades. It is aimed at erasing women from public life, restricting freedom of expression, dismantling democracy, and banning cultural rights, including music, sports, and the practice of religions other than their own extremist interpretation of Islam. The Taliban’s return to power is forcing Afghan women to relive the same nightmare that they experienced in the 1990s when the group first came to power. It is devastating that our daughters are now going through the same trauma that their mothers did two decades ago, even though we fought with our flesh and blood to bring about relative change during the period of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

What is frustrating is that there are many diplomats, both regionally and globally, who are willing to give the Taliban the benefit of the doubt and are pursuing more unprincipled engagement with them. Too often, I have heard policymakers talk about a “moderate” or even “like-minded” Taliban, clinging on to the misguided idea that the Taliban have changed. This narrative emerged during the US-led peace process. However, the past two-and-a-half years of Taliban control over Afghanistan have proven it to be wrong.

In reality, the so-called “changed Taliban,” has been imposing an extreme form of gender discrimination since August 2021. Upon seizing power, the group almost completely removed women from government positions and replaced the former Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) with their feared morality police—the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

Subsequently, the Taliban issued around a hundred decrees against women and girls, including banning girls from schools beyond grade six and universities; and employment at nongovernment organizations (NGOs), United Nations (UN) bodies, and even humanitarian agencies. They have shuttered women’s beauty salons and forbidden women from going to parks or gyms, while imposing strict dress codes on them and severely restricting their freedom of movement and access to life-saving necessities such as health care and aid. Those who dare break these rules risk arbitrary detention, imprisonment, and torture.

There are also unwritten rules that are just as nefarious. For example, the Taliban has instituted a mass expulsion of women from government ministries and replaced them with men, mostly members of the Taliban. Meanwhile, NGOs that still operate have largely been forced to replace female directors and other senior staff with males. Consequently, many women-led NGOs are struggling, forced to choose between shutting down or replacing their female staff and board members with men. The Taliban’s Ministry of Economy also largely refuses to approve any NGO programs that are designed to benefit women and girls.

It is true that even under the previous internationally backed government, between 2001 and 2021, violence against women was endemic and widespread. The difference, however, was the existence of legal frameworks and institutions that could offer some measure of protection and accountability. The justice system, although flawed, was showing signs of progress, while instruments such as the Elimination of Violence Against Women Law, Family Response Units, the Prosecutor’s Office, and other protective mechanisms made a genuine difference. These mechanisms prosecuted perpetrators, provided safe houses, and gave other protections.

Since the Taliban took power, it has dismantled the entire legal framework, including the constitution, and institutions such as the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, the MoWA, and Gender Units from various government bodies that were mandated to monitor, document, and refer cases of violence against women. Today, women victims of violence and injustices have nowhere to go; they are now left to fend for themselves.

On February 20, UN experts and others labeled Taliban policies as tantamount to gender apartheid, which they asked to be recognized as a crime against humanity.

On a daily basis, I speak with women and girls from across Afghanistan who find it harder and harder to see any light at the end of the tunnel. A female lawyer, who was granted anonymity given the dangers facing women who speak out, recently told me: “It is a state of hopelessness. The ones who can afford, they flee, and the ones who cannot, they stay and suffer. It feels like a slow and painful death.”

In less than three years, the Taliban has reduced millions of women and girls to a subhuman status, depriving them of bodily autonomy and their most basic rights. This is what we mean when we talk about “gender apartheid.”

Despite this, women and girls in Afghanistan have refused to remain silent. Hundreds of brave women from across the country have protested against the Taliban’s policies. These peaceful protests have been met with live ammunition, water cannons, and beatings. Scores of women protesters have also been arrested, detained, tortured, and sexually abused in the custody of the Taliban.

Outside of Afghanistan, those of us in the diaspora continue to contribute to our country. Human rights defenders and activists are documenting violations and engaging with international policymakers to raise awareness about the situation inside Afghanistan and the systematic persecution of women. In Germany, human rights defender Tamana Paryani embarked on a hunger strike to demand that the international community recognize gender apartheid in Afghanistan. Other international human rights lawyers and gender experts have been making the legal case to the United Nations and its member states, either individually or through initiatives such as the End Gender Apartheid Campaign.

The push for recognition of gender apartheid in international law, which is finally gaining real momentum, represents a significant act of international solidarity with women of Afghanistan. Simultaneously, this demand sends a clear signal that the world does not accept the Taliban’s attempts to erase women from public life in the name of religion and culture. Most importantly, the recognition of gender apartheid as a crime against humanity would provide a practical tool for those of us working to ensure international accountability for the Taliban’s crimes, while also strengthening international law by making it evolve in a manner that bolsters rights for everyone.

The deepening human rights crisis in Afghanistan underscores the dire need for global attention on the plight of the country’s women. A journalist I recently spoke to, also granted anonymity because of the dangers of speaking out, captured the situation in painful detail: “In Afghanistan, there is only darkness and hopelessness now—nothing else,” she told me.

The world must wake up to these atrocities and make it clear, once and for all, that crimes committed against people because of their gender identities will never be tolerated.

Horia Mosadiq is a human rights defender and journalist from Afghanistan with over thirty years of work experience and activism. Mosadiq was a reporter when the Taliban first came to power in 1996.

The post Twice under the Taliban: The repeated nightmare of my generation appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Summary

The Caribbean is one of the most vulnerable regions globally. It harbors economies that are open-faced and import-dependent, making it susceptible to the ravages of climate change, fluctuating commodity prices, and inflationary pressures. While governments and financial institutions grapple with these perpetual stresses, it is the Caribbean citizens, particularly women and girls, who bear the heaviest burden.

Nestled in this uniquely vulnerable region, women and girls face a multitude of challenges, demanding comprehensive support from both governments and financial institutions to enhance their resilience and opportunities throughout society. Their integration across various sectors, including government, business, and local organizations, emphasizes that addressing gender challenges cannot occur in isolation.

The global issues looming over the Caribbean magnify the specific hurdles confronting women and girls. From gender-based violence (GBV) and economic barriers to limited political influence and the disproportionate impacts of climate change, the challenges intertwine, creating a crisis of gender inequality and inequity across the Caribbean.

This publication compiles findings from a yearlong consultative effort, revealing that the challenges faced by women and girls are rooted in societal perceptions of their roles and restricted access to tools and resources. To overcome these barriers, a fundamental reshaping of social norms, alongside political and financial institutions, is imperative. Moreover, integrating women and girls into the development model aligns with the region’s broader ambitions of achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), unlocking untapped human capital and fostering long-term prosperity.

In collaboration with the UN Women Caribbean Multi-Country Office, the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center and its Caribbean Initiative embarked on a year-long partnership. This initiative aimed to address GBV, economic empowerment challenges, limited political influence, and the disproportionate effects of climate change facing women and girls in the Caribbean. The extensive consultative process involved roundtable discussions, capacity-building sessions, and one-on-one consultations, shedding light on the preconceptions held by both men and women toward women and girls in Jamaica and Guyana during 2023. The partnership has honed in on social norms as a focal point, recognizing their impact on perceptions and discussions about the challenges faced by women and girls.

About the authors

Wazim Mowla is the associate director and fellow of the Caribbean Initiative at the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. He leads the development and execution of the initiative’s programming, including the Financial Inclusion Task Force, the US-Caribbean Consultative Group, the PACC 2030 Working Group, and the Caribbean Energy Working Group. Since joining the Council, Mowla has co-authored major publications on the strategic importance of sending US COVID-19 vaccines to the Caribbean, strategies to address financial de-risking, and how the United States can advance new policies to support climate and energy resilience. As part of his work on the Caribbean, Mowla was called to provide Congressional testimony to the US House Financial Services Committee on financial de-risking.

Valentina Sader is a deputy director at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, where she leads the Center’s work on Brazil, gender equality and diversity, and manages the Center’s Advisory Council. During her time at the Council, Valentina has managed the launch of the Center’s Advisory Council, a high-level group of former policy makers, business leaders, and influencers from the United States and the region. She has co-authored publications on the US-Brazil strategic partnership and coordinated events with high-level policymakers, business leaders, and civil society members in both Brazil and the US. She also provides English- and Portuguese-language commentary on political and economic issues in Brazil to major media outlets, such as Al Jazeera and BBC Brasil.

The Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center broadens understanding of regional transformations and delivers constructive, results-oriented solutions to inform how the public and private sectors can advance hemispheric prosperity.

Learn more

The post Not without her: A roadmap for gender equality and Caribbean prosperity appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On February 21st, the Atlantic Council’s WIn Fellowship, in collaboration with United States Embassy to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and ADGM, held a workshop exploring how women entrepreneurs in the UAE can integrate innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) to their small and medium enterprises (SMEs).  

The panel, which was moderated by Sarah Saddouk, Director of Innovation at Entrepreneur Middle East IMPACT, featured three successful executives with backgrounds in finance, healthcare, and tech; all have harnessed cutting-edge AI and digital advances to drive their companies forward. Speakers included Abir Habbal, Chief Data and AI Officer at Accenture Middle East; Amnah Ajmal, Executive Vice President for market development for EEMEA at Mastercard; and Salim Chemlal, Director of Product at AI71. Tanya Cole, Senior Commercial Officer at the United States Embassy to the UAE, provided the opening remarks. 

Tanya Cole opened the event with welcome remarks, noting that partnerships like the WIn Fellowship encourage innovation and sustainable growth and undergird the rich commercial exchange between the United States and UAE. She observed that one of AI’s principal benefits for SMEs is enhancing operational efficiency, allowing small teams to allocate time and resources to higher-level work like business strategy. Cole acknowledged initiatives by the United States government to promote greater global representation of women in tech but noted that stronger efforts were needed to promote gender equality in the AI sector. She concluded by encouraging the audience to continue breaking down barriers to women in STEM fields and ensuring that women continue to steer and benefit from the growth of AI. 

The panelists leveraged their experience working with AI to cover several areas of concern for entrepreneurs, such as risk, regulation, scalability, and equity. They identified key trends in its uses across the private sector and provided guidance for SMEs hoping to improve their workflow with AI. The speakers also emphasized the need for women to shape the future of the field. 

Main Takeaways

Amnah Ajmal pushed back on skepticism that recent advances in AI are overestimated, asserting that the increasing accessibility and efficiency of computing power make the technology commercially viable. She highlighted the relevant challenge posed by AI adoption in the private sector: the burden of unlearning and relearning technologies as they evolve and integrate into new fields. Ajmal spotlighted two trends in AI usage she observed among SMEs: risk management centered on combatting scams and fraud, and personalized marketing communications. She stated that the critical edge provided by AI is best understood in terms of scalability and speed, freeing up human capital for other tasks.  

Abir Habbal explained that by keeping abreast of AI advances and integration, actors can actively shape the future of policy and governance around the technology. She distinguished between “narrow AI” capable of single tasks versus “generative AI” capable of multiple tasks at once. The latter is expected to be heavily disruptive; research conducted by her firm indicated that most professions can expect 40 percent of their working hours to be affected by AI. Habbal added that financial services have particularly high potential for AI automation, but opportunities exist in every sector. 

Salim Chemlal mentioned that AI innovation should be propelled forward alongside regulation, rather than waiting for regulation before research continues, as experts have proposed. However, he also advocated for stronger international coordination to ensure AI safety, with a special emphasis on adaptability given the many variables in the field. Amnah Ajmal also offered her thoughts on regulation, proposing that businesses should gather industry stakeholders and experts, define the problem they wish to solve, and build the regulation themselves rather than waiting for a regulator to act. She added that regulators perform a service to society and governments will often embrace the suggested frameworks. Ajmal concluded by noting that traditional financial institutions have failed to uplift SMEs and women entrepreneurs, with all-women teams receiving a maximum of 2.7 percent of global VC funding. 

Abir Habbal turned to the risks of AI and how regulation can help mitigate them. She explained that risks in the field include both structural issues, such as systemic biases and inaccurate results, as well as intentional misuses. With fast-evolving technologies such as AI, regulation may stifle innovation, creating a need for “sandboxes” for advanced testing. The industry’s appetite for regulation stems from a desire to effectively govern AI to manage these risks— and fear of financial and reputational harm if they are not mitigated. Salim Chemlal added that different societies should have their own AI systems, arguing that AI deployed outside of the context it was trained in (such as Western products now used in the Middle East) lack context to adequately serve their current users.  

Amnah Ajmal emphasized that women must challenge the status quo in the AI field. She suggested that women are sometimes apprehensive about engaging deeply with new technologies, and she consequently urges other women in the field to be confident in their abilities. AI is trained on old data, which inherently introduces biases against women. Ajmal gave the example of office thermostats, which when adopted in the 1960s were calibrated for men; women, who radiate 35 percent less body heat, are now often left—literally—in the cold. Women should feel empowered to confidently steer the future of AI to prevent further inequity. Abir Habbal highlighted the coalescence of different skillsets in the AI field, which requires expertise in data science, engineering, business, and design. AI democratization is also on the rise, allowing users from outside the field to access and experiment with AI tools. Ajmal urged novices to utilize publicly available tools to experiment and learn more about AI.  

The Way Forward

There has never been a better time for entrepreneurs in the Emirates to integrate AI into their businesses, owing to the UAE’s growing role as a global hub for AI and the country’s booming SME sector. AI adoption will remain a powerful force in the national economy in the near future, with some forecasts expecting close to 14 percent of Emirati GDP to stem from AI by 2030. Meanwhile, government initiatives continue to promote the growth of small and medium enterprises, with a set target of 1 million SMEs in the country by 2030.  

AI has huge transformational power across sectors, particularly in facilitating speed and scalability. Technology may best serve entrepreneurs by freeing up human input otherwise spent on labor-intensive tasks, such as customer service or targeted marketing. However, adopters should ensure that they have defined a problem that AI can solve, as not all facets of business require automation. The risks inherent to AI, such as biases, malfunctions, and privacy concerns should also be evaluated when considering integration.  

Large scale adoption of AI could worsen global gaps in digital skills between men and women, creating an imperative for women to steer the future of the technology in their country and abroad. Currently only 25 percent of AI specialists and 14 percent of cloud computing specialists are women, demonstrating that much work remains to be done to create a more inclusive field. However, the democratization of AI and the UAE’s SME boom represent an opportunity for women entrepreneurs to both capitalize on the business potential of AI and gain expertise that could positively shape the field. Since AI reflects the input and biases of its maker, better systems will require both diverse architects and inclusive design principles. Women at the helm of successful AI-augmented enterprises will be well positioned to advocate for these changes, resulting in a more equitable future for all.  

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Meet our 2023-2024 WIn fellows from United Arab Emirates: a group of dynamic women entrepreneurs poised to expand their leadership and executive skills. They are on a mission to scale their startups to new heights, setting new benchmarks for success.

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The post Integrating AI innovations into the SME industry in the UAE  appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On November 28th, the Atlantic Council’s empowerME Initiative, held a workshop titled “Women in finance: Building a more sustainable and inclusive finance system.” The panel focused on the contributions and impact of women in developing sustainable finance in the UAE.

The conversation was moderated by Abeer Abu Omar, government and economics reporter for Bloomberg. The panel included Shaikha Nasser Al Nowais, corporate vice president of owner relationship management at Rotana Hotel Management Corporation; Patricia Gomes, managing director and regional head of commercial banking for MENAT at HSBC; Linda Fitz-Alan, registrar and chief executive at Abu Dhabi Global Market Courts; and Thereshini Peter, chief financial officer for the GCC at Visa Inc.

Drawing upon their experiences as women working in finance, the panelists focused on the challenges to promoting greater representation in the sector as well as potential remedies. They identified common obstacles that hinder women from advancing in their careers, and suggested policy changes to promote inclusion and empowerment in the workplace. The speakers’ contributions provided an attainable vision for a more diverse and equitable financial sector.

The U.S. Ambassador to the UAE, Martina Strong, inaugurated the event with a reminder that economically empowered women invest in their families, communities, and businesses, leading to a more stable and prosperous future. She highlighted the growing visibility of women in leadership roles in regional start-ups and acknowledged the WIn Fellows in the audience for their accomplishments and future potential. The ambassador also expressed her enthusiasm for the climate-tech field, noting that many regional start-ups in the sector are run by women. She concluded her remarks by emphasizing the long-standing partnership between the United States and the United Arab Emirates.

Main Takeaways

Shaikha Nasser Al Nowais highlighted sustainability as a crucial element of the hospitality industry and a foundational principle of her company. She provided three examples of Rotana’s commitment: a new facility powered exclusively by solar power, sourcing foodstuffs from local farms, and a hotel designed with consideration for the natural landscape surrounding it.

Linda Fitz-Alan shared her perspective as a lawyer working in finance and emphasized that systems of power responsible for upholding the rule of law have a duty to model diversity and inclusion, especially regarding gender. Abeer Abu Omar concurred and cited a recent UAE law mandating that every listed company in the country appoint at least one woman to its board of directors. Thereshini Peter began by stating that without diversity and inclusion, a company can’t drive innovation, resilience, thought leadership, or economies of scale. She also discussed the programs and policies at Visa aimed at empowering its female staff, such as addressing the wage gap and facilitating the return of women to the office after taking a career break.

Omar noted that despite the UAE’s high gender equality ranking by the World Economic Forum, women still occupy less than 10 percent of board positions in the country. Al Nowais pointed to Rotana’s efforts to identify and attract talent by emphasizing work/life balance and providing ample opportunities for professional growth. She also underscored the importance of enabling women to advance within the company, highlighting the need for better long-term retention of female staff. Fitz-Alan highlighted other strategies such as expanding the range of roles available to women and finding mentorship and advocacy to support them. Sheaffirmed that women would seize opportunities when they are presented.

Gomes asserted that organizations often lack the discipline and conviction to implement known solutions to the problem. She pointed to policies at Bloomberg, such as requiring at least one woman as a source for an article and forbidding all-male media panels, as examples of conviction. Gomes stressed to the need for gender-diverse interview boards, sponsorship of female employees beyond mere mentorship, and encouraging women to apply for roles that they may feel unqualified for. She concluded by questioning why the consequences for a salesperson failing to meet their target are not the same for leaders failing to meet their gender diversity targets. Peter agreed with the other panelists, drawing a comparison to the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa. In order to enact major reform in a society or organization, deliberate action must be paired with accountability measures to ensure follow-through.

Al Nowais spoke on efforts to recruit a new generation of women to the workforce and addressed the initial challenges encountered in the recruitment of talent from universities. She highlighted the success of NAFIS, a government program offering salary support to Emiratis aiming to work in the private sector, thereby making corporate work more attractive and competitive.

Fitz-Alan addressedthe role of technology in addressing the challenge of visibility. She believesthatdigitization can help women overcome obstacles which have traditionally limited their visibility in the workplace. Technologies such as video chatting enable connectivity and global outreach for women to showcase their capabilities. Fitz-Alan pointed to the challenge of creating a highly diverse panel of mediators at her firm. Seeking the right candidates required an international search for more women, who often were not actively promoting themselves but were nevertheless making substantial contributions in their field.

Gomes agreed with Fitz-Alan’s view of technology as a positive force for gender diversity. She highlighted its transformative potential in reshaping the landscape for women’s participation and ensuring a level playing field. Technology offers flexibility, allowing individuals to work at their own pace, which Gomes sees as a great equalizer benefiting both women and men. She points to how Zoom equalizes opportunities in meetings by providing the same space and voice for everyone.

Moreover, Gomes noted the role technology plays in addressing financial literacy. She mentioned the ‘Noor’ app launched in HSBC’s wealth business, designed to provide financial education to females. Gomes considers this initiative imperative, especially considering the increasing financial decision-making role of women in the UAE across generations.

Peter outlined three key obstacles faced by small and micro-businesses. First, adopting new technology can present significant challenges, particularly in terms of quickly accessing new platforms. The solution lies in SMEs digitalizing as rapidly as possible to keep pace. Second, there is a need for financial inclusion and training for entrepreneurs, especially in an era of heighted cybersecurity. Lastly, green financing is essential, considering many entrepreneurs invest personal savings in their businesses.

The UAE’s Gender Balance Council reported a 70 percent female majority among university graduates, urging the financial sector to capitalize on this talent pool. Al Nowais emphasized the importance of early exposure to industry-specific knowledge through a relevant curriculum. She advocated for increased awareness and guidance from the outset of education. Fitz-Alan suggested widening opportunities across various sectors and holding organizations accountable for creating and publicizing career opportunities.

Gomes acknowledged the robust talent pipeline created by the 70 percent graduation rate and suggested a focus on graduate programs. Using HSBC as an example, she emphasized the global opportunities available and stressed the significance of execution in career development. Peter agreed with the emphasis on execution but stressed the need for flexibility. She claimed allowing graduates to explore different roles within the finance industry would help them discover their preferences, emphasizing the importance of adapting traditional approaches to foster career exploration

The Way Forward

The World Economic Forum’s 2023 Global Gender Gap Report ranked the UAE as the second-most gender-equal nation in the MENA region, topping the region in financial inclusion, women’s share of Parliament seats, and equal legal status. Government-led initiatives and policies, such as the mandate for at least one woman on publicly listed companies’ board of directors, have sought to transfer these gains into the workforce as well. However, a significant gender gap remains in the country’s private sector. Women comprised only about 18 percent of the total labor force, sidelining a considerable pool of untapped talent. In spite of the board of directors mandate, women still hold just 8.9 percent of board positions.

Realizing a more sustainable and inclusive financial sector in the UAE requires stronger measures by businesses to promote gender parity. These efforts must start with better recruitment practices to attract top talent, whether through proactive exposure to students and recent graduates or by leveraging government initiatives to ensure competitive pay. Equally as important is retaining women within companies and giving them the time, space, and support to grow into leaders. To that end, employers must recognize the need for better work/life balance for female employees, as well as offering substantial opportunities for coaching and mentorship. Companies must also take steps to protect women returning from maternity leave and eliminate the ‘motherhood penalty.’

Breaking through the glass ceiling will also require women in leadership to extend a hand to help others up behind them. Increasing female representation up to the C-suite level ensures that challenges faced by women in the workplace are addressed at a systemic level. Enacting policies such as an insuring female representation on interview panels is an excellent start, as is encouraging women to apply to positions from which they may discount themselves.

Explore the WIn Fellowship

Jun 14, 2023

The WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 cohort

Building on the success of its inaugural cohort, the Women Innovators Fellowship (WIn) is expanding to Bahrain and the UAE, in addition to Saudi Arabia, as it continues to empower more women entrepreneurs from the Middle East. The program is thrilled to announce this year’s eighty-six recipients of its 2023 WIn Fellowship. The participants will receive a year-long program of executive education, mentoring, and networking opportunities in collaboration with Georgetown McDonough School of Business and with the support of the United States embassies in the three target countries and PepsiCo.

Feb 24, 2023

2023 WIn Fellowship Roadshow

The WIn Fellowship roadshow is led by the Atlantic Council’s empowerME Initiative in cooperation with Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business with support from US Embassy Riyadh, UPS, and PepsiCo. The WIn Fellowship Roadshow participants, chosen from a highly competitive cohort of more than thirty applicants, receive a fully sponsored trip to the United States for leadership training at Georgetown and meetings with US business and government leaders.

Jun 14, 2023

WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 KSA

Meet our 2023-2024 WIn fellows from Saudi Arabia: a group of dynamic women entrepreneurs poised to expand their leadership and executive skills. They are on a mission to scale their startups to new heights, setting new benchmarks for success.

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Sponsors & in-country partner

empowerME

empowerME at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East is shaping solutions to empower entrepreneurs, women, and youth and building coalitions of public and private partnerships to drive regional economic integration, prosperity, and job creation.

Explore the initiative

The post Driving change: women shaping an inclusive financial future in UAE appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On February 7th, the Atlantic Council’s WIn Fellowship, in collaboration with Bahrain FinTech Bay, held a workshop exploring the best strategies for Bahraini women entrepreneurs to navigate business scalability across the region while attracting investors.  

The panel, which was moderated by Ameera Mohamed, Senior Associate at Bahrain FinTech Bay, featured three successful executives with expertise in scaling businesses and navigating the venture capital landscape: Nawaf Mohamed Alkoheji, Chief Executive Officer at Tenmou; Omar Rifai, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at GrubTech; and Chef Roaya Saleh, President and Founder of Villa Mamas Restaurant Group. To kick off the discussion, Lynn Monzer, Deputy Director of the WIn Fellowship, provided the opening remarks, while Nour Dabboussi, Assistant Director of the WIn Fellowship, concluded the event with some closing remarks. 

Drawing upon their experiences as both founders and investors, the panelists highlighted the best practices for entering a new marketplace, including conducting market research, proactively considering early operations, and preserving a company’s vision and goals while making the shift. Key to the discussion were lessons learned from the panelists’ experiences with scaling projects, wherein opportunities arose as often as challenges. 

Lynn Monzer opened the event by noting the sixteen-fold increase in start-up investment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region since 2015, with $4 billion raised in 2023. The growth that was further augmented by a 30 percent increase in exits through mergers and acquisitions from 2022. This trend underscores the resiliency of the region and its ability to navigate complex economic and political challenges, all while laying a foundation for future entrepreneurs. Monzer concluded by highlighting the importance of scalability in reaching new markets and generating innovation while retaining a business’ core values and mission. 

Main Takeaways 

Chef Roaya Saleh discussed the importance of retaining her business’ distinct identity outside of Bahrain and preserving Bahraini culture as purveyor of local cuisine. She emphasized a shared set of values and common mission among all employees within her restaurants. On expanding beyond the GCC, Saleh recalled overcoming challenges by staying focused on the core vision of the business and learning from inevitable mistakes. Nawaf Mohamed Alkoheji then spoke on his career as an angel investor and listed some of the green flags that his company seeks in prospective partners, such as business models incorporating new technologies. Investors spend much of their due diligence evaluating founders, seeking individuals who can deliver on the visions they propose. Alkoheji also advised entrepreneurs to be mindful of the characteristics of their new markets, as businesses must fit their markets to be successful. 

Alkoheji then emphasized the importance of consolidating control over a home market before launching into another. Roaya Saleh concurred with her colleague, adding that entrepreneurs must also have an exit strategy in mind in case things don’t go as planned. From his experience as an investor, Omar Rifai recounted that a common mistake made by successful founders was expanding too quickly, and advised new entrepreneurs not fall into the same trap. There is a learning curve inherent to scaling, and companies must be ready to adapt to new challenges when they first make the leap.  

As for the challenges and opportunities that come with scaling up, Roaya Saleh recalled the predatory behavior of some investors who have tried to convince founders to expand prematurely. She attributed her success to her ethos and principles as much as good financial breaks. Omar Rifai identified niches in the food and beverage value chain where entrepreneurs have yet to integrate digital infrastructure, illustrating a decision point for companies hoping to scale up; businesses can choose to either capture more of their value chain, or increase their competitive edge through adopting tech innovations. Thus, challenges faced at the entrance of new markets can rapidly become opportunities if entrepreneurs think creatively.  

On policy prescriptions for driving more investment to Bahraini companies, Nawaf Mohamed Alkoheji suggested that the government should incentivize successful Bahrainis to reinvest their capital in other local firms. Attracting more investors to a market is a positive development for all start-ups therein.  

The panelists then delved more into their experiences landing in new markets. Roaya Saleh shared her experience expanding Villa Mamas into Europe. Omar Rifai recounted that GrubTech’s entry into Egypt was initially a failure, as local restaurants did not purchase the company’s software. However, the company still gained from lessons learned in market research and by hiring some forty employees for global administrative operations. Both cases revealed some of the challenges entrepreneurs face when entering new marketplaces, but through these examples, Rifai emphasized the need for entrepreneurs to conduct smart research on new markets, both remotely and by spending time on the ground there.  

Nawaf Mohamed Alkoheji discussed attributes that make Bahrain an attractive market. For example, encouraging foreign entrepreneurs to grow their start-up in the Kingdom is feasible thanks to the cheaper costs of launching there. Roaya Saleh and Ameera Mohamed also highlighted the close nature and welcoming spirit of the country’s start up ecosystem. Saleh also noted a benefit of the tight community in that allows for rapid customer feedback, allowing brands to forge close relationships with customers. 

The Way Forward 

Bahraini support for SMEs continues to deliver remarkable results, with the sector growing 14 percent last year; 39 percent of these enterprises are now woman-owned. The boom is fueled in part by entrepreneurship initiatives launched by the government’s Economic Development Board, such as Fintech hubs and seed fuel programs. The Kingdom is also continuing to position itself as a regional leader in start-up launches, the number of which has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 46.2 percent over the past three years.  

With foreign capital inflows continuing to surge and ever-greater numbers of new businesses entering the country’s markets, the time is right for Bahraini entrepreneurs to consider scaling beyond the Kingdom. Making the leap is made easier by learning from others who came before, and successful founders and investors have much of the same advice to pass along to companies wishing to expand. They stress the importance of picking the right moment to scale up, as overstretching a business too early can doom the whole enterprise. Researching the characteristics of a new market and investing carefully can similarly mitigate risk. Challenges in new markets can be turned into opportunities, so long as founders can strike a balance between adapting their business and retaining their vision. 

It is critical that the Kingdom continues to nourish its startup ecosystem through attracting foreign investment and founders, as well as through facilitating spaces where new entrepreneurs can synergize and learn from one another. 

Explore the WIn Fellowship

Jun 14, 2023

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Meet our 2023-2024 WIn fellows from Saudi Arabia: a group of dynamic women entrepreneurs poised to expand their leadership and executive skills. They are on a mission to scale their startups to new heights, setting new benchmarks for success.

Jun 14, 2023

WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 UAE

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Jun 14, 2023

WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 Bahrain

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‘Investing in women is just good business’: Ways to increase funding for women-led ventures in the Middle East

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On September 14, 2021 the Atlantic Council’s empowerME Initiative held a workshop on “Venture Capital Financing: How to Increase Funding for Women-led Ventures.”

Middle East The Gulf

Sponsors & in-country partner

empowerME

empowerME at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East is shaping solutions to empower entrepreneurs, women, and youth and building coalitions of public and private partnerships to drive regional economic integration, prosperity, and job creation.

Explore the initiative

The post Key strategies for Bahraini women entrepreneurs to scale their businesses across the MENA region appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The Women Innovators (WIn) Fellowship, part of the Atlantic Council’s empowerME initiative, hosted a workshop on Monday, January 29. The event delved into the transformative power of digital technology in Saudi Arabia’s startup ecosystem, exploring its impact on women entrepreneurs and the nuanced challenges and opportunities that women face in this evolving landscape.

Diana Korayim, chairwoman of the Women in Business Committee at the American Chamber of Commerce in Saudi Arabia, delivered the welcoming remarks. The event featured a moderated discussion led by Maha Akeel, faculty lecturer at Dar Al-Hekma University, and included insights from Mohammed Aldossary, co-founder and CEO of Sary; Sarah Al-Husseini, head of government affairs and public policy for Saudi Arabia at Google; Manal AlNemari, consultant of digital health transformation at the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health; and Saima Jabeen, research fellow at the AI Research Center at Alfaisal University.

Amy Archibald, counselor for economic affairs at the US Embassy in Riyadh, delivered the closing remarks, showing gratitude for the WIn Fellowship’s work with the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh in working toward the embassy’s objectives of economic diversification, economic growth, and women’s empowerment across sectors in Saudi Arabia. Archibald echoed the panelists’ acknowledgment of the challenges faces by women entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia’s business landscape, including difficulties in securing capital, scaling business, networking, and working within social expectations for women to act as caretakers. At the same time, she expressed her optimism for the change Vision 2030 has created over the past decade and looks forward to further empowering even more women in the years ahead.

Main Takeaways

Mohammed Aldossary led off the discussion by describing Saudi Arabia’s evolving economic landscape over the past five years, citing shockwaves like COVID and inflation as the main causes for some entrepreneurs to exit the business world while also creating numerous entry points into the market. This phenomenon, he said, allowed entrepreneurs from both the private and public sectors to seize the opportunity of newfound capital availability and grow their startups. During this economic upheaval, the Kingdom’s digital initiatives, part of Vision 2030, helped catalyze change and innovation by creating an opportunity platform for entrepreneurs to solve significant problems with local insights.

Aldossary then highlighted that women lead around 45 percent of SMEs, yet the majority of these businesses, approximately 88 percent, are actually micro-SMEs. Challenges emerge in scaling micro-SMEs to a retail level, and they intensify beyond the national level due to the difficulties women encounter in securing financing and accessing regional or global markets. He emphasized that the keys to overcoming these obstacles include a compelling proof of concept showcasing a product’s feasibility and a high-quality retail platform that facilitates streamlined interaction between retailers and customers.

Sarah Al-Husseini emphasized the importance of balancing regulatory frameworks with fostering innovation. She underlined the importance of safeguarding users and regulating the industry while also warning against excessive bureaucratic hurdles in Saudi Arabia’s market, which holds immense potential. Removing barriers at the national level, she said, allows for greater transparency of information, thereby enabling women and other underrepresented communities to participate in the technology sector.

Manal AlNemari expanded upon Al-Husseini’s points, focusing on technology’s impacts on women in the healthcare field specifically. As part of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 and particularly in response to COVID, AlNemari explained, telemedicine and electronic health services have proliferated, providing women with opportunities for greater participation in the field. She specifically discussed Seha Virtual Hospital, led by Mona Al-Subaie, as a notable example of this trend, expressing her belief that that Al-Subaie’s success story will inspire more women and girls to pursue careers in the health industry and address health issues affecting women. Moderator Maha Akeel added that this shift is already underway in Saudi Arabia, as women make up over 40 percent of the Gulf’s IT workers, compared to approximately 15 percent in Europe.

Saima Jabeen built on AlNemari’s points while discussing the impact of artificial intelligence on digital transformation in Saudi Arabia. She highlighted AI’s vast potential, which companies are already utilizing across sectors such as health, education, transportation, and finance. These applications, she noted, also benefit entrepreneurs by providing them with helpful algorithms and data-driven approaches to grow their businesses. Jabeen concluded by emphasizing Saudi Arabia’s university programs and initiatives driving gender inclusivity in the field of AI, including revised curricula, workshops, and professional boot camps, ensuring that women have access to the cutting edge of machine learning and AI software.

In addition to Saudi Arabia’s efforts towards gender inclusion in the field, Al-Husseini elaborated on Google’s initiatives with similar aims. The digital skills training program, Maharat min Google, has already helped countless Arabic speakers in mastering the fundamentals of digital marketing. Al-Husseini explained the mutually beneficial aspects of these programs, as Google gains directly from users engaging with the platform’s services in novel and transformative ways, while users can maximize the platform’s potential. Finally, collaborative initiatives, such as the partnership between Google and the Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence (SDAIA) as well as the WIn Fellowship, play a pivotal role in highlighting successful women in business, thereby instilling confidence in others to follow suit.

While there are numerous reasons to be optimistic about women in business today, Aldossary emphasized some of the challenges women entrepreneurs still encounter. The primary hurdle is access to the supply chain. As women were historically excluded from the wholesale or retail markets as stakeholders, entering this field poses an additional barrier to the already daunting task of launching a business. The prevalence of commercial concealment in Saudi Arabia’s offline market further exacerbates this issue. Aldossary explained that addressing this multifaceted problem requires a comprehensive solution, which includes greater transparency in the market and investing in women leaders.

The second major challenge facing women, Aldossary commented, is their confinement to micro-level businesses. This barrier partly originates from women’s historical exclusion from the business sector, but the ongoing stagnation also results from a systemic lack of investment at the micro-level. Despite the Kingdom’s stated intentions to increase investment at this level significantly, financing for micro-SMEs remains around 2 or 3 percent. Closing this gap would therefore represent a step in overcoming a major obstacle for Saudi Arabian women entrepreneurs.

AlNemari also proposed potential solutions, especially within the framework of the Saudi Health Ministry’s Vision 2030 goals. AlNemari stressed the importance of providing women with greater access to capital to enable the healthcare industry’s growth. Additionally, she advocated for a more targeted approach to investing in women entrepreneurs in healthcare, suggesting the implementation of networking and mentorship programs within the Saudi Ministry of Health, along with training focused on new technologies and research tailored to women’s needs. Lastly, AlNemari emphasized the necessity of combating social barriers that women often face in the business world. She argued that by shifting perceptions of women entrepreneurs, other challenges would also see improvement.

Jabeen circled back to AlNemari’s point on research specifically, highlighting the need for a stronger relationship and increased collaboration between the technology industry and academia. She proposed joint projects involving students and faculty to address industry challenges, fostering research and classroom investigations into potential solutions. Additionally, Jabeen praised Saudi Arabia’s rule requiring private companies with at least 25 employees to provide internship programs for students, which Jabeen said would help the students gain exposure to problems in the industry while still maintaining a fresh perspective. Lastly, Jabeen recommended hosting workshops open to company employees, faculty, and students to promote greater cooperation and understanding around new technologies.

The Way Forward:

In recent years, Saudi Arabia has seen major improvements to incorporating women into the tech sector. Following the 2016 launch of Vision 2030 and the accompanying gender reforms in the workplace, women have gone from 17.4 percent of the workforce in 2017 to 35.6 percent in 2022. Growth in the tech sector has likewise improved through different governmental initiatives which focused on development of women’s workforce participation and entrepreneurial skills in the tech field. As a result, the share of women in the tech sector rose to around 28 percent in 2021, far outstripping Europe’s 17.5 percent. Similarly, women in STEM programs at the college level comprised 36.8 percent of graduates as of 2018 (around the same level as the US, UK and Germany), and in 2021, women in the Kingdom officially surpassed men in founding tech startups.

While these numbers are encouraging, challenges persist for women in the sector. Securing financing, scaling business beyond the micro-level, and gaining access to supply chains all pose major obstacles to women in tech today. Furthermore, pervasive social attitudes toward women leaders only compound these issues, and voices championing the cause are lacking, as women comprise only 2.9 percent of company board seats as of 2022. For Saudi Arabia to achieve its Vision 2030 objectives and position itself at the forefront of information technology, it is crucial to tackle these issues.

Achieving this potential requires investment in the early stages of women’s careers. Since 2016, over 70 percent of scaled tech companies in Saudi Arabia were founded by individuals with a STEM degree. Given women’s recent progress at the college level in STEM, this statistic seems promising. However, education does not occur in isolation. A professional network is vital for founding a business and accessing leadership positions. Expanding current government-mandated internship programs to include gender-specific quotas would be a good start in addressing this issue, developing women’s networks early and placing them on a path toward leadership. Likewise, quotas as a prerequisite to government funding or as a requirement for boardroom representation in publicly listed companies would ensure women’s inclusion at the leadership and board levels in tech companies while also enhancing sector-wide efforts to improve women involvement in tech.

Just like education, the roots to solving challenges in securing financing and scaling business also already exist. Initiatives like the Falak Investment Hub’s Standard Chartered Women in Tech program, which awards cash rewards to female-led tech startups to encourage innovation, provide a solid starting point. However, it is imperative for the Saudi government and tech sector to consider expanding such programs and enhancing their financial offerings, considering that tech products often require substantial investment.

Finally, social perceptions of women also often pose a challenge to women in the tech industry, like stereotypes about competency in leadership positions and expectations for women to act primarily as caretakers. Challenging such perceptions requires a concerted effort for both the private and public sectors to invest in and uplift women leaders. Joint initiatives like Google and SDAIA’s Elevate, which works to empower women through AI, and the WIn Fellowship, which showcases women entrepreneurs in MENA, help to highlight women’s talent at the highest levels of business and tech, enabling a more effective and inclusive environment for innovators globally.

Jun 14, 2023

The WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 cohort

Building on the success of its inaugural cohort, the Women Innovators Fellowship (WIn) is expanding to Bahrain and the UAE, in addition to Saudi Arabia, as it continues to empower more women entrepreneurs from the Middle East. The program is thrilled to announce this year’s eighty-six recipients of its 2023 WIn Fellowship. The participants will receive a year-long program of executive education, mentoring, and networking opportunities in collaboration with Georgetown McDonough School of Business and with the support of the United States embassies in the three target countries and PepsiCo.

Feb 24, 2023

2023 WIn Fellowship Roadshow

The WIn Fellowship roadshow is led by the Atlantic Council’s empowerME Initiative in cooperation with Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business with support from US Embassy Riyadh, UPS, and PepsiCo. The WIn Fellowship Roadshow participants, chosen from a highly competitive cohort of more than thirty applicants, receive a fully sponsored trip to the United States for leadership training at Georgetown and meetings with US business and government leaders.

Jun 14, 2023

WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 KSA

Meet our 2023-2024 WIn fellows from Saudi Arabia: a group of dynamic women entrepreneurs poised to expand their leadership and executive skills. They are on a mission to scale their startups to new heights, setting new benchmarks for success.

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empowerME

empowerME at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East is shaping solutions to empower entrepreneurs, women, and youth and building coalitions of public and private partnerships to drive regional economic integration, prosperity, and job creation.

Explore the initiative

The post Transforming Saudi Arabia’s digital landscape through empowering women entrepreneurs appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On December 12th, 2023, the Atlantic Council’s empowerME initiative, in collaboration with the United States Embassy in Manama, the United States Mission to the United Arab Emirates, the United States Embassy in Saudi Arabia, and PepsiCo, held an insightful WIn Fellowship virtual workshop. This engaging discussion focused on demystifying venture capital (VC) ecosystem, explored its various stages, and shed light on the roles and expectations of VC investors.

Opening remarks were delivered by Lynn Monzer, associate director of the WIn Fellowship at the Atlantic Council. The conversation was led by Amjad Ahmad, chairman of the empowerME initiative at the Atlantic Council, featuring two exceptional speakers: Amal Dokhan, general partner at 500 Global MENA, and Tammer Qaddumi, co-founder & general partner at VentureSouq.

Lynn Monzer highlighted that in the Middle East and North Africa, “women lead fewer than 5 percent of businesses. Interestingly, around 66 percent of these entrepreneurs rely on personal savings and family support instead of actively seeking formal financing.” As of September 2022, only 1 percent of the $374 billion invested in the Middle East went to companies founded or co-founded by women. This reluctance is rooted in a lack of trust and transparency in the venture capital landscape, exacerbated by cultural norms and a predominantly male industry, creating an environment where women find it intimidating to pitch and negotiate.

Main takeaways

Amal Dokhan defined venture capital as high-risk funding for high-risk companies directed towards high-risk companies. She underscored the importance of understanding VC structures, sector preferences, and the capitalization table. She detailed 500 Global’s unique approach, which combines investment with an accelerator model for early-stage founders. The accelerator focuses on evaluating the early stage of a company, ensuring the presence of a foundational team, including at least one founder and a technology-focused Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

Tammer Qaddumi highlighted that venture capital represents just one category of capital among a diverse range of funding options available for businesses. He emphasized the importance of companies to evaluate if venture capital aligns with a company’s specific goals. Qaddumi outlined three criteria for considering venture capital: potential for rapid scaling, substantial upfront time investment before monetization, and a technology centric approach. He cautioned that venture capital, with its equity expenses and long-term partnership, may not be suitable for every business and suggested exploring alternative financing methods. Additionally, he highlighted the value proposition of banks as an alternative to venture capital for financing.

Tammer Qaddumi and Amal Dokhan both emphasized the need for alignment of interests and the significance of selecting an investor who will be a long-term partner for the company. They advised entrepreneurs to understand the investors’ business models, stakeholders, and objectives. Using the example of VentureSouq, Qaddumi underlined the critical importance of aligning with the investor’s specialization, ensuring that the business matches the fund’s focus and objectives. Dokhan discouraged entrepreneurs from pursuing trendy problems without genuine connection or expertise. She stressed the importance of timing, personal commitment, and the defensibility of business models. She favored coachable founders with internal tech expertise and stressed effective communication and compatibility in the investor-founder relationship.

Qaddumi explained that the criteria venture capital firms use to evaluate start-ups are not always consistent. It is in fact a dynamic equation involving an interplay between the team, the product, and the market that lead to entrepreneurial success. But, above all, it is the conviction of the founder that matters. Venture capital firms are drawn to start-ups whose founders are fully committed to the company, with the start-up being their only job. If you are not willing to risk your personal success on your idea, why should investors be?” Qaddumi said.

The significance of a start-up’s founder was a key point made by Amjad Ahmad. He mentioned that there are no new or unique business models anymore, the real value is with the founder. He explained that when a venture capital firm is presented with ten similar business models, they will choose the one with the founder who they believe is the most capable of executing the idea. Echoing this perspective, Qaddumi emphasized the importance of transparency when meeting with investors. Consumers will not buy a product without knowing who is behind the business and how it operates. If investors do not see this openness, they may doubt the business’s scalability and choose not to invest. Dokhan added that she often sees this cagy behavior in first-time founders, often due to advice from lawyers inexperienced with start-ups, who recommend protecting business ideas and requesting non-disclosure agreements. Instead, Dokhan suggested speaking with founders who have recently successfully financed and are in a similar stage as your company, as a more effective strategy.  

Amjad Ahmad pointed out that the aim of venture capital, simply put, is to make money. Therefore, firms are looking for an idea that will be big. It is difficult for a start-up to prove their success without first creating their product and engaging in the market on a smaller scale. Dokhan elaborated on the process investors use to de-risk, which involves understanding the business’s components they might invest in. She advised wise founders, when searching for financing, to familiarize themselves with the process, collect evidence, and prepare a comprehensive business plan. Qaddumi advised founders to familiarize themselves with the methods like the BURKE’s method so they are able to meet the financing criteria used by many venture capital firms.

Another key element to securing financing is through networking. Qaddumi suggested leveraging the founder’s network for warm introduction to investors. “At the first meeting, don’t ask for money. Instead, ask for advice or other introductions,” he emphasized. “Build rapport and a relationship with the investor before asking for money. Even if this first opportunity does not pan out, venture capital firms talk to each other and could introduce you to a firm better suited to your field.” Dokhan added that, as an investor, the best way she meets founders is through intros from other founders. If someone in her community refers a founder, she knows that the first round of vetting has already been done.

Finally, in terms of common factors that lead to successful start-ups and investments, both Dokhan and Qaddumi agreed that the ability to market to larger, diverse markets is a key success factor. When it comes to the Middle East, no single country has a large enough population to produce a true business success by venture capital standards. But selling to diverse markets across the MENA region is easier said than done. Dokhan clarified that this not only requires the ability to quickly launch in different countries, but that it is essential to be able to understand customers and their consumer behaviors in different markets. Different countries will need separate strategies and marketing unique to their consumers. Ahmad added that this is an area where venture capital can help the companies, they are investing in. Having investors who are positioned in these different markets can help companies gain understanding and provide important local introductions.

Closing Remarks

In the closing remarks given by Nibras Basitkey, she outlined the guidance panelists provided to founders interested in understanding, navigating, and securing venture capital funding. Venture capital is not suitable for all business models. If you want to pursue this form of financing, you must actively integrate cutting-edge technologies into your startup’s core offerings. You will need to highlight how these technological advancements disrupt the market, tackle a specific problem, and create significant value for investors.

The first step in acquiring venture capital funding is through thorough research. It is necessary to find a firm that aligns with your startup’s specific needs and goals. After that, founders must build a compelling case to sell to investors. Clearly define the problem your startup tackles and be able to articulate its solution; explain how your business will generate substantial returns for investors and show scalability; and be sure to demonstrate your commitment as a full-time founder. Finally, when seeking meetings with investors, utilize your network. Ensure that all introductions are “warm,” coming from shared contacts and always build a rapport and relationship before requesting funding.

Venture capital can be a confusing and intimidating space but with the right tools and knowledge it can grow your startup into a thriving business.

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Public Event Tue, December 12, 2023 • 9:00 am ET

AfriNEXT

The Atlantic Council and global development company DAI convened high-level experts to reframe the narrative on African successes and innovation.

Africa

Event transcript

Uncorrected transcript: Check against delivery

Speakers

Rebecca Harrison
Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, African Management Institute

Anita Erskine
Chief Executive Officer of Erskine Global Communications

Betty Beenzu Chilonde
Founder, Bulongo Incubator for Creative Skills

Moderator

Sarah Zaaimi
Deputy Director for Communications, Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs, Atlantic Council

SARAH ZAAIMI: Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to welcome you to another panel, an exciting panel on “Advancing [Women’s] Leadership in Africa.”

Let me first start with a conundrum that I’ve been struggling with myself. Women in Africa represent half of the population, and yet they are only 8 percent of wage earners and they only bring 13 percent of the GDP. But yet, if you scratch the surface, you will find a thriving ecosystem where women entrepreneurs such as the ladies here on my left and all the attendants that you’ve been listening to throughout this conference, they show a different image of Africa. They tell a different story of Africa where women leadership is a true success story.

For example, members are also talking about this. Women entrepreneurs, for example, in Africa are over 26 percent, and that’s above the global average. And also, most of the women in Africa are self-employed, and that’s, like, over 58 percent.

So to help me untangle this conundrum and discuss this, we have a panel of trailblazers and entrepreneurs, inspiring ladies who have been working in the continent. Let me introduce to you our panel today.

So, to my immediate left, Rebecca Harrison, who’s the CEO and co-founder of [African] Management Institute. She comes to us from Kenya today. She’s been doing a tremendous job. Her institute has over fifty-thousand beneficiaries from over thirty-five countries in Africa.

Next is our host that you’ve been acquainted to throughout this morning, Anita Erskine, who is the CEO of Erskine Global Communications. She’s a media personality. She runs her own shows on the radio and TV. But she’s also a social entrepreneur, advancing women, especially young girls learning in STEM, among other things. I’ll let you discover more.

And last but not least, coming from Zambia, is Betty Beenzu Chilonde, And she’s the founder of Bulongo Incubator, but she’s also a social entrepreneur herself and a fashion designer. She’s passionate about sustainability and has been doing a lot of work on the ground.

So welcome, ladies.

Let me start with you, Anita. How can we tell a better story of African women beyond the headlines, the scary headlines of war and conflict and things we’ve been listening to? How can we scratch the surface and show the real face of women leadership in the continent?

ANITA ERSKINE: Thanks, Sarah.

I think, first of all, we can by not pretending that those negatives [don’t] exist, you know, because you don’t tell a real story by sweeping the realities under the carpet. You actually look at the problems head on. You talk about drought and flooding in Somalia, and you talk about the women who are—perhaps who bear the brunt of—you know, brunt of this. You talk about the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the women who are frontlining it, who are at the forefront of it. You talk about perhaps a corporate world, you know, technology, et cetera. And you also underline the women who have, quote/unquote, “broken the glass ceiling” to be at the forefront.

But I think, ultimately, the element of owning that narrative is also—it’s kind of like double-sided. You don’t tell Africa’s story only on the one side of talking about how beautiful and how culturally layered it is without talking about the negatives as well, so that then you own how that story is told. So when you focus on women’s leadership specifically on the continent, you also don’t focus on the CEOs, you know, and the entrepreneurs; you talk about, you know, the women who lead their communities, you know, right down there, so to speak, at the grassroot level, and the women who, you know, sacrifice everything to ensure that their children go to school. That is a form of leadership as well. You know, so make sure that you project the entire story so that somebody doesn’t have to tell the other side for you.

SARAH ZAAIMI: That’s very, very pertinent on how granular the story of Africa is. And I would just want to add to that also is that there is some kind of essentialism on the way we tell the story of Africa as if it’s one country or one culture or one thing although there are different layers and layers to this continent and sometimes many disparities and many success stories but also stories of sadness. So thank you for saying that.

I’m moving to you, Betsy. I know you care a lot about innovation and I think that’s a theme that’s recurrent throughout this conference that we’ve been hearing throughout the different panels this day. There was this study—staggering study by UNESCO in 2021 that actually most women entrepreneurs in Africa are innovating somehow. Like, I think 24 percent, they innovate in a certain way.

I think maybe it’s the reality on the ground or the… specificity of what they have been doing. How do you explain that and how do you live that throughout your own journey as an entrepreneur and a designer and someone at the forefront of innovation in Africa?

BETTY BEENZU CHILONDE: Thank you, Sarah.

I think to answer that question, really, I would say that, you know, different things happen every day as women do their businesses and go about whatever they are doing and so to remain stagnated is really, like, something bad for a woman.

As you go through challenges you have always to think about how best you can do something, how best you can deliver, how different you can do things in order to achieve, at the end of the day.

So basically I think as a person who supports innovation and who has been through certain struggles as an entrepreneur, as a woman, I think it’s important really to also educate oneself how you can do things better, you know, as opposed to just focusing in one line.

It’s always best to look around what other people are doing, what other countries are doing, how are they, you know, reaching a certain target or how are they getting or surviving. So, really, innovation in that way is continued and you keep learning like that.

SARAH ZAAIMI: No, thank you so much for that. It’s very wise words coming from someone who have been, you know, grappling with this and working with this every day.

I’m turning to you, Rebecca. I know you spent a lot of time in the continent and you have roots there working with women and trying to open new perspectives in tech, in venture capital, and other fields.

I want to go back to the fact that women are still underrepresented in businesses. In board members, for example, they make less than 8 percent in board members of businesses but they also make less than 20 [percent], 24 percent at best in parliament. So even as decision makers they are, largely, underrepresented.

How do you explain that and how do you overcome it in your day-to-day life trying to work as a social entrepreneur and also as an economic entrepreneur?

REBECCA HARRISON: Yeah. What a great question. If I could answer that we would be fixing this problem, I guess.

But yeah, I guess I wear two hats as an entrepreneur myself and then like Betty also working with entrepreneurs, and I guess when I think about women in entrepreneurship particularly, you know, capital is the issue that we often end up coming back to, that women are just so underrepresented when it comes to seeking capital and accessing capital.

And I think there’s a few—so maybe I’ll just focus my answer on that—I think there are a few challenges there. One is the pipeline building, that there aren’t—there still aren’t enough strong female-led businesses coming through the pipeline to be able to access capital, at least in theory. That’s what the male capital allocators say.

I’m not so sure it’s true. But, arguably, the pipeline is still, you know, like you were saying I think 24 percent of businesses are women-owned. Of the businesses that we support we’re almost half and we’re very intentional about that because we feel like it’s our role to build that pipeline so that investors don’t have that excuse anymore.

We know that there are great women-led businesses out there and we want to help get them ready to be able to access that capital. So that’s one is building the pipeline.

The second is I think our models of capital have been very driven. I think one of the panels this morning made this point that you can’t just kind of take a Silicon Valley VC model and kind of put that in an African context and expect it to work. It’s just—the businesses are so different. The risk profiling is so different. And a lot of the women that we work with don’t necessarily want, you know, hockey-stick growth. They’re not looking for that. They’re working—they want to build profitable, sustainable businesses that grow. They’re ambitious, but they also want to integrate that with their lives and their communities.

So I really believe we need different types of capital and we need to embrace different journeys rather than just having this kind of techbro-driven, like, VC culture that women feel alienated from and don’t even want to be a part of anyway. We need kind of different models that are—that are more inclusive of kind of the incredible women entrepreneurs out there.

SARAH ZAAIMI: As a follow-up question to that, do you think equity investment is something that needs to be incentivized and put forward, and maybe also incentivized by other allies from outside who could, you know—you know, push the governments in the continent to adopt more equitable policies towards women, especially in the startup and entrepreneurship sectors?

REBECCA HARRISON: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s something that kind of allies from all spaces can contribute to because it needs intentionality at every level, whether it’s pipeline building, whether it’s capital. I mean, just an interesting stat, we’ve seen how women entrepreneurs are much—A, they create more jobs in relation to revenue than male entrepreneurs, but they create significantly more jobs for women. So, of the entrepreneurs that we support, more—so 75 percent of them have more than 50 percent female workforce, compared to, I mean, low double digits for men. It’s just so stark it’s fascinating.

So women champion other women, typically. So if we can get more women into kind of every stage of the value chain of entrepreneur support, from kind of mentors to capital allocators to entrepreneurs themselves, you know, whatever it is, I think that’s how we’ll see change, is really—and everyone can be an ally on that wherever you are in that kind of value chain.

SARAH ZAAIMI: That’s very important, especially to find allies within other women, women elevating other women and that peer-to-peer building up to find your footprint.

I’m turning to you, Anita. I know in our initial discussions we spoke a lot about agency. I know you built your own company from, you know, the bottom up. Is the startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem in Africa hostile for women? And how can agency reverse that trend or help empower women in that leadership?

ANITA ERSKINE: I’m sorry, I think women own the startup and entrepreneurial space.

SARAH ZAAIMI: OK.

ANITA ERSKINE: No, I think we own it. And I don’t have the data in front of me, but you can challenge me. I find that so many more small organizations/startups created from, you know, fashion startups, innovative startups, tech startups… are all run by women. But you perhaps don’t know about them and see them, perhaps because women tend to focus on getting the work done. Sorry, guys; mean no harm. You know, her focus is in the back office, is in the factory, because she’s responsible for so much more than just herself. So I find that, no, the women are there.

Of course, I mean, post-COVID we’re all going into a world of telling our stories, and people becoming a lot more vocal, and people saying, well, you know what, let’s own the narrative, which I strongly—you know, I advocate for. But I think that women really do what they do best, and that is they lead. You know, women don’t necessarily stand up and shout: Hey, look at me. I’m the founder. I’m the CEO. But she will start something, even on a small scale.

And when you talk about agency, I find that a lot of the time women are over-mentored and underfunded. So when you talk about agency, you know, you tend to be—you tend to confuse that with a woman being able to start her business. No, my focus on agency, really, is her ability to not only empower herself, but ensure that she’s got a story to tell that empowers other people, ensure that she’s educated enough to make the kinds of decisions that affect her positively, ensure that she’s able to understand the business, she’s able to understand the financing behind the business, financial literacy, and that when she comes up with an idea she’s surrounded by people who only are ready to say, you know, a tap on the back—Go, Rebecca! Go, Betty!—but who are able to back that up with cash, with money.

You know, so, listen, we could talk all day about this. But I think that, to be very honest with you—and I’m very happy, Rebecca; you need to help me define the data—but I think that a lot of the entrepreneurs, a lot of the leaders in the entrepreneurial and startup ecosystem are women, and they’re getting the world to pay attention to the continent. They’re just not talking about it.

SARAH ZAAIMI: No, thank you for that myth-busting discourse.

I would like to challenge you on that. There was a recent report by Brookings that says that women in Africa tend to confine themselves to certain comfortable sectors that the society expects them to be in. I know you, throughout the sectors that you are working on, you are busting that myth as well. But is that something across the continent that you’re seeing, or is it just among the elites in certain capitals—maybe Accra or Casablanca or other place, Nairobi? But is it—is it across the continent, or is it just a bubble that we are seeing and we are just seeing through those elites?

ANITA ERSKINE: I work on a project called Africa’s Business Heroes, and every year we see about twenty-seven thousand or thirty-thousand applications from across the continent. And it would shock you how many businesses, you know, focusing on social impact work or focusing on impact at the ground level and all the way up, how many of these entrepreneurs are women. So they are not only—and they’re not only in the cities. They’re not only in Joburg or in Accra or in Nairobi; no, they are in the rural areas as well. Some of them are giving up their full-time glamorous jobs in the big cities and then moving to their hometowns to build businesses just so that they can feed and employ other women on the ground.

So, no, it’s not—you know, the bubble is not per city or is not, you know, according to, you know, the 1 percent or 2 percent from middle to high income. No. In fact, if we did our research a little bit well—and perhaps we should have, you know, prior to coming here—we’d find out that a lot of, you know, a lot of the women are, you know, grassroots-driven. And I don’t know, hundreds of women who are employed at that rural and grassroots level are employed by other women.

SARAH ZAAIMI: Just to deconstruct that a bit further with you, Betty, we chatted a bit briefly about the weight of culture, and the cultural restraints and cultural norms that sometimes would tend to belittle the work of women. That’s what you were telling me through your story and through how people perceive, for example, designers. They say, well, designer is not a real job. You know, like, there is a lot of weight of culture on women trying to lead. Can you develop more on that from your personal experience? And how did you overcome that? And what would be your advice for young women entrepreneurs having, you know, to overcome all the stigma around what they do and trying to explain themselves to the society?

BETTY BEENZU CHILONDE: Thank you, Sarah. I think I’ll also just echo what Anita has said. There are so many women, young women out there who really want to do it, who want to make it, who want to do big things out there. But then, also, speaking from experience back in Zambia, you find that, just like you have mentioned, the weight of culture. You know, there is a certain responsibility that is placed on the woman to be able to be the homemaker, OK? She’s expected to take care of the children. She’s expected to nurture everything that is around and the man is supposed to work. So you find that even as much as she wants to make it, certain responsibilities restrain her from achieving more than the male counterpart. So you find that in some way she will be trying, but there are so many challenges that are coming against her. But, true, there are so many women out there.

And also, sometimes there’s a fear that if I go against, you know, what the culture expects me to do or, you know, what—there’s this, what they call, marriage material. I don’t know how many people have heard it, but the marriage material kind of woman is the woman who is submissive, who is not out there who wants to achieve, and who—the one who is going to be listening to what others are saying and really conforming to what society wants her to do or what they believe her to be able to be in society. So as much as they want to go out there, there’s a fear that, you know, they will be seen to be less marriage material and they will not get married at a certain age, and you know, then they are not good enough women. So all those constraints really come against the woman and they are not able to go forward.

The other thing that I would want to mention also is for those that actually manage to make it, they are seen to be maybe promiscuous, you know, as to mean maybe they have achieved because they have compromised in a way. So women are expected not to achieve more because, oh, you are pretty, so because you are pretty then you went against certain things, and that’s how you’ve made it. So there’s all those challenges, really, that come against the woman. But, yes, the women are there and they are ready to do it, but we need to sort of like help them to come out of those fears.

SARAH ZAAIMI: I want also to focus on the reverse phase of culture, because I feel also it’s the African culture that sometimes allowed these women to be empowered. Because if we tap into the history of the continent, we will find lots of stories of women fighters and, you know, women fighting patriarchy or even matriarchal societies where the woman is the breadwinner or is the head of the tribe or is the healer or is highly esteemed. And that’s not something that people maybe are familiar with. So do you also think that maybe culture is what made you and empowered you to become a leader?

BETTY BEENZU CHILONDE: I would say yes and no.

Yes in a sense that, of course, the African continent has so many languages, tribes, and all those things. If I come to Zambia, I come from a tribe of the Tongas, and these are the farmers, the healers. You know, they are the ones who are seen to be providers, more like food providers and all those things. So culturally, yes, some cultures really push the woman to be out there. Like in the Tonga land, women are the ones who are seen to be workers and the men would, like, really sit back and they will marry five women, and the women will be farming and they’ll be producing food and all this. So women are seen to be assets in a sense that they are the ones who are going to come and work to provide for the family. So, yes, in that way women are seen now to push themselves to be seen as workers to lead, to be able to provide for the family, and all those things. But when you come—you bring that kind of culture back to the city, these are the women who want to achieve. They want to achieve higher grades in school. They want to be seen to be doing better than the men and all those things. So, yes, culturally I think that thing is there.

But because of a mixture of culture, there’s now so many culture mixing here and there, there are so many different beliefs and different upbringing that have sort of, like, diluted how people value things, how they value marriage. I want to say this because I’ve mentioned that you know, women don’t want to come out because they want to be married and all those things. But then, also, I would want to say that I think you know, the way people are brought up, the values that they are—are instilled in them as they are growing, also sort of like affects how they think, you know, and what they pursue. Yeah.

SARAH ZAAIMI: I want to explore that point a bit further about what values and what education do we instigate in women and plant in women that seed of empowerment and self-reliance. And I know, Rebecca, you care a lot about training, about education, about advocacy. How can we empower women to play that role through effective education? And are there any case studies or anything you care to share with us from the success stories that you’ve been—you’ve been living or implementing around you?

REBECCA HARRISON: Yeah. And I’m ambivalent on this one because I agree with you, Anita; women are empowered already. We have power and we’re doing—we’re doing it. We’re building businesses across the continent. And sometimes I feel conflicted about this. I feel like as an ecosystem we’ve responded to what’s essentially a problem with the system by telling women to be more confident, right? Like, sometimes I’m like, well, actually, women are just quite accurate at describing their business success.

So if we look, for example—when I look at the data from our businesses and we disaggregate by gender, we see that women are really good at describing accurately the performance of their business. When we ask them, you know, a few months later, how is your business doing; have you increased revenue, profit, whatever; what they tell us matches up with what we see the actual—has happened in the business. Men, on the other hand—(laughter)—consistently overestimate how well their business is doing. They always tell us their business is growing, they’re making a profit, they’re doing so well. Then we look at the numbers and we’re, like, well, some of you are, you know.

And so—and we are guilty of this as well. Not guilty. I mean, it is a real thing that we need to encourage women to take up space and to own their voice and particularly in some countries. So we have a—we have a program called Speak Up To Lead, which we often run—we don’t—we try not to run too many programs that separate out women and men because networks are so important.

But we sometimes give women—we offer women on a program this extra module on kind of finding voice and agency and speaking up to lead. But I have to say I have this ambivalence because at the same time I’m, like, you know, rather than telling women to be more confident sometimes I’m, like, men should just be more accurate. Maybe that would stop things.

SARAH ZAAIMI: Is it maybe a marketing skill that they need to present their work better to the world?

REBECCA HARRISON: Yeah. I mean, I think that there’s something in it and for sure, like, I think, you know, many women do need to be bolder at times about telling our stories. But again, like, when you look at the data on raising capital male VCs consistently ask women about risk mitigation strategies and they asked men about opportunity.

So no matter how good you are at being bold and telling your story if the system is consistently kind of asking you the wrong questions I mean, yeah, we need to get really smart about navigating that. But, yeah, I just—I really resonate with your point about kind of over mentored and underfunded, I think.

As much as we need to encourage women to get out there and own our stories, really, the system’s got to shift for us as well, I think.

SARAH ZAAIMI: On the point of over mentor them—I’m turning to you, Anita—also maybe accessing funds and capital has to do with access to networks and sometimes what’s lacking is that one contact that you meet, the someone who is willing to take the risk with you, and so what—how can we make women have more access to those networks where capital resides?

And how can women empower women and help them get that access instead of having an ecosystem where women are competing with women because there is so little capital that everyone is just preying on that 8 percent?

ANITA ERSKINE: Listen, I think women compete with women because women are told there’s only two seats in the room and half the time you really don’t want to bring the other person or the other woman who’s as good as you. Then you don’t become the first.

I love awards. I love recognition. But sometimes I think that women are made to believe and think that there can only be one winner and there can only be—you know, and you want to be the first woman to be the oil magnate. You want to be the first woman to be the diamond magnate. You want to be the first woman to tell—you know, and so the entire space is filled with you must compete for this one spot.

But if there’s a second spot do not bring someone who is as good or better than you because then you won’t be the first, and that’s the bottom line. So I feel that women are in this space. We are in the—look at us. We are here. We are in this space. And then, of course, women don’t ask each other what’s your name and what are you into and how can we—and how can we interact, how can we work together.

You know, women always wait to be asked, oh, what’s your name and half the time, you know, because we don’t have the confidence to walk across the room because the room is so cold, you know, we kind of wait and hope that someone will ask us the necessary question and with that question we can give them the right answer and with that right answer it can open a door.

But having said that, I see a shift and that’s why I love the new generation of women. The new generation of women don’t even wait to be invited. They ask and say, I am coming to. You know, the new generation of women will hop on a flight and will travel across the world because there’s something essential happening on the other side of the world.

And so access to that capital is in the rooms that we find too cold to enter and access to capital is in breaking that essence that there can only be two of us. For me, every single time I’m invited somewhere, I mean, I am known to be the S-H-I-T disturber who will always say, hey, can I have five more invitations because there are five young women who are in my program that I would love to be in the room.

We didn’t get taught how to speak in these kind of rooms. We had to discover it the hard way. And, Betty, you said it. I mean, then they say, oh, Anita, you talk too much. Oh, this one is too wild. Oh, this one is too this. Oh, you know what, she’s too aggressive.

You know, but it’s not that. It’s the self-assurance. It’s the self-knowledge. It’s the self-empowerment. It’s the self-inspiration with which I walk.

And so you have this generation of women, and so if you want to break that concept of being in the room, accessing capital and all of that then you mustn’t have a room filled with fifty-something-year-old women. You must have a room fairly balanced with fifty-something-year-old, thirty-something-year-old, twenty-something-year-old, and perhaps sometimes even late teenagers to understand how you do it, how do you move in the room, how do you shake it, how do you, you know, be so concerned that one person is Caucasian, another person is Indian.

Who cares? You know, so the perception that we can’t—you know, one, we can’t all win is absolutely wrong. Then the perception that, oh, well, if one person wins it means next year there can’t be another female winner is another wrong thing.

But it happened to us. Let us not let it happen to the generation of women that are coming.

Did I even answer the question?

SARAH ZAAIMI: Oh, yeah. You did answer exhaustively the question. Thank you for your inspirational words.

I hope that a lot of women and a lot of allies and a lot of people working on Africa would hear this message and it will resonate with them.

I’m moving again to you, Betty, to maybe talk about solutions. I think we entangled enough the challenges and the landscape itself. If we move to actionable things let’s start by government policies.

What needs to be changed, reformed? I come from Morocco and I know in the 1990s there was that quota—women quota system that really elevated women representation in the parliament by, you know, instigating a 35 percent representation in women.

There are other things that could be done in the continent. You spoke about family and about perception and culture, maybe reforming family codes and giving more margins to women could be helpful. Maybe also gender-sensitive budgeting or maybe even removing taxation on some of the startups that are women led.

What are other things that you think from your experience from the concrete challenges that you are facing every day should be made at the government level?

BETTY BEENZU CHILONDE: Thank you so much, Sarah.

I think mentorship is one thing that can work to help women be elevated. I say mentorship because, you know, just like Anita has said whenever there’s an event there needs to be a balance, OK, and this balance sort of, like, creates an opportunity for the younger generation to learn from those who have already done it before.

And I think what the government needs to do—I know back home the government has made intentional provisions for women to be in politics—for example, a certain percentage to be also, like, in parliament and all those things.

But I think when it comes to women entrepreneurship and business and all that I think maybe what other incentives that can be there really is to allow the woman to be a woman. I say that because, you know, we cannot be the same as men.

I know there’s gender equality, all those things, you know. But let the woman be the woman and when I say that, really, I mean let the woman experience being a mother, for example. Give her enough rest when she needs it. OK. When they have babies do you give them enough time for them to recover and then come back to work?

Because when you look at the work landscape you find that maybe the leave for the woman is thirty days or forty—or forty days, same as the man. But you need the woman to recover. You need her to take care of the child and come back to the same opportunities and be able to be at the same level with the men, because biologically the woman is different.

So I think that needs to be recognized. And also by virtue of having a woman obviously she needs more time. You find that certain opportunities she’s not able to take—she’s not able to take those opportunities because of maybe, you know, biological clock and things like that. So I think those things need to be considered and she needs to be given, you know, equal opportunity and, you know, be able to be who she is and still continue pursuing careers and entrepreneurship.

SARAH ZAAIMI: So it’s gender-sensitive laws and allowing women to be women.

If we turn to the international community—and I know here there are many agencies and organizations and even investors among us here in the audience and people listening to us online as well—Rebecca, what would be the incentives or the actions that these allies internationally could do to lend a hand to empower and advance women leadership in the continent?

REBECCA HARRISON: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s about bringing a gender lens across the board and kind of asking those questions about participation of women across programming. So whether that’s around kind of finance allocation where, you know, there’s pros and cons against kind of—for and against quotas, but at least like taking a really intentional view; looking at design, ensuring that kind of gender lens is built into design; that products and solutions, that we’re taking a kind of human-sensitive design approach with women at the center, actually designing for the needs of women; and then ensuring that we’re elevating women’s voices within that programming so women are actually making decisions. And the more that we have women in positions of power and influence, the more I think we’ll see that kind of, you know, trickle down throughout kind of different components of programming.

SARAH ZAAIMI: Thank you, ladies. I also wanted to thank you for the insightful case studies and testimonies and voices that you lended to this discussion.

I also wanted to give the floor to the audience here if they have any questions, comments, additions to this discussion. So we could—and then I’ll turn back to you to answer.

Q: Hi, thank you so much, ladies. This has been a very insightful conversation. My name, again, is Joy LeFour with the Valcrest Institute.

And my question, any of the panelists can take it, but I have followed Rebecca Harrison for years and I really salute your work. And all the other ladies here, thank you so much for the insights shared.

Now, in the context of advancing women leadership in Africa, can any of you tell me, how can we leverage public—the partnership between the private sector and the public sector to create a sustainable opportunity to support systems for women in Africa, and especially in the rural areas?

ANITA ERSKINE: Do you want to take that?

SARAH ZAAIMI: Any other questions before we answer, our comments?

Q: Hi. I’m Audra Killian and I’m with DAI. And so thank you so much for the insightful responses for the—to the panel.

And I think one of the things that’s clear from the panel is the amount of female entrepreneurs across the continent. I was wondering if the female leadership in the private sector has been translating to the public sector and to politics and government, not necessarily just at the high level but also at kind of like the public-facing roles? So with civil servants, at the ministry level, just because not everybody can be President Sirleaf. So I’m just wondering about has there also been, like, a gradual growth of women leaders in politics and governance. Thank you.

SARAH ZAAIMI: Anyone else before we answer? No?

OK, any one of you want to take those?

ANITA ERSKINE: I can start from the first and then come to the second.

So I think it is Rwanda that has an increasing amount of women in—

REBECCA HARRISON: Parliament.

SARAH ZAAIMI: Fifty percent. Yeah. Yeah.

ANITA ERSKINE: Fifty percent, yeah?… Sixty-one [percent]? It’s 61 [percent]? Yes. So then my automatic answer would be yes. And even when I look at back home in Ghana, every four years when we have the presidential elections and for members of parliament you see more women actively participating in wanting to be in those various rooms, so to speak. So, yes, you can see the increase.

And I think that gradually we’re being able to debunk or break down the fears and the concept that to be a woman in politics you’ve got to be the female version of Arnold Schwarzenegger. And you know, so making it a little bit more attractive for women, but also realizing that the more we wait for, you know, certain decisions to be made on our behalf, the more regression that we encounter. So I’m seeing that a lot.

And in terms of the first question about, I guess, the interface between public and private, let me just talk from the perspective of girls’ education and banning early marriage as an example, because leadership doesn’t just happen when you are born. Leadership is actually the result of where you come from, how you are brought up, who leads you, what are you protected by. And I see that a lot more African countries are beginning to fight against, for example, early marriage. A lot more are beginning to look at helping girls pursue careers in STEM because that’s where the leadership eventually comes from.

So, of course, as I said before, I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I know even in the space that I work in in STEM or in communications or the media or across other industries that there’s a lot more government policies and conversations, you know, at the parliament level about how to get more girls educated. In Ghana we’ve got the Free SHS, which means that more girls automatically are able to go, you know, to school. But that doesn’t mean that girls don’t go to school where there is poor sanitation facilities, which eventually kind of kicks them out. So I see that increasingly we’re all becoming very conscious of how to make sure and ensure that the ecosystem, so to speak, is favorable, you know, for girls.

REBECCA HARRISON: Can I just add something on the public-private partnership? And thank you so much for the shout-out.

But we’ve—we stumbled upon a super interesting model for public-private partnership recently, which is leadership incubators. So we’ve been running a program on agricultural transformation with a partner, AGRA, where we bring together leaders at fairly senior level from public, private, and civil society and put them through a pretty intensive kind of transformational leadership experience. And what’s been so exciting and unexpected about this is how individuals connecting with individuals drives change so quickly. I mean, it’s obvious, right, but just to see this happen so quickly.

So, for example, we saw—we have the delegates working together on kind of practical action-learning projects, right? And so one project in Tanzania, we had a female entrepreneur who’s one of the leading entrepreneurs in the poultry sector in Tanzania in a group with a policymaker in the agricultural ministry, and they together worked to change Tanzania’s poultry policy just through, like a leadership project. And it really—and you know, I know that it’s ag, it’s a little bit off topic, but it really got me thinking about, you know, could we make this happen for gender? Could you get, you know, women from across public and private sector, civil society together in a really transformational leadership experience? What might that kind of generate? Could we do it for climate? So if any funders out there, you know, who want to collaborate on this—but, no, seriously, I think it’s a super exciting kind of idea to explore. If anyone, you know, wants to kind of co-create on that, would love to.

SARAH ZAAIMI: One more question and then we could turn to our guests with some closing remarks. We have under one minute.

Q: Thank you. I am Sarah from Zimbabwe. I just wanted to appreciate the panel. I enjoyed everything that you said.

I am just wondering at the top of my head if maybe you could comment on the role of men in supporting women’s leadership, because I’m thinking that we are fighting this battle because of mostly the patriarchal systems that we have. And maybe the battle is harder because some of the men are pushing back. So I feel that maybe if we don’t have them on our side or at least allowing us space, it’s going to take some time for us to be fifty-fifty at the table, be it in government, be it in the private sector, be it in the academia. So I’m just thinking, what are your thoughts on that? Thank you.

SARAH ZAAIMI: Thank you so much. I’m turning to you, Betty, if you could quickly maybe answer and also give any last remarks.

BETTY BEENZU CHILONDE: Yeah, thank you so much. I think that’s very important what you have just brought up, because as much as we talk about these things I think it’s very important for men to accept and want to support women.

What I have noticed is that men who are—who are, like, living in the diaspora are more willing to assist the women back home with home duties and also make—understanding that the women have to work and then they have to also take part in, you know, providing for the family in that sense. But when it’s back in Africa, it’s a very different story. You find that the men are not willing to assist the woman. So that becomes very, very difficult for the—for the woman.

And that actually brings out the fact that men are actually pushing back. And as much as they are talking about it on the political level and all those things, they are not willing at a personal level to accept and support the woman. So the woman has double work. They have to work, and also they have to work in the other sense. So I think it starts from accepting that the men have to accept to want to support the woman and be able to offload some of the duties that the woman is going through to be able to, you know, uplift the woman.

SARAH ZAAIMI: Any very, very last words before we close? I think we ran out of time.

ANITA ERSKINE: Oh, my husband absolutely loves the fact that I’m who I am. But, no, I mean, that’s why I said initially there’s two sides to everything. I married someone who absolutely loves the fact that I get to travel around the world and who is at home right now taking care of the kids. My daughter was unwell yesterday. He’s happy to give her her Benylin, you know what I mean? So I think there’s the other—there is the other kind of—you know, we don’t even have time to talk about the kind of man you should marry.

But just to finish off, I think that if there are women who have the money—we talked about women not being funded. Fund a women-owned business or a woman-owned business. What stops you from putting money into a woman-owned business? I think that’s a thing that is key. Two, stop trying to be the only woman in the room. And, three, gender equality doesn’t mean you get to do what the man does or, you know—you know, they say sometimes what a man can do a woman can do better. I disagree. I think women are good at doing exceptional things, some things, and women cannot do other things. Same thing with men. So if you pursue your career, pursue your dreams, pursue ambition, pursue it from the perspective of being the best woman you can, not the best woman that is better than the man in the room. And I think that’s how, then, you are able to also get the—to get the men to support.

SARAH ZAAIMI: Thank you. Thank you.

Watch the full event

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People from all corners of the world packed the room, and it was standing room only at our COP28 Resilience Hub, where she held court as the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock) ambassador for heat, health, and gender.

“Extreme heat has to be viewed as one of the most dangerous results of the changing climate,” she said, recounting a trip to India, where she saw the harm done to livelihoods, particularly those of women working outdoors as farmers, street vendors, waste collectors, and salt pan and construction workers. “This is not just a health issue,” Clinton warned. “It’s an economic issue, a social issue, [and] a political issue.”

Working with Clinton and with Reema Nanavaty, director of the nearly three-million-member Self-Employed Women’s Association, the Atlantic Council has been implementing a parametric insurance program as a part of Arsht-Rock’s Extreme Heat Protection Initiative. This program protects women working in India’s informal sector from having to make an impossible choice: pausing their work during heat waves (to protect their health) or continuing to work and earn money, while putting their wellbeing at risk.

What has been winning the headlines here so far at this twenty-eighth United Nations Climate Change Conference has been the announcement on the first day of a landmark, $400-milllion loss and damage fund, a mechanism that provides financial assistance to the countries most affected by, but often least responsible for, the climate crisis. There has also been media attention on the hydrocarbon companies that have come to this conference in greater numbers than ever before—many with concrete commitments and plans to reduce emissions.

With over seventy thousand delegates and observers at COP28, actions that aim to improve lives—such as insurance programs to support workers in the informal economy, many of them women—deserve notice. For these workers especially, “their lives and livelihoods are at stake,” said Eleni Myrivili, the global chief heat officer for United Nations-Habitat and Arsht-Rock.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on Twitter @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points Today newsletter, a column of quick-hit insights on a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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On November 1^st, the Atlantic Council’s empowerME Initiative, in collaboration with the United States Embassy in Bahrain and Bahrain FinTech Bay, hosted the second workshop in a series of four for the first cohort of the Women Innovators Fellowship (WIn Fellowship) in Bahrain. The session took place both virtually and in-person at the Bahrain FinTech Bay offices. The event focused on Bahrain’s booming fintech industry and the growing role of women in the sector.

Lynn Monzer, associate director of the Atlantic Council’s WIn Fellowship initiative, offered the opening remarks. The panel included Bader Sater, the chief executive officer of Bahrain FinTech Bay; Noora Al-Nusuf, head of corporate affairs for the Middle East at Standard Chartered Bank; Jamal Fakhro, managing partner of KPMG in Bahrain; and Batool Alkhaja, director of public policy at Rain Management with Lynn Monzer moderating.

The panelists shared their expertise in finance, technology, and fintech, touching upon the progress Bahrain has made in gender parity in employment, the challenges women entrepreneurs face, and shared advice for women navigating the industry.

Key discussion points

The workshop started with Lynn Monzer highlighting the fellowship’s commitment in the progress of women entrepreneurs in the Middle East. She emphasized the crucial focus of the topic of the panel – the intersectionality of women, technology, and finance in Bahrain stating that “the country is becoming a hub of innovation and growth, standing as a unique microcosm in the global fintech arena.”

Bader Sater provided an overview of the current state of the nascent fintech industry in Bahrain. He expressed that his aspiration for its success and growth is quite high, the adoption of banks and financial institutions of new technology, and the growing start-up ecosystem. While Noora Al-Nusuf highlighted the current state of women in Bahrain’s financial sector asserting that the recent reforms in the Kingdom enabled women to access a wide range of roles and leadership positions across the entire work force. Yet, in the financial sector, women hold only 13 percent of the sector’s workforce, and 32 percent of them are in leadership or managerial positions.

Although men and women in Bahrain have equal employment opportunities, Jamal Fakhro notes that the low level of female participation in fintech can be explained by the newness of the industry. He anticipates a rise in of women’s participation in the Fintech industry once it becomes more established in Bahrain emphasizing the job flexibility that the industry provides. Sater observed that cultural barriers hinder women’s access to the sector. He pointed out the significant increase in the number of women in tech and coding roles over the years, attributing this change to the dismantling of social stigma.

Batool Alkhaja highlighted the foundational contribution of women in fintech, particularly in crypto currency and blockchain. Alkhaja mentioned that pivotal role of Rain Management in shaping the regulatory environment in Bahrain, noting that women have been integral part of this process. She also noted that 38% of Rain’s employees and 50% of the leadership are women.

As the conversation moved to female entrepreneurship, Bader Sater pointed out that although the share of women-led start-ups is not high, there are several initiatives actively working to grow and support female-led companies across Bahrain. Sater explained that the lack of equal respect that his female colleagues – founders of companies or in leadership roles – is another problem related to the cultural perception and can be changed as the norms evolve.

Noora Al-Nusuf mentioned no existing technical barriers preventing women from accessing financial services, the financial sector is proactively working to make services and employment more accessible to demographics that previously found it challenging. She mentioned digitization and AI, as well as initiatives for flexible working hours, remote working, and parental leave for both mothers and fathers. Al-Nusuf highlighted programs by Standard Chartered Bank that encourages women to enter the tech industry highlighting the importance of these programs in fighting social stigma. Batool Alkhaja echoed Al-Nusuf, referring to her personal experience stepping out of her comfort zone into the tech industry and now seeing change in the industry.

On solutions, Bader Sater emphasized the importance of role models and presenting women’s successes to inspire change. Al-Nusuf and Alkhaja noted the importance of early education in increasing women participation in different industries. Collaboration between the government and the private sector can also help catalyze this change. Al-Nusuf explained that the private sector can help by sharing best practices and policies that are already embedded in the company with the government to help inform legal rules, regulations, and government-sponsored programs. Jamal Fakhro urged all women, especially in fintech, to find mentors – someone you believe in, to ask and to observe.

The Way Forward

Bahrain is among the world’s leading fintech hubs, contributing over 17% to its GDP and driving economic growth. The financial sector is also Bahrain’s largest employer, with Bahrainis accounting for over 67% of the nearly 14,000-strong workforce. The technological advancements adopted by the sector are propelling its growth not only domestically but also positioning it as a leader in fintech across the Middle East region.

While the fintech industry has emerged as a promising field relatively unburdened by traditional gender biases, women’s representation remains concentrated at the bottom of the organizational hierarchy in the sector, with few breaking through the glass ceiling to reach managerial and decision-making positions. This is evident in the fact that only 32% of the financial sector workforce in Bahrain are women, and only 13% of women in the financial sector hold leadership positions.

Unlocking the full potential of Bahrain’s fintech sector requires cultivating an ecosystem that empowers and supports female entrepreneurs to flourish. With the fintech industry projected to expand sixfold, from $245 billion to $1.5 trillion by 2030, this presents a significant opportunity for the industry to capitalize on the contributions of women. This can be achieved by investing in education and skill development programs tailored to women’s needs is essential to equip them with the knowledge and expertise required to succeed in the fintech sector. This includes fostering STEM education from an early age to cultivate a pipeline of women with the technical aptitude to thrive in the industry.

Public-private partnerships can play a pivotal role in bridging the funding gap faced by women entrepreneurs in the fintech sector. These collaborations can provide women-led fintech startups with the necessary capital and funding to launch and scale their ventures. Dedicated funding programs specifically designed for women-owned fintech startups can be established through these partnerships. Additionally, streamlining loan application processes through collaborations with financial institutions can further facilitate women’s access to funding.

Bahrain has made significant strides in embracing technology and innovation, positioning itself as a regional leader in the fintech industry. However, there is still room for improvement, particularly in fostering an inclusive environment that empowers women to thrive in the sector as mentioned by the panelists. The discussion needs to shift to action in order to transform the takeaways and suggestions from the event into sustainable progress.

Nibras Basitkey is the Program Assistant with Atlantic Council’s empowerME initiative at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

Rachel Friedman, Young Global Professional with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

WIn Fellowship cohorts

Jun 14, 2023

The WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 cohort

Building on the success of its inaugural cohort, the Women Innovators Fellowship (WIn) is expanding to Bahrain and the UAE, in addition to Saudi Arabia, as it continues to empower more women entrepreneurs from the Middle East. The program is thrilled to announce this year’s eighty-six recipients of its 2023 WIn Fellowship. The participants will receive a year-long program of executive education, mentoring, and networking opportunities in collaboration with Georgetown McDonough School of Business and with the support of the United States embassies in the three target countries and PepsiCo.

Feb 24, 2023

2023 WIn Fellowship Roadshow

The WIn Fellowship roadshow is led by the Atlantic Council’s empowerME Initiative in cooperation with Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business with support from US Embassy Riyadh, UPS, and PepsiCo. The WIn Fellowship Roadshow participants, chosen from a highly competitive cohort of more than thirty applicants, receive a fully sponsored trip to the United States for leadership training at Georgetown and meetings with US business and government leaders.

Jun 14, 2023

WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 Bahrain

Meet our 2023-2024 WIn fellows from Bahrain: a group of dynamic women entrepreneurs poised to expand their leadership and executive skills. They are on a mission to scale their startups to new heights, setting new benchmarks for success.

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empowerME

empowerME at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East is shaping solutions to empower entrepreneurs, women, and youth and building coalitions of public and private partnerships to drive regional economic integration, prosperity, and job creation.

Explore the initiative

The post Fostering Growth: Women in Bahrain’s fintech sector appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On October 18th, the Atlantic Council’s empowerME Initiative, in collaboration with the United States Embassy in Saudi Arabia and PepsiCo, held a workshop titled “Women’s economic participation and its impact on healthcare in Saudi Arabia.” The panel focused on the shifting roles of women within Saudi society, with a deep dive into the ripple effects this phenomenon has on the healthcare sector.

Keynote remarks were provided by Dana AlAjlani, co-chairwoman of The American Chamber of Commerce in Saudi Arabia, and Lynn Monzer, associate director of the WIn Fellowship at the Atlantic Council, delivered the closing remarks. The discussion was led by Noor Osama Nugali, acting deputy editor-in-chief at Arab News, and featured three prominent Saudi women in the healthcare: Fatimah Alhamlan, a consultant and women’s health advocate at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre; Samar Nassar, managing director for healthcare services and technologies at the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Investment; and Naseem Almulla, customer experience director at the Council of Health Insurance.

Dana AlAjlani highlighted that women in healthcare in Saudi Arabia, from midwives to doctors and administrators, showcase exceptional skills, education, and dedication in delivering patient therapy and shaping patient-centered care models globally. However, despite their significance presence, the healthcare industry still grapples with gender-related challenges.

Progress Made in Women’s Healthcare in Saudi Arabia

Samar Nassar discussed the healthcare sector’s resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the rapid developments made, particularly in virtual care. Dr. Fatimah Alhamlan highlighted the substantial progress in women’s healthcare in Saudi Arabia, marked by notable advancements in legal and social reforms. For instance, women no longer require male guardian approval to receive medical treatment or make healthcare decisions. This means more autonomy, independence, and assurance of confidentiality for women’s health. Dr. Alhamlan also emphasized the importance of social entrepreneurship in creating value-driven opportunities within the healthcare sector. Recognizing the challenges women face taking their children to hospitals, Saudi entrepreneurs have responded by establishing women’s health clinics in malls to ensure accessibility for all.

Naseem Almulla noted that as more women have entered the private sector, there has been a growing emphasis on providing access to preventive services rather than relying on treatment. In 2022, the Ministry of Health released an essential reference package that includes special components for women’s health, such as breast cancer screening, surveillance, pre- and post-menopausal care, pregnancy support, and bone density exams. This represents a significant shift towards proactive healthcare for women. 

Dr. Alhamlan noted that there is a shift towards prioritizing health and wellness in Saudi Arabia rather than solely focusing on disease treatment. While Saudi Arabia has top-tier hospitals and cutting-edge technologies, the focus is now on preventive medicine. The goal is to enhance overall health and quality of life and ultimately reduce the number of patients in hospitals. Dr. Alhamlan recalled the definition of health according to the World Health Organization (WHO): “Health is not merely the absence of disease; it encompasses mental, physical, and social well-being. Even for individuals with chronic illnesses, the emphasis is on promoting well-being, adaption, and a high quality of life. Companies like Kayani, a fitness entity, are working to empower women and provide the necessary infrastructure for sports and physical activities. She mentioned that the Public Investment Fund (PIF) consistently announces new healthcare and wellness-related initiatives, reflecting a strong dedication to disease prevention and a high quality of life.

Challenges and Opportunities

All panelists agreed on the ongoing challenges of women ascending to leadership positions within healthcare. Almulla highlighted the ongoing limitations in women’s involvement in financial decisions, digital transformations, and operational aspects of the healthcare industry. Samar pointed out the conspicuous disparity in executive leadership roles, which have remained stagnant at 20 percent over the past two decades. According to WHO, women make up 67 percent of the global healthcare workforce and 76 percent in the United States. It’s important to note that these statistics include a variety of roles within healthcare, such as technologists and practitioners. In comparison, Nassar pointed out that the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties has reported a 40 percent representation of women, suggesting a relatively strong level of female representation. Yet, this figure becomes less impressive when considering that women account for one or two out of every ten executive leadership positions. Almulla stated that the integration of women into more operational, engineering facilities, and financial decisions is pivotal for the future of the Saudi healthcare system. Nassar underscored that increased women’s participation leads to more disposable income, greater spending, improved productivity, and better utilization of healthcare services.

The healthcare sector’s risk-averse nature is driven by the imperative to prioritize patient well-being and data privacy, which relegates health entrepreneurs to a less prominent position. Nassar discussed the stark gap in women’s representation in entrepreneurship in the healthcare sector in Saudi Arabia, notably falling below 1 percent. Bridging this gap has significant economic benefits. As a representative of the Ministry of Investment, she confirmed that the diversity and inclusion of women, in the workforce and in leadership positions, enhance Saudi Arabia’s appeal to investors, promoting a thriving Saudi entrepreneurial ecosystem. She spotlighted a successful example, Sophie Smith, a WIn Fellowship Mentor from the UAE, who created Nabta Health. This women’s health app addresses the significant gap in healthcare technology tailored to women’s physiology, an area traditionally overlooked. 

A broader issue of gender diversity exists in various fields in Saudi Arabia, including fintech and STEM, as well as the gender gap in research and funding. Nassar emphasized the need to establish mentorship programs that support promising talent in healthcare, guide them toward venture development and secure the necessary funding. Incorporating women into recruitment strategies, providing intensive development programs, and offering training initiatives is crucial. Ultimately, fostering diversity and innovation in healthcare has a significant and positive economic impact.

Dr. Alhamlan, Almulla, and Nassar agreed that aside from the burden women face of proving themselves in the workplace, women lack the services and facilities to enable them to work while simultaneously starting a family. All the panelists emphasized the necessity of a support system to break the vicious cycle of struggles faced by women. Dr. Alhamlan underscored the significance of work-life balance as more women dedicate extended hours to the workplace. The ongoing social changes and transformations demand equilibrium between work and family life, a key determinant of individuals’ quality of life.

Nassar highlighted that the quality of life hinges upon service availability, highlighting the imperative for Saudi Arabia to enhance its services as countries like the UAE and Singapore offer more accessible and top-notch service provisions. Dr. Alhamlanfounded the Rofaida Women’s Health Organization to address challenges in the healthcare system. She collaborates with civil society organizations to elevate the community’s voice and drive progress through research. Almulla and Dr. Alhamlan stressed the importance of support systems for maternity care and maternity leave, drawing from their own polar experiences and contrasting the support system in the United States versus Saudi Arabia. Almulla noted that some countries offer up to three years of paid maternity leave. They underlined that supporting woman in the workforce, especially in demanding fields like nursing, addressing cultural barriers, and improving pay are crucial steps in elevating the healthcare system and strengthening the overall economy in Saudi Arabia. 

The Way Forward

Policy changes, societal acceptance, and an expansion of healthcare services have considerably widened the scope of women’s roles within the healthcare industry. However, a persistent glass ceiling still limits women’s full participation in leadership and entrepreneurship within the healthcare industry. Addressing this discrepancy is a multifaceted challenge that calls for concerted efforts from governmental bodies, corporations, and civil society alike.

The Saudi Arabian healthcare sector should aim to be more proactive in opening channels for innovation and entrepreneurship for women. With the Femtech market in the MENA region expected to hit $3.8 billion by 2031, there is a significant opportunity to leverage technology that targets women’s health issues. Femtech, also known as female technology, is a range of software, diagnostic tools, products, and services that leverage technology to address women’s health issues.Female entrepreneurship has the potential to address the unique and overlooked healthcare needs, like UAE based Nabta Health’s focus on women’s physiology, creating an enabling environment for FemTech startups should be a priority.

Furthermore, the government and private sector stakeholders should engage in dialogue to address the specific challenges and opportunities in increasing women’s participation in healthcare. For instance, the predominance of male investors in the region means a lack of understanding and investment in healthcare products geared toward women. Hence, a gender-sensitive approach is the right strategy for economic growth and for enhancing Saudi Arabia’s appeal to international investors. Improving healthcare for women not only benefits female patients and consumers but also creates value for investors, stakeholders throughout the value chain, and society at large.

Gender equity in healthcare is a shared responsibility that demands the active participation of all stakeholders. The insights from this panel provide not just a snapshot of where we are, but also a roadmap for where we need to go. The focus must now shift from discussion to action, turning the insights and recommendations of this event into sustainable progress.

Lynn Monzer is the Associate Director with the Atlantic Council’s empowerME initiative at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

Diane Mohamed is a Young Global Professional with the Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council. 

Explore the WIn Fellowship

Jun 14, 2023

The WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 cohort

Building on the success of its inaugural cohort, the Women Innovators Fellowship (WIn) is expanding to Bahrain and the UAE, in addition to Saudi Arabia, as it continues to empower more women entrepreneurs from the Middle East. The program is thrilled to announce this year’s eighty-six recipients of its 2023 WIn Fellowship. The participants will receive a year-long program of executive education, mentoring, and networking opportunities in collaboration with Georgetown McDonough School of Business and with the support of the United States embassies in the three target countries and PepsiCo.

Feb 24, 2023

2023 WIn Fellowship Roadshow

The WIn Fellowship roadshow is led by the Atlantic Council’s empowerME Initiative in cooperation with Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business with support from US Embassy Riyadh, UPS, and PepsiCo. The WIn Fellowship Roadshow participants, chosen from a highly competitive cohort of more than thirty applicants, receive a fully sponsored trip to the United States for leadership training at Georgetown and meetings with US business and government leaders.

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On October 5, the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project, together with the Global Justice Center, issued a joint letter and legal brief urging the international community to codify the crime of gender apartheid in the UN’s crimes against humanity treaty. The letter and legal brief were endorsed by dozens of prominent jurists, scholars, and civil society representatives. This includes Afghan women’s rights defender Shaharzad Akbar and Nobel laureates Shirin Ebadi, Malala Yousafzai, and Nadia Murad. It also includes South African jurists Justice Richard Goldstone and Navi Pillay, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Irish President Mary Robinson, former International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, and renowned global feminist Gloria Steinem. Former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth, former Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, and Baroness Helena Kennedy endorsed the letter and legal brief as well. 

The prominence and diversity of this group speak to the high stakes of this issue. Some people might be encountering this term for the first time, however, so it is worth exploring the crime of gender apartheid in greater detail.

1. What is gender apartheid?

Gender apartheid occurs when perpetrators seek to maintain a form of governance designed to systematically oppress and dominate another gender group or groups so that the dominant group may live alongside them and benefit from their subjugation. 

In Afghanistan, gender apartheid is seen in the Taliban banning women and girls from education and almost all employment, and from traveling long distances without a male guardian, all while having to abide by a severe dress code. Women in Afghanistan are banned from almost all public spaces including public parks, gyms, and most recently beauty salons.

In Iran, gender apartheid is seen in the Islamic Republic not allowing a woman the right to divorce her husband or to gain custody of her children, and in banning women from obtaining a passport and traveling outside the country without the permission of a male guardian. Women in Iran are banned from many fields of study and are not permitted into sports stadiums. Their lives and their testimony are worth half a man’s under the law, and they are forced to wear compulsory hijab.

Gender apartheid in these countries is seen in a series of policies and daily abuses that bar women and girls from engaging in public life and having hopes of any financial autonomy. It is in all these measures designed and enacted by the Taliban and the Islamic Republic as a system of governance that aims to compress and relegate Afghan and Iranian women and girls into narrow roles: as child-bearers, child-rearers, and sources of unremunerated domestic labor.

Although it has not yet been codified as a crime under international law, gender apartheid has long been recognized as a concept. It dates back at least to the Taliban’s first takeover of Afghanistan in 1996. In our letter to UN member states, we’ve defined the crime of gender apartheid as the commission of inhuman acts with the intent to maintain an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination of one gender group over another. This amends the existing definition of the crime of race-based apartheid under the Rome Statute—the animating document of the International Criminal Court—to encompass the same act and mental element, but with regard to domination of gender groups rather than racial groups.

2. Why should gender apartheid be recognized under international law?

The addition of the crime of gender apartheid under international law will give victims and survivors a clear legal avenue to hold perpetrators—whether state or individual—to account for the totality of crimes being perpetrated against them. The situations of women and girls living under the Taliban and Islamic Republic of Iran, for example, demonstrate just what’s at stake. As these regimes continue to tighten their grip, aiming to entrench a system of governance that eviscerates any semblance of women and girls’ autonomy and agency, every available option is needed to prevent and punish the full scale of their conduct. Codifying gender apartheid would equip the international community with a new and powerful tool for accountability to mobilize against these deteriorating situations.

3. Who supports the codification of gender apartheid? 

On March 8, 2023 a group of prominent Afghan and Iranian human rights defenders, international jurists, and civil society leaders launched the End Gender Apartheid Campaign, which calls for the global recognition of the crime of gender apartheid. Their demands were powered by the deteriorating situation for women and girls in Afghanistan with each successive Taliban decree and the rise of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement in Iran capturing global attention in support of women’s rights in these countries. 

The campaign builds upon a long history of work on this issue. For decades, international officials, lawyers, scholars, and activists have increasingly recognized the commission of gender apartheid and sought to codify it. Over the last year, UN Secretary-General António Guterres and other UN experts specifically recognized the deteriorating situation for women and girls in Afghanistan as gender apartheid. UN experts have also come together to caution against laws in Iran that are a form of gender apartheid. Just last month, UN Women’s Executive Director Sima Bahous called on the international community to explicitly codify gender apartheid under international law.

4. What can the international community do to recognize gender apartheid?

The United Nations has a unique opportunity to codify gender apartheid as a crime under international criminal law because the draft crimes against humanity treaty—the first major global treaty on core international crimes since the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court—is moving forward. However, the International Law Commission’s draft articles, the starting point for the treaty, replicate the twenty-five-year-old definition of apartheid from the Rome Statute, which focuses on race-based apartheid only. The Rome Statute’s focus is not surprising given the recent memories of apartheid-era South Africa when it was written, but the definition of apartheid can and should be expanded today.

The letter we issued to UN member states—endorsed by dozens of leading jurists and rights defenders, including those who worked to dismantle the apartheid regime in South Africa—urges states to amend the draft definition of the crime of apartheid to encompass gender-based apartheid, too. UN member states will have an opportunity to debate next steps for the draft treaty on October 11-12 during the ongoing UN Sixth Committee session. They can then submit written comments by the end of this year and debate the draft treaty provisions in substance in April 2024.

5. How is gender apartheid distinct from the international crime of gender persecution?

The crime of apartheid is different from what is on the books now because of its distinguishing intent and animating context. This means gender apartheid requires the commission of an inhuman act of requisite character with the intent to maintain an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination. The crime of gender persecution requires neither such context nor intent. Rather, it concerns itself with the “severe deprivation of fundamental rights” where the victim or victims have been targeted “by reason of the identity of a group or collectivity or targeted the group or collectivity as such.” 

The intent to maintain an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination of one group over others is markedly different in scope and dystopian ambition from the crime of persecution, as serious and significant as the latter is. This is already recognized, without controversy, given that the current definition of race-based apartheid sits neatly alongside the crime of persecution on the ground of race in the Rome Statute’s 1998 codification of international crimes. To the extent that the two crimes involve overlapping facts, it is also well-settled under international law that courts can charge perpetrators with cumulative crimes in order to capture the full extent of criminal conduct.

6. How would prosecution work?

Accountability against governmental actors in Afghanistan and Iran has been tough. The proposed codification would open new avenues to hold perpetrators—both state and individual—to account.

If the crimes against humanity treaty is adopted and the crime of gender apartheid is included, countries that are party to the treaty would be obligated to criminalize gender apartheid and take other measures to prevent and punish crimes against humanity under their domestic laws. This could potentially open the pathway to prosecutions under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which essentially means that some crimes are so heinous that they can be prosecuted in courts anywhere, even if the perpetrator is from a different country, the victims are from a different country, or the acts occurred in a different country. 

Iranian officials responsible for the architecture of gender apartheid do travel outside of Iran and into countries with universal jurisdiction laws—so this could expand options for prosecution of officials, much in the same way a former Iranian official was convicted by a Swedish district court in July 2022 for the executions of thousands of political prisoners in Iran’s jails. With respect to the Taliban, similar approaches may apply. 

Codification of the crime of gender apartheid in the crimes against humanity treaty would also affirm the obligations of states and international organizations to prevent and punish gender apartheid, even if they’re not direct parties to the treaty. In this way, the hope is that codification will mobilize diplomatic, legal, and social movements of resistance, including in the contexts of Afghanistan and Iran, and also in similar crisis situations now and in the future.

Gissou Nia is the founder and director of the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council and advisor to the End Gender Apartheid Campaign.

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Written by the playwright Sasha Denisova and directed by Yury Urnov, this new theatrical production highlights Ukraine’s remarkable resistance to Russia’s ongoing invasion and centers on Zelenskyy’s secret weapon, a brash grandmother named Olga Ivanovna who guards her Kyiv apartment with a rifle. “They’re getting closer,” she declares at the outset. “The situation is grave. They’re getting closer on all fronts.” There is no need to elucidate who “they” are.

In between whipping up elaborate meals in her tiny but immaculate post-Soviet kitchen, Olga Ivanovna plots with the Ukrainian president to outwit the Russians and shame the West into supporting Ukraine. The play exemplifies Ukraine’s true grit as it repels Russia’s murderous war of conquest, all with a dash of humor and endless mother-daughter conflict.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Denisova, who grew up in Kyiv, is a well-known playwright whose previous work The Gaaga (the Russian pronunciation for The Hague) imagined a future war crimes trial of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cronies. For her new play, she drew upon her mother’s WhatsApp messages sent after the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.

Denisova recently told the Guardian newspaper, “when Mama went international in her writing, when she started appealing to Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, when she started calling Vladimir Putin a Ruscist bastard scum, I started feeling OK, she is on this level where it needs to become a play.”

Denisova deftly explores her mother’s life to provide a riveting account of Ukrainian resistance to tyranny. Olga Ivanovna was born in a bomb shelter on the very day in 1941 that the Nazis began bombing Kyiv, including the hospital where she was supposed to be born. The parallels with today’s Russian assault are obvious. Indeed, in a February 2022 address to the Russian people, Zelenskyy himself observed, “Tonight you began bombing residential areas in the hero city of Kyiv. This is like 1941.”

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The protagonist Olga Ivanovna, who lives with her much younger husband, is an incendiary presence. As the play progresses, she recounts her turbulent love life, zest for travel, and passion for engineering. But the Russian menace is never far away: The ingenious staging has drones periodically buzzing by that Olga Ivanovna tries to deflect and destroy with everything from a fly swatter to a pickle jar. The mix of frustration, exasperation, and anger is palpable as she shouts at Zelenskyy for permission to bring them down. At one point, the play even has her in the cockpit of a fighter jet targeting the Kremlin itself.

Olga Ivanovna is fearless: In several extremely effective scenes, television footage of French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz offering tepid support for Ukraine are beamed onto the stage. Olga Ivanovna yells at them to man up. The chasm between their banalities and her righteous moral indignation could hardly be more palpable.

When Biden visits her apartment wearing his trademark dark aviator glasses, Olga Ivanovna serves him Ukrainian delicacies and prods him to do more for her country. Perhaps the most evocative scene of the entire play arrives when Putin himself slithers into her apartment. Olga Ivanovna bashes the despot over the head with a pickle jar, but not before a vengeful Putin detonates a tactical nuclear weapon.

Olga Ivanovna is undaunted. The play shows her bargaining with God himself to intervene on behalf of Ukraine and stop the war while Bach’s “Air on a G string” plays in the background. Even the almighty himself finds it difficult to resist this woman.

Surreal and moving, the play sometimes threatens to lurch out of control, particularly towards the end as Denisova pulls out all the stops in her homage to her irrepressible mother. But ultimately it succeeds in highlighting the everyday resistance that ordinary Ukrainians have displayed in spades. From the outset of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainians of all ages and backgrounds have volunteered in myriad ways to help defend their country.

The play also underscores the resilience that Zelenskyy himself embodies. Putin has sought not only to win fresh territory, but also to extirpate Ukrainian culture and nationhood. The Kremlin’s latest move has reportedly been to order Russian state media to stop referring to Zelenskyy as “president” and to employ the term “Zelenskyy regime.” Denisova’s absorbing play offers a potent reminder of why Putin’s quest will not end in Ukraine’s demise but his own.

Jacob Heilbrunn is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, editor of the National Interest, and author of the forthcoming “America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators.”

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Surveys on GBV in the Caribbean show that many cases go unreported. Often, the blame is assigned to the victim. To address this severe problem, civil society organizations (CSOs) have been among the most vocal and effective actors on the ground. From building shelters for victims and staging awareness campaigns to working with governments to pass comprehensive legislation, CSOs are at the forefront of the fight against violence against women.

As part of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center’s partnership with UN Women, Atlantic Council experts met with local CSO leaders to understand the challenges and opportunities they face on the ground. Below, CSO leaders from Guyana and Jamaica share how they view the crisis and why addressing it requires an approach that includes communities, government officials, and the private sector.

How do you view the problem of gender-based violence in your country?

We are quite concerned about the levels of gender-based violence occurring in the country. A recent prevalence survey indicated that one in two women had experienced some form of violence in Guyana. It can be said that this speaks to the permissiveness of society to accept violence as a response option. We see the problem of gender violence as being rooted in societal attitudes, norms, and power dynamics that perpetuate inequality and discrimination. It is not just a private matter; it has broader social, economic, and health implications.

—Renata Chuck-A-Sang is the chief executive officer of Guyana Women and Gender Equality Commission.

Gender-based violence, femicide, and teenage as well as unintended pregnancies are leading issues facing women and girls in Jamaica. Social and cultural attitudes, such as sexism and misogyny, significantly contribute to the maintenance of entrenched gender roles within society leading to a significantly high level of intimate partner violence faced by women and girls. There is a normalized culture of sexual harassment with which women must contend, and this is compounded by high teenage pregnancy rates, childhood violence, and early cohabitation with male partners.

—Sannia Sutherland is a program coordinator at the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition, Jamaica.

What are some of the existing policy efforts or interventions that governments and the private sector have implemented to address gender-based violence?

In Guyana, the existence of a Sexual Offenses Act—with a second Domestic Violence Act being reviewed—is commendable. Moreover, under the Spotlight Initiative (a United Nations initiative to eliminate violence against women and girls), the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security has been working to implement several programs to protect women from GBV. The ministry has also conducted training for women in an effort for them to start their own small businesses, a crucial step toward allowing financial independence, which is intimately linked with GBV. Finally, the establishment of a police academy where candidates are required to take courses on how to respond to GBV is a step in the right direction. Nonetheless, these programs need to improve their monitoring and evaluation to register their effectiveness.

—Rosemarie Ramitt is a senior program officer at the Women with Disabilities Network, Guyana Council of Organisations for Persons with Disabilities.

The Jamaican government recently established the first two government-owned shelters for survivors of domestic violence, a necessary program to offer immediate support to women escaping abusive relationships. These shelters were also supported by private companies, showing a case of successful private-public cooperation. On the legislative front, the recent passing of the Sexual Harassment Act—which offers women employees protection in the workplace—is a positive development, although the legislative process was subject to excessive delays.

—Joyce Hewet is executive director of Woman Inc., Jamaica.

What is needed to create sustainable public policy to prevent and eradicate gender violence in your country?

In Guyana, we require more stringent penalties for perpetrators, improved enforcement mechanisms, and streamlined processes for obtaining restraining orders or timely judicial responses. Accessible and sensitive support services for survivors, such as shelters, counseling, and legal aid, continue to be essential for helping individuals escape abusive situations and rebuild their lives. Recognizing that gender violence is not just a women’s issue, more efforts to engage men and boys in discussions about healthy masculinity and the prevention of violence can have a positive impact on reducing gender-based violence, too. Finally, it is crucial to access accurate data on the prevalence and types of gender violence to understand the scope of the problem and to design effective interventions.

—Renata Chuck-A-Sang

In Jamaica, some concrete first steps to create a sustainable public policy would be to involve GBV survivors and advocates in public policy decision-making processes, as well as accompanying these processes with the necessary financial support. The government should prioritize effective communication campaigns (i.e., highlighting personal stories in multimedia formats) to showcase the wide-ranging impacts of GBV on individuals, families, and society at large. Moreover, any effective policy to address gender-based violence needs to include policy mechanisms that promote independent income generation and enhance women’s economic empowerment.

—Judith Wedderburn is the director of WMW JAMAICA.

Martin Cassinelli is a project assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

This article is part of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center’s partnership with UN Women Multi-Country Office—Caribbean.

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For the last year, Iran, too, has been suspended between a new life and a death-like state. Mobilized by Amini’s story, protesters took to the streets in all thirty-one of Iran’s provinces to voice opposition to the clerical establishment led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement grew that drew on years of Iranians’ frustrations—hardened by systemic corruption and mismanagement—and the repressive nature of the Islamic Republic. While the numbers are smaller today, protesters continue to call for its demise. In the face of these ongoing protests, however, the clerical establishment has dug in, intent on retaining its grim hold on power by ruling through fear. It has arrested protesters and taken lives, and it continues to deny Iranians their freedom.

Below, experts answer twenty questions about how Iran has changed—and is still changing—a year after Amini’s death.

1. How would you assess the overall impact of the protests in Iran?

The protests in Iran over the last year following Amini’s death will not be relegated to the annals of forgotten history as the Islamic Republic of Iran would certainly prefer. But the reality is that twelve months after extraordinarily brave Iranian women and men took to the streets, there are no meaningful, permanent reforms instituted, nor is the regime’s power reduced; indeed, the opposite may be true. There’s been a lot written over the years on the trajectories of revolutions and what would be required for one to succeed in Iran specifically. Many of the historically recognized signposts, unfortunately, are still missing in Iran—for example, defections of some of the security establishment to the protesters. Moreover, the lack of clear leadership has probably also stymied the protests from having greater success thus far. But while the hope embodied in the now-global slogan of “Woman, Life, Freedom,” may still be years—perhaps decades—away from being fulfilled, that doesn’t mean the protests haven’t had an impact. Indeed, the protests have shined a light on the regime’s brutal tactics that continues to penetrate the world’s conscience, while highlighting the heroism of so many young Iranians determined to live in a freer Iran.

—Jonathan Panikoff is the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Program. A former career US intelligence officer, Panikoff served as the deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East at the National Intelligence Council from 2015 to 2020.

While some maintain skepticism by pointing to the small numbers in the streets, the vigor of protests shouldn’t be based solely on how many individuals gather in a public space. Every day, Iranian women protest by not abiding by mandatory hijab despite the threat of arrest, having their vehicle confiscated, losing their jobs, and even the possibility of being forced to wash corpses in a morgue as a punishment. The Iranian Gen Z participates in civil disobedience by expressing themselves in the most ordinary ways. Anti-regime graffiti, such as “Iran is drowning in revolution,” is scrawled on the walls of various cities and towns, and chants of “Khamenei is a murderer, his guardianship is invalid” are heard from rooftops and windows. In parts of the country dominated by neglected ethnic minorities, such as Sistan and Baluchistan province, protests continue every Friday after prayer.

Historian Ali Ansari told me that the ongoing protests are in a “pre-revolutionary phase,” meaning “within a phase when revolution becomes possible.” This does not discount the fact that protesters already see this as their revolution. Additionally, what separates these protests from previous ones is their continuity since Amini’s death. Never have protests taken place day in and day out.

While the embers of this uprising burn below the surface, it’s only a matter of time before another major event prompted by the incompetence or repressive nature of the Islamic Republic pushes large numbers of people into the streets. It is inevitable.

—Holly Dagres is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. She is also the editor of the Council’s IranSource and MENASource sections and curator for the weekly newsletter, The Iranist. A version of this answer appeared earlier on IranSource.

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2. Has the regime made any concessions in response to the protests and continued popular defiance?

The regime’s response to the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement was a massive crackdown, which aimed at halting demonstrations and reclaiming public space from the protesters. More than five hundred demonstrators were killed and thousands arrested. Authorities have resorted to punishments, such as layoffs, university expulsions, imprisonment, flogging, and especially the death penalty. To date, twenty-five protesters have been sentenced to death following mock trials, with seven of them already hanged. In response, the movement has changed from street protests to widespread civil disobedience. Women are still refusing to wear the hijab, and their visibility in the public space has compelled the regime to devise new and costly repressive policies. The deadlock between state and society in Iran is insurmountable. As it claims to embody God, the Iranian theocracy has never been able to engage in a real dialogue with the society it dominates. The movement’s greatest achievement was to shed light on the cultural, social, and political estrangement between state and society in Iran; it changed the world’s perception of the Islamic regime’s might and stability, and has, it seems, moderated the regime’s aggressive élan in its foreign policy. Hence the irony, for if there have been any concessions from the Islamic Republic, they were not made to the Iranian people but to the international community.

—Ladan Boroumand is the co-founder of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for the Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy in Iran, a nongovernmental organization that promotes human rights awareness through education and information dissemination.

3. Have the protests changed the trajectory of women’s rights in Iran?

Iran has a decades-long history of movements promoting women’s rights. When I protested against mandatory hijab, the number of people who joined me was small. Although many sympathized with us, we were alone and a collective movement did not form. However, since last year, a collective movement has emerged. The general attitude of society and the world toward women’s rights in Iran has changed since then. 

In my opinion, women in Iran have become braver, and their voices have become louder than before. They are no longer afraid and even fight to the death to get their rights. The most important issue is Iranian men’s support for women, and that women are not alone in their struggle. We are currently witnessing the struggle of women and men alongside each other to achieve women’s rights.

—Azam Jangravi is an information security analyst, researcher, and women’s rights advocate. She is one of the “Revolution Street” women arrested for protesting against the Islamic Republic’s mandatory hijab laws.

4. How has the international community responded to the protests, and what more could outside powers do?

It’s frustrating to all of us that our governments don’t have more levers to pull that will support the legitimate protests in Iran without being counterproductive. Over the last four decades, our traction on the terrible human rights situation in the Islamic Republic has been limited. But there are three important things that outside powers can and must do. Sanctions against human rights abusers are meaningful even where their practical effect is limited—the international community should continue to put resources and creativity into this. Using our international voices to support the Iranian people’s rights matters too: We need to keep demonstrating that we stand for universal values and avoid playing into the regime’s narratives. And most importantly, we must continue to enable and protect the independent and courageous journalism that covers what is happening inside the country. The Iranian regime has directly threatened media outlets based in the West. Defending that space is a weighty responsibility. 

—Rob Macaire is a British diplomat who served as the UK ambassador to Iran from 2018 to 2021. He is part of the advisory committee for the Atlantic Council’s Iran Strategy Project.

5. How has the regime responded to calls for its overthrow?

The Islamic Republic suppressed the movement with sheer brutality, shooting unarmed protesters in Tehran, Zahedan, and many other cities early on in the movement. While there were signs of potential discord and dissent among the security forces, the protest movement never gained a political leadership that could cultivate such sentiments and seriously divide the security forces, which have considerable manpower and experience. 

Most importantly, Khamenei and the regime leadership maintained a united front and decided to give zero concessions to protesters, knowing full well that significant concessions might have further encouraged the movement. This is mostly in line with Khamenei’s approach; he has never responded to mass protests with concessions. Even when he has given some concessions, they have been in moments when he felt more secure in his own power (such as in 2013) and not when he felt threatened. 

At the same time, with the movement’s street phase receding, many of the regime’s more farsighted strategists are aware that deep discontent continues, and something must be done to respond to it. Yet, attempts to further enforce the compulsory hijab continue (with a new bill making it even more strict) and there seems to be no plan to even slightly open up the political space ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections in March 2024. 

—Arash Azizi is a senior lecturer in political science and history at Clemson University and a fellow at the Center for Middle East and Global Order. He is the author of The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the US and Iran’s Global Ambitions and the upcoming What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom.

6. How has social media and technology impacted the organization and mobilization of protests?

The viral photo of a bruised Amini hooked up to an intensive care unit, and the later photo of her parents’ painful embrace outside her hospital room, prompted the hashtag #MahsaAmini in Persian to go viral on social media. That anger expressed online then moved to the streets and transferred into the ongoing protest movement now seen today. 

Since the 2009 post-election protests known as the Green Movement, the Islamic Republic has viewed the Internet and social media as a national security threat, and it has dealt with them as such. Thirty-five percent of the world’s most popular websites are blocked and Iranians must use circumvention tools like virtual private networks to get past this great cyber wall of censorship. At times of unrest, authorities have slowed the Internet to a snail-like pace. In November 2019, the government deliberately shut down the Internet, using it as a cover to kill 1,500 protesters in November 2019. 

Social media is the only way for Iranian voices to be heard by the international community and has been an integral tool in amplifying those voices—it allows Iranians to show the world what they’re seeing, express how they’re feeling, and put faces to the names of slain and arrested protesters. Social media also gives credence to those very demonstrations. Human rights violations committed by security forces and uploaded online have been documented by rights organizations, but it’s also the brutal crackdowns found in those very videos and images uploaded from cell phones that mobilize the masses. It’s for that reason that many Iranians want the Islamic Republic gone and why they are so willing to remain defiant day in and day out knowing full well they risk arrest, death, imprisonment, and even sexual assault. 

—Holly Dagres

7. How has Iran’s economy been affected by the protests?

Iran’s economy is fraught with longstanding challenges, including unprecedented inflation, high unemployment, a weakening currency, rising poverty, and routine water and electricity outages. Economic data are so discouraging that a parliamentarian suggested they be kept secret. 

How much of the worsening circumstances are due to the unrest caused by Amini’s death is difficult to quantify. The protests have certainly swelled the ranks of disaffected Iranians and shaken the regime, despite its brutal heavy-handedness. Prolonged and widespread protests in any country disrupt normal business activities, lower consumer spending, and erode investor confidence. Iran is no exception. The protests have overshadowed everything and paralyzed the regime’s ability to consider meaningful economic policies. The protests have also absorbed the regime’s attention and financial resources to quell dissent. Moreover, the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi is seen as the least competent since the 1979 revolution.  

The regime’s immediate Achilles’ heel is the cost of petrol subsidies, which is three times the country’s development budget. Removing them will further fuel inflation and increase discontent even faster. Keeping them as they are will simply bankrupt the regime. The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement has certainly made economic policymaking much harder.  

—Nadereh Chamlou is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s empowerME initiative and an international development advisor.

8. Are there any signs of divisions within the political elite or security forces?

Achieving substantial political change in the Islamic Republic hinges on undermining elite cohesion, fostering top-level divisions, and eroding security forces’ loyalty. Currently, identifying such divisions is not possible. This doesn’t imply complete uniformity within the Iranian elite. Institutional complexity and disagreements among power centers are notable and enduring traits within the Iranian system. Yet, current disputes among political and security elites don’t seem to weaken their determination or ability to counter internal threats to the regime’s stability.

Even amid differing opinions within the conservative camp, the ruling political elite maintains internal cohesion. Unlike the shah’s elite, which held strong connections with the West and had the option to seek political and economic refuge outside Iran, the current ruling elite of the Islamic Republic has no alternative but to contend for power domestically. Furthermore, the regime retains security and repression support, primarily from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG), whose survival and capacity to pursue their political and economic interests primarily rely on the regime’s survival. The potential transition that could follow from Khamenei’s passing could expedite the IRGC’s empowerment and facilitate an alternative governing model. Yet the IRGC remains subordinate to the supreme leader and reliant on him.

—Raz Zimmt is a research associate at the Institute for National Security Studies and the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University.

9. What has been the role of marginalized groups in the uprising, and how were they affected by it?

When it was difficult to project that Kurds in Iran could challenge the four decades of rule by the Islamic regime following their withdrawal from military confrontation in 1996, the catalyst for change emerged from the Kurdistan region, marking a pivotal shift in the country’s political landscape. This marked the first time in modern Iranian history that a revolutionary movement originated from marginalized groups in the periphery and subsequently spread to central cities.

A remarkable turn of events unfolded as protests erupted in Tehran and other central cities, showing solidarity with Kurdistan and Balochistan. The regime’s divide-and-rule strategy and disinformation campaigns began to crumble. The slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom,” which originated in Kurdistan, resonated across Iran, breaking down the four-decade-old barriers the regime had erected between central and peripheral regions.

However, the regime has perpetuated a divisive narrative, portraying Kurds and other national minority groups such as Baluches and Arabs as traitors and secessionists to justify its oppressive actions under the pretext of safeguarding national security and territorial integrity. This oppressive policy of the regime against these groups only fueled their determination to demand regime change. These groups have emerged as strongholds for organizing and empowering opposition forces against the regime, creating new opportunities for unity and change.

This uprising also underscored the deep-rooted challenges facing these populations. Overcoming historical distrust, fostering dialogue among different opposition groups, and achieving inclusivity in the struggle for a democratic Iran remain pivotal. The path ahead involves constructing intricate alliances, accommodating diverse ethnic and national minorities’ demands, and establishing a collective vision for a just and free Iran.

—Shukriya Bradost is an Iranian-Kurdish Middle Eastern security analyst.

All people suffer under the Islamic Republic’s rule, but my people struggle every day to avoid death and destruction. We are struggling for our children to have schools, food, water, medicine. 

Baluchistan is often described as impoverished. But we live on a land that is rife with wealth, a land where poverty is man-made.

On top of plundering our land, the regime has also systematically demonized my people, portraying us as thugs and terrorists, creating a chasm between us and the rest of the nation.

But despite local and international outlets ignoring our fight and our suffering, my people, peacefully protesting, with blood and tears, have preserved the flame of this revolution and preserved the spark of hope. With their courage and bodies, they have bridged that chasm.

With their perseverance, my people have proved to all that their heart beats for Iran. And despite years of marginalization and oppression, despite accounting for the highest casualty rate among protesters during the recent uprising and the regime committing atrocities like the Bloody Friday of Zahedan, Baluchistan has remained the beating heart of this revolution. 

My people are putting their lives on the line for the love of their motherland and for liberty because they have nothing to lose but their chains.

And the voice of a people who have nothing to lose shakes the foundations of every despot’s throne. The Islamic Republic has been no exception. That is why the regime fears Baluchistan. We have nothing to lose. We will keep fighting until the certain day of victory, the certain day of liberation.

—Fariba Balouch is a human rights defender from Iran’s Baluch ethnic minority.

Life free of all shackles has been the seed crystal of the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran. The uprising has spanned all aspects of life and has not been exclusively limited to political liberation, but also includes demands for women’s emancipation, economic and environmental justice, recognition and realization of the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, as well as queer liberation.

Despite endemic queerphobia and the fact that queer lives and identities are criminalized and even punishable by death in Iran, as always, the LGBTQI+ community has been at the forefront of the uprising.

However, unlike in past cycles of protests, this time, the queer community has demanded recognition and visibility with young LGBTQI+ people taking to the streets with placards in colors of the pride and trans flags reading “Queer, Life, Freedom.”

The visible involvement of the queer community in the struggle for freedom has translated into heightened targeting of the community by both the regime and retrogressive circles among the opposition.

Despite brutal oppression, like a force of nature, a river carving its way through boulders, people in Iran are unrelenting in their fight for a brighter future, for liberty and justice for all. And the LGBTQI+ community will continue to be part of the vanguard of the march toward that future. 

—Khosro Sayeh Isfahani is a journalist focused on human rights and politics in Iran. He left Iran in 2021 after years of work on human rights issues from inside the country. He currently serves as the Oak human rights fellow for 2023 at Colby College.

10. What lessons do the Iranian protests offer to others living under repressive regimes?

The key lesson is that the outcome of protests is not foreseeable. Sometimes, as in Egypt in 2011, the regime crumbles to a degree that is wholly unexpected even by the protesters. At other times, the regime proves resilient and fiercely represses the protests. So change requires bravery—you never know when a protest will be merely a prelude to later change, or an immediate success, but unless you start to protest, you never find out. Moreover, each protest, even if unsuccessful, can serve as a rehearsal for still larger protests in the future. 

That said, there are some clear lessons:

• If the military stands firmly by the regime, protests will not lead to regime change. Only when the military starts to waver in its loyalty is the regime vulnerable.
• The protesters need to broadly represent the population, not just a particular portion of it. The “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests were successful in mobilizing youth and especially women. However, the largest age cohorts in Iran’s population are now those in their thirties and forties. However enthusiastic Iranians in their twenties may be for change, the protests have to draw in more of those aged thirty and above to broadly represent the Iranian public.
• While Amini was a sympathetic figure whose death outraged hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Iranians, those who were outraged did not have a clear leader to follow. Would it be the son of the former shah, now in exile? Or someone in Iran today? Would it be someone from the streets or from inside the regime? The shifting claims to leadership of the protests made it difficult to sustain momentum in the face of determined regime repression. For resistance to be more sustained and successful, consensus around an effective leader is vital.

—Jack A. Goldstone is a professor of public policy at George Mason University. He is also a senior fellow of the Mercatus Center and a global fellow at the Wilson Center.

11. Have the protests had an impact on Iran’s neighbors?

Iran is unlike Las Vegas—what happens there does not stay there. This was true back in 1979, when its revolution upended the region’s geopolitics, and it remains true today, one year after the demonstrations that followed Amini’s death. This “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement is fundamentally different from previous protests that have been sparked by the regime stealing elections or its failed economic policies. These protests directly targeted the strict social and religious constraints that serve as the foundational basis for the regime’s rule—and thus challenged the very legitimacy of the regime itself.  

That reality is not lost on the other side of the Gulf. Back in 1979, as Tehran’s new religious leaders were turning back the clock on women’s rights, leaders in Riyadh, shaken by the recent seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by religious zealots, also decided to reinforce strict religious edicts. Today, the younger generations in both countries—especially young women—are calling for social modernization. But while Iranian women demanding personal freedoms continue to be imprisoned and killed by their government, Saudi women are benefiting from an increasingly liberated social environment, driven by top-down reforms. The dichotomy could not be starker: while the Iranian regime has long denounced the “destructive” social consequences of Barbie dolls, today Barbie is a hit in Saudi Arabia.

—William F. Wechsler is the senior director of the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council and a former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combating terrorism.

Iran’s women-led uprising sent a galvanizing message that the brutal murder of one woman could incur earth-shattering consequences for the regime. 

However, this message arguably has yet to be digested throughout a region where women’s rights are notoriously weak. This is particularly the case in Afghanistan, with daily tidings of anti-women abuses and new gender apartheid legislation. 

Likewise, Iraq has a long way to go before women are accorded their due respect and opportunities. This includes the need for laws which adequately protect women from domestic violence, rape, and workplace discrimination. Female activists have been subjected to violent backlashes and even assassination.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, however, lie in a region where women’s voices have been heeded. During my regular visits there, the pace of social change has been dizzying. Between 2018 and 2022, the labor force participation rate of Saudi women nearly doubled to 36 percent, with GCC women among the best-educated on the planet. This demonstrated that the battle for women’s rights doesn’t have to be incremental over generations, but can be almost instantaneous when the political will and social readiness exists.

The inspiring defiance and awareness demonstrated by Iranian schoolgirls offers hope for region-wide revolutionary transformation. Girls who have asserted their dignity and freedoms once won’t allow themselves to be meekly pushed around in the future.

In gender-repressive states like Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Syria, women ultimately find themselves in a situation where they have nothing further to lose. 

From there, we sooner or later witness a fearlessness arising from the realization that if their daughters and granddaughters are to enjoy a brighter future, they must take an implacable stand against tyranny, oppression, and state-sponsored violence.

—Baria Alamuddin is a journalist, columnist, and commentator on Middle East affairs. She is also the author of Militia State: The Rise of Al-Hashd Al- Shaabi and the Eclipse of the Iraqi Nation State.

12.  How has the Iranian diaspora engaged in supporting or influencing the protests?

Once news of Amini’s death started to go viral, the Iranian diaspora leapt into action. Many leveraged their social media pages to post protest videos, pictures, and up-to-date information coming out of Iran. They organized rallies in solidarity with the people of Iran and began contacting their local politicians, as well as global leaders, and encouraged them to make public statements in support of the Iranian people as well as to support legislation that would weaken the regime. 

The unity of the diaspora in amplifying the voices of the people in Iran was electric, almost palpable, in those first few months of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement. They took cues from the people, prominent activists, human rights attorneys, and artists within Iran to push for legislation in their respective countries aimed at hurting Khamenei and his despotic cronies, and called upon the United Nations (UN) to take various actions against the Islamic regime. Many of these efforts were a success. 

While the majority of the diaspora remain united on the goal of replacing Iran’s current dictatorial theocracy with a secular democracy, many have disagreed on how to get there. This, in tandem with trauma fatigue, a mostly disinterested global audience, and a “my way is the right way” mentality, has set the diaspora back. 

The only way the diaspora can help push the needle of meaningful change forward is to set aside their squabbles and differences, recenter the people of Iran, and remain focused on their one common goal: the downfall of the Islamic Republic.

—Nazanin Nour is an actor, writer, and human rights activist. She is also starring in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “English” for the second time.

For the first time in forty-four years, there is some semblance of unity among the Iranian diaspora and a level of activism and participation in politics that did not exist prior. Now, the unity has ebbed and flowed, but the activism remains steady. We have seen a push for legislation in the United States around the uprising, Iranians coming together to provide funding and legal aid to injured protesters trying to escape Iran, and Iran being removed from a UN body. These are all unprecedented and successful campaigns. The Iranian diaspora, just like the people in Iran, have come to understand the power they wield and are no longer living in the shadows. For the first time, we are privy to the traumas and history of the diaspora; Iranians in exile are telling their stories, and this is a necessary cultural shift. They know they have a crucial role to play in removing the Islamic Republic that goes beyond simply being a soundboard for people in Iran. Iranians in the diaspora are a massive voting bloc and must now move into the phase of holding to account representatives of their respective countries who continue to appease the regime in Iran.

—Samira Mohyeddin is a multi-award-winning journalist, documentary maker, and producer at CBC Radio One’s The Current.

13. How do you foresee the situation in Iran evolving in the coming months?

Amini’s tragic death has set in motion a profound transformation within Iranian society. This is characterized by a genuine desire for change, a force that seems resilient in the face of suppression. In the months and years ahead, Iran is poised to experience a persistent rejection of the existing Islamic Republic establishment. This rejection is epitomized by the enduring defiance against the ruling clerical leadership and its policies.

For example, the deeply divisive mandatory hijab, enforced by the regime, has intensified societal rifts. Such policies have sparked both violent clashes and vocal opposition, simultaneously eroding the reverence for long-standing religious convictions. Even segments of society that have traditionally been devout are now questioning the legitimacy of the theocratic regime. This underscores the widening gap between the elderly clerical leaders and the predominantly young Iranian population.

With a population of more than eighty-eight million, a majority of whom are under thirty years old, Iran’s trajectory is guided by its youth, yearning for better economic prospects, expanded political and civil freedoms, government accountability, and access to social services. This populace is disenchanted with the existing order, which is the only one they’ve ever known. Furthermore, the well-educated populace has an absence of a single rallying figure, highlighting the shift in societal mindset and emphasizing the importance of a more collective leadership approach.

Nevertheless, the endeavor toward change will be far from smooth. The Iranian government’s persistent attempts to enforce strict dress codes, suppress dissent, and control both public and digital spaces reveal their desperate struggle to retain authority. Numerous challenges lie ahead, no less the multidimensional nature of Iranian society, as it would be foolish to view the ever-evolving Iranian society through an all-encompassing lens. But Iranians’ unwavering desire for change, coupled with an evolving narrative on leadership, strongly indicates an ongoing process of transformation.

—Masoud Mostajabi is a deputy director at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs.

14. What can the UN do to hold the regime accountable?

Last fall after the start of nationwide protests across Iran, quick mobilization at the UN by civil society and allied states resulted in two big achievements: First, the calling of a special session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, resulting in the establishment of a UN Fact Finding Mission on Iran (FFMI)—a UN body tasked with documentation of violations, including for accountability purposes. And second, the removal of the Islamic Republic of Iran from the UN Commission on the Status of Women—which describes itself as the top global body dedicated to women’s rights and empowerment. The removal vote was unprecedented—since there was no formal procedure for removal of rogue states and no state had ever been removed from the body before. And the establishment of the FFMI was the biggest move toward human rights and accountability in Iran that the UN had taken in more than a decade—since the creation of the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran in 2011.

But following those wins in the fall, and the quieting of visible street protests in Iran in the months that followed, old patterns resumed. The Islamic Republic was elected or appointed to various leadership positions at the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly, leaving Iranians inside and outside of Iran sour on the prospects of the UN intervening to deter Iranian regime abuses. 

Despite these perceived setbacks, human rights advocates must continue to work with the progress made at the UN to hold the regime accountable. The ongoing investigation of the FFMI is the first international investigation of regime abuses against Iranians for core international crimes committed in the territory of Iran. It could provide the impetus and the evidence for war crimes units across Europe and other countries with universal jurisdiction frameworks to bring prosecutions against alleged perpetrators with roles in the violence against protesters and in enforcing a discriminatory legal framework in the country. Civil society and allied states should insist that the mandate of the FFMI is renewed after it presents its comprehensive report on the violence at the UN Human Rights Council session in March 2024 in Geneva. That report’s findings might then be used to establish that the Islamic Republic has committed crimes against humanity. 

—Gissou Nia is the director of the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council.

15. How is Iranian Gen Z reshaping societal norms and values in Iran?

It was the murder of twenty-two-year-old Amini—a Kurdish-Iranian member of Iran’s Gen Z—that prompted anti-establishment protests across thirty-one provinces and became the biggest threat to the Islamic Republic in four decades. Iran’s Gen Z also led those very protests and continue to do so with their social media posts, gatherings in the streets, graffiti, acts of civil disobedience—dancing, not abiding by mandatory hijab, and expressing physical displays of affection—and chants from windows and rooftops. 

The clerical establishment cannot and will not be able to control much of this generation even as it tries to rein them in by force, indoctrination, and threats of violence. Iranian Gen Z does not identify with the geriatric leadership at the top and wants to be a part of the global community thanks to satellite dishes and the Internet. 

In this current climate, repression will continue to rise and as the economy continues to slump due to systemic corruption and mismanagement and in part due to sanctions, these youth will remain defiant by also seeking out their basic needs and wants by migrating to the West. But this does not mean that this generation of Iranian youth should be met with skepticism in their ability to bring about change. They are part of the globalized Gen Z that won’t tolerate the status quo. In the words of sixteen-year-old vlogger Sarina Esmailzadeh, who was beaten to death by security forces, “What do people expect from their country? Prosperity, prosperity, prosperity!”

—Holly Dagres

16. Do the protests have an impact on the ongoing talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal?

The unreasonableness of Iranian negotiating demands was the primary reason why the talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal failed. But the protests in Iran calling for an end to the Islamic Republic after the death of Amini were certainly a contributing factor. In October 2022, US officials suggested that the Iran nuclear deal was not their focus right now. Supporting the Iranian people demonstrating against the regime was the priority.

For a period, the regime turned inward and hardened as it tried to suppress its own people, fearful of appearing weak abroad amid domestic turmoil. This is a pattern. In 2009, after the Green Movement protests over the disputed reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president, the Iranian establishment was unable to commit to a deal to ship out a majority of its low-enriched uranium stockpile in exchange for fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor.

Today, the Islamic Republic feels more confident that it has the situation under control, which is motivating it to show more openness to de-escalate tensions with the West. However, the drivers leading the Iranian people to rebel against the regime remain. Protests will inevitably resurface again. The US government and its allies must ensure that any nuclear strategy they implement does not empower, legitimize, and resource a regime that is fundamentally illegitimate in the eyes of the Iranian people.

—Jason M. Brodsky is the policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran and a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute’s Iran Program.

17. Have climate change and food insecurity had an impact on political unrest in Iran?

Since 1988, the leaders of the Islamic Republic have been aware of the threats of climate change, but have chosen a path of unsustainable development that has led to a long-lasting man-made drought, intensified by global warming. The anthropogenic drought is the result of decades of poor governance and bad water management for the sake of food self-sufficiency. These policies under a changing climate have caused the depletion of aquifers and the desertification of vast plains, forcing millions of farmers to migrate to city margins and shantytowns.

This situation has impoverished millions of Iranians and caused instability. In many cases where the regime has built dams like Karun-3 near Izeh, it has not only displaced the indigenous residents of these areas without providing them equivalent lands, but has also deprived them of their constitutional “right to adequate housing.”

Since 2017, major demonstrations have taken place in regions hit by water scarcity and unemployment. Cities like Izeh in Khuzestan that have hosted thousands of migrants from deserted areas have experienced deadly clashes.

I believe that when the regime loses its ability to supply water for the cities, many in the middle class who cannot tolerate hardship will join other protesters.

—Nikahang Kowsar is an Iranian-Canadian journalist and analyst who works on environmental and water issues.

18. What has been the impact of sanctions on Iran in the last year?

The sanctions landscape in Iran continues to revolve almost exclusively around Iran’s nuclear program and its “resistance economy.” Amini’s death was a human rights tragedy that spurred individual sanctions focused on strategic messaging that were of limited practical impact. The most notable sanctions development for Iran has been Russia’s willingness to more openly engage Iran as it seeks alternatives to Western markets from which it, too, is shut out. This Russian engagement provides Iran with limited, though important, pressure release valves to counterbalance Western sanctions. Reinforcing Iran’s resistance economy, even if only by limited degrees, makes it likely that Tehran will demand more concessions in strategic negotiations with the West, concessions the West is unlikely to find palatable. 

—Brian O’Toole is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. He is a former senior adviser to the director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the US Department of the Treasury.

19. Are the regime’s crackdowns on the protesters different from what it has done in the past?

There are both similarities and differences in the regime’s repression of the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests compared with previous protests. While the regime’s primary strategy has always been victory through terror, the Islamic Republic has become more repressive in the last two decades. Learning from previous waves of protests, it has expanded its coercive apparatus and used more lethal and brutal tactics. During the 2009 Green Movement, at least 100 people were killed, and 4,000 were arrested. In 2019, during the Aban protests, at least 304 people were killed, and 7,000 were detained. The Mahsa Amini Protests in 2022 resulted in the deaths of more than 662 people and the arrest of more than 22,000.

As before, the regime utilized all its security forces, such as the police, the Basij militia, and the IRGC, throughout the country. However, in 2022, the regime used more lethal and brutal tactics, including shooting protesters at close range and targeting the body’s vital organs, such as the head and chest. The Islamic Republic systematically targeted protesters’ eyes, leading to at least six hundred people being blinded. The security forces also frequently used snipers to target protesters from high-rise buildings in 2022.

The security forces repeatedly hit protesters on the head with batons, which caused skull fractures and bleeding in the brain. Security forces have been using social media and mobile phones to track down and arrest protesters for over a decade. However, they recently escalated their tactics by using drones to identify and terrorize protesters on the streets.

The regime crackdown of 2022 was more brutal than in the past, mainly because of the scope and scale of protests, as well as the regime’s fear of being overthrown. The international community’s silence will allow the regime’s brutality to continue.

—Saeid Golkar is a senior fellow at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. He is also a UC Foundation associate professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Service at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

20. What impact have regime disinformation campaigns have on the uprising?

One of the regime’s tactics to curb protests is a form of disinformation called flooding. This is of course in addition to inducing fear for online and offline dissidence through arrests or creating friction through internet shutdowns, disruptions, and censorship. In the context of the Amini anniversary, these are the efforts to ensure mobilization and unity by protesters and opposition to the regime are distracted, disunited, and chaotic. We have seen over a year of successful efforts by the regime to flood the information space for this very pursuit, and sometimes successfully. 

While attribution is often hard, there have been some efforts that have been hallmarks of the regime’s “cyberi campaigns” (cyberi being the term used within Persian social media for regime accounts pretending to be opposition). The Jupyter Rad account on Twitter appears to be one such effort. This was an anonymous account that alleged to be an opposition activist. It had more than a hundred thousand followers (at the time) and some level of trust among opposition social media. It quickly became clear it might be a cyberi account when it tried to distract from the protest uprisings outside of the Karaj prisons in anticipation of the executions of Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini in January 2023 with a disinformation campaign. The momentum of those prison protests died as soon as this anonymous account flooded the information space with the disinformation that Judge Abolqasem Salavati, known as the “hanging judge,” had been assassinated by opposition activists. The protest momentum and attention on the protests to stop the executions came to a standstill as the news cycle and social media became consumed by this news. Tragically, within twenty-four hours, the regime quietly executed Karami and Hosseini. 

Iranians on social media have become well-versed in the existence of cyberis. The regime’s efforts to infect the information space in this way continue in various shapes and forms. Combined with more direct efforts through their official media and propaganda, cyberis are meant to stoke divisions and tensions within the opposition and diaspora. This is of course the new digital dimension of the regime’s four-decade project of destabilizing opposition protests and ensuring civil society is weak-to-nonexistent within the country.

—Mahsa Alimardani is a senior researcher at ARTICLE19, an international human rights organization that works to defend and promote freedom of expression and freedom of information worldwide.

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For the majority of Afghanistan’s new generation—those who worked, fought, and aspired for a free, democratic, and prosperous country—it has been a harrowing two years. It has been two long years of processing grief and overcoming the anguish of abandonment and collapse, but also two years of engaging in self-reflection, reorganization, and resistance.

The country is in a deep crisis; the status quo is not sustainable. The challenges ahead are enormous and multidimensional, but all is not lost. Afghanistan’s most precious asset, developed over the past two decades, is its professional and well-connected youth. More than 60 percent of Afghanistan’s population is under the age of twenty-five. The burden of resolving this crisis by spotting and exploiting opportunities amid this calamity falls on this generation. They are slowly but surely rising to the task.

The challenges ahead are indeed colossal. Afghanistan faces a deeply divided society, a demoralized elite, a broken economy, an exhausted civil society, and an extremist ethnoreligious group in control of the country. The Taliban reneged on the promises they made during the Doha negotiation process to form an inclusive government and provide women and girls with access to education. Instating exclusively male and essentially Pashtun mullahs, they failed to gain domestic and international legitimacy. They continue to impose draconian and regressive laws, which are pushing the country into a downward spiral in every socioeconomic, human-rights, and fundamental-freedoms index. After systematically erasing women and girls from public life, the Taliban administration is on the brink of being designated as a gender apartheid regime by United Nations–appointed rights experts. Its symbiotic relations with foreign terrorist groups, drug production and trafficking, and systematic promotion of violent extremist ideology pose imminent threats to the immediate region and beyond.

The international community, weary and incoherent in its approach to the crises, has retreated to the background, only to engage in narrow humanitarian diplomacy. With each new edict from the Taliban’s reclusive leader, the bar on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms lowers further. International demands for an inclusive and representative government are confined to written reports. International leaders have dropped democratization from their talking points on the Taliban regime altogether.

Yet members of Afghanistan’s new generation—inside the country and in exile—have not given up, neither on their country nor on their hope and aspiration for the creation of a free, rights-based, and prosperous state that can serve as a home to all its citizens. Only two days after the Taliban’s military takeover, women and girls took to the streets of Kabul and other major cities to demand their fundamental rights. The call by women for “food, work, and freedom” ignited the first sparks of a civil resistance movement in the cities. Similarly, despite the chaotic disintegration of Afghanistan’s national security forces, some soldiers and officers have laid the foundations of a national resistance front in the rural mountains of Afghanistan. Afghan diaspora communities have organized protests and launched advocacy campaigns for the restoration of rights and dignity around the world.

The most excruciating challenge of all is the spread of a self-deprecating narrative among certain circles outside Afghanistan that there is no alternative to the Taliban government and that it is the “reality” that Afghans have to live with. This narrative is wrong and lazy. The Taliban are not and never were an acceptable alternative to a democratic state in a pluralistic society such as Afghanistan. While they are a part of the country’s “reality,” this does not mean that the people of Afghanistan shouldn’t rise above and aspire for better. Hence Afghans’ struggle for a better Afghanistan entails standing against the brutality of a formidable foe but also enduring the selective amnesia of retreating friends.

More serious than often-cited tribal or regional rifts—Durrani versus Ghilzai or east versus south—are the inherent internal contradictions in the Taliban attitude toward contemporary governance, education, economics, and foreign affairs. The concept of equality of treatment and opportunities for citizens and long-term peaceful coexistence with the outside world, the two prerequisites of enduring stability in Afghanistan, are not ingrained in the movement’s DNA. Their dogmatic, anti-Enlightenment, and misogynist ideas and practices are not only a nuisance for the developed world, but also a threat to the new wave of modernization in Muslim-majority nations. 

History has shown that dogmatic regimes defy the normative principle of diplomatic engagement. Concessions don’t lead to counter-concessions but to the strengthening of power. The Taliban’s behavior during the peace talks and after their assumption of power vindicates this argument. They are running in the opposite direction of the caravan of human progress. International engagement should prioritize containment and damage control rather than offering more concessions. 

The international community’s nonrecognition of the Taliban regime has created an enabling environment for Afghanistan’s civil and political forces to coalesce around common values and principles and demand the restoration of human rights, fundamental freedoms, and an inclusive and representative government. International civil society, parliamentarians, academic institutions, women’s rights groups, associations of veterans, and friends of Afghanistan are actively supporting these endeavors. Taking note of the Taliban’s intransigence and regressive policies, their failure to gain international legitimacy, and the emergence of a civil resistance movement, many Afghans inside the country have not settled with the Taliban and do not perceive them as a legitimate and permanent government.

A realistic assessment of the above challenges points to opportunities to positively engage all relevant stakeholders. Afghanistan’s professional and emerging political forces, journalists, and academics are rapidly establishing themselves as units of a mass resistance and reform movement. It is these Afghans, particularly among the youth, who must unite to save the country.

Nasir Andisha is the ambassador and permanent representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations in Geneva. He is a former vice president of the Human Rights Council (2020) and deputy foreign minister of Afghanistan (2015-2019).

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On July 25th, the Atlantic Council’s empowerME Initiative, in collaboration with the US Embassy in Riyadh and PepsiCo, held the first workshop in a series of four events for the second cohort of the WIn Fellowship launched in Saudi Arabia. The workshop took place on Tuesday, July 25th, from 12:00-1:00 pm ET/7:00-8:00 pm KSA Time and took place both in-person at The Garage in Riyadh and virtually, focusing on the recent labor market shifts in Saudi Arabia that have facilitated increased women’s participation in the workforce, especially in the private sector.

The event commenced with opening remarks from empowerME’s chairman, Amjad Ahmad. This was followed by keynote speeches from H.R.H. Princess Reema Bint Bandar Al Saud, Ambassador of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia to the United States, and Michael Ratney, Ambassador of the Embassy of the United States to Saudi Arabia.

A panel discussion followed, featuring a line-up of esteemed speakers: Dena Elkhatib, the General Counsel at Riyadh Air, Hattan Ahmed, Entrepreneurship Director at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Wael Ismail, the Vice President Corporate Affairs – MENA and South East Asia at PepsiCo. The conversation was skillfully moderated by Hanaa Almoaibed, the Vice President for Research at The Arab Institute for Women’s Empowerment.

During the panel discussion, various aspects related to the rising female workforce in Saudi Arabia and its implications for the private sector were explored. The panelists delved into the challenges and opportunities facing women in the workforce, the role of government policy in promoting female employment, and the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Meaningful insights were shared, shedding light on the transformative impact of women’s increasing presence in the labor force and the positive changes it brings to the private sector.

Key discussion points

The event commenced with inspiring opening remarks by Amjad Ahmad, who shared the fellowship’s vision to significantly increase women’s economic participation in entrepreneurial and leadership roles, ultimately contributing to the region’s overall economic prosperity.

Ahmad highlighted the transformative socio-economic changes underway in Saudi Arabia, driven by its Vision 2030 agenda, with a strong emphasis on women’s empowerment. Over the past five years, the labor force participation rate of Saudi women has risen by an impressive 67 percent, from 21 percent in 2017 to 35 percent in 2022, signaling a supportive shift in government policies.

H.R.H. Princess Reema Bint Bandar Al Saud acknowledged the existing gender disparity in leadership positions, business ownership, and management. Emphasizing the need for change, she stated, “When women succeed, we all succeed.” Her vision includes more women leadership roles, business ownership, mentorship programs, and investment in women-led startups.

The Kingdom’s inclusive Vision 2030 aims to diversify and strengthen the nation’s economy, leading to Saudi Arabia being ranked number one in terms of economic and social progress for women out of 190 economies. This progress is evident in the increasing number of women  receiving advanced degrees, enrolling in STEM fields, and owning 40 percent of small and medium-sized startups.

Ambassador Michael Ratney praised the Saudi fellows for embracing entrepreneurship and taking bold steps towards shaping their own future. He emphasized that the fundamental changes driven by Vision 2030 provide opportunities for talents of the Saudi forkforce, especially women, to thrive.

The panelists further discussed the transformation brought about by increased women’s participation in the Saudi Arabian private sector. Dena Elkhatib commented on the remarkable increase of females in the workforce, leading to a shift in workplace dynamics and fostering growth in the private sector.

Hattan Ahmed highlighted the significant impact of female participation on the private sector, evidenced by empirical data. He expressed his excitement for witnessing greater corporate engagement and deployment of women in various areas and industries.

Wael Ismail echoed the ambassador’s remarks, noting the increased access to opportunities for women due to enhanced investment in their education and empowerment.

Ismail elaborated on the benefits of having a diverse workforce in the food and beverage sector, asserting that “the male perspective alone will not allow us to assess how consumers are engaging with foods and beverages.” Therefore, a balanced and inclusive workforce is beneficial, whether in marketing or R&D. Hattan Ahmad added that the concentration of women in STEM at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is around 39 percent, above the global average, and how they passionately address global challenges like climate change and water issues.

Challenges facing women in Saudi Arabia

During the workshop, Hanaa Almoaibed raised the crucial question of the obstacles women need to overcome in order to sustain the progress achieved. Elkhatib emphasized the importance of women supporting and empowering one another, fostering an environment where different perspectives are valued and heard, promoting collaboration rather than competition.

Wael Ismail built on Elkhatib’s idea, stressing out the importance of creating opportunities and fcultivating a supportive environment for both women and men. While this may pose challenges for some managers, it is vital for fostering a truly inclusive workplace.

Hattan Ahmad shed light on existing disparity in funding, referring to a report from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The report revealed that female-founded companies raise an average of a million dollars in funding, significantly less than the two million dollars raised by male-founded companies. However, female-founded companies generate 10% more cumulative revenue their male-founded counterparts, showcasing their capital efficiency and potential for higher return on investment for their investors.

Concluding Notes

In conclusion, the workshop elucidated three central points regarding the future of female empowerment and involvement in Saudi Arabia’s labor force. First, the remarkable surge in women’s labor force participation has sparked catalyzing change within the private sector, leading to creative and efficient work environments without increased unemployment. This success underscores the transformative power of gender inclusion, inspiring further progress.

Second, it is imperative to actively address the disparity in funding and opportunities provided to female entrepreneurs. While the rate of established business ownership among women in Saudi Arabia has increased significantly, reaching 3.7 percent of the female population in Saudi Arabia, compared to just 1.6 percent in 2016, they still face fundraising challenges. A collective effort is needed to encourage more investments into female-founded companies, empowering them to thrive and contribute to the nation’s economic growth.

Lastly, the workplace emphasized the need for greater support and resources for women in the workplace.  Research by McKinsey revealed that businesses that fell within the top 25 percent for gender diversity among their executive teams had a 25 percent higher likelihood of outperforming in terms of profitability compared to those in the bottom 25 percent. Female leaders champion flexibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) but often face subtle discrimination and biases. By cultivating environments that emplace growth and enacting policies for equal opportunities, we can accelerate progress and foster a more includive and prosperous society, concluded the panelists.

The participants agreed that to sustain the momentum of the progress in Saudi Arabia, continued dialogue and efforts are vital to eliminate remaining obstacles. By shaping a future founded on equality and diversity, Saudi Arabia’s labor force can achieve unparalleled socio-economic growth, with both men and women playing key roles in its success.

Lynn Monzer is the Associate Director with the Atlantic Council’s empowerME initiative at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

Nibras Basitkey is the Program Assistant with Atlantic Council’s empowerME initiative at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

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WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 KSA

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The post Empowering the future: The rising women workforce in Saudi Arabia’s private sector appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Online Event Thu, July 27, 2023 • 9:00 am ET

Ukrainian tennis star Elina Svitolina on sports diplomacy during war

AN #ACFRONTPAGE EVENT – Ukrainian tennis star Elina Svitolina discussed the role of sports diplomacy and athletes’ efforts to strengthen Ukrainian resistance against Russian aggression.

Civil Society Europe & Eurasia Resilience & Society Ukraine

To Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina, forgoing handshakes with Russian and Belarusian competitors is much more than an individual choice.

It reflects “the position of all Ukrainians… we are here to win this war,” she said, explaining that the fight for sovereignty begins with the media—which reported on Svitolina’s handshake refusals at Wimbledon at length—and finishes with the brave “men and women who are fighting on the front line.”

Just weeks after her Wimbledon appearance—where the unseeded tennis player made it to the semi-finals and became a crowd favorite—Svitolina told the Atlantic Council about how athletes are “doing everything possible” to give Ukrainian fighters support. At the Atlantic Council Front Page event on Thursday, cohosted by the Women’s Foreign Policy Group and the Council’s Eurasia Center, Svitolina pointed out how Ukrainian fencer Olga Harlan had earlier that day been disqualified from the World Fencing Championships for refusing to shake the hand of her Russian opponent.

For the tennis star, the disqualification brought flashbacks to having been booed over refusing to shake hands with Belarusian player Aryna Sabalenka at the French Open last month.

Svitolina argued that it is not possible to separate sports from politics, especially when the players are from Russia and Belarus. “Their governments are using the athletes fully,” she said. “They really use them as a weapon in the media” and in “propaganda.” She also pointed out that some Russian athletes have had positions in the military—the same military that employs soldiers who have forcibly removed children and killed Ukrainian fighters.

“As a Ukrainian, I cannot be silent,” she said. “I want to scream everywhere I can and use my voice [to] the fullest.”

Below are highlights from the event, which was moderated by CBS News’s Margaret Brennan and touched upon the power of Ukrainian athletes, the Ukrainian fighting spirit, and the next generation of Ukrainian tennis stars.

More support needed from the sports world

• The Women’s Tennis Association stated that it is up to each player to decide whether or not to shake hands. “I think the other sports federations, they should do the same,” Svitolina argued. “They should respect our decision, the decision of our country.” She added that “it’s really terrible what’s happening in the sports world, that we [Ukrainians] don’t get the respect of our decision.”
• On July 26, Ukraine lifted its ban on athletes competing against Russians and Belarusians so long as the opponents compete under neutral banners. “I think this was the right decision,” Svitolina said. With the Paris 2024 Olympics one year away, Svitolina explained that behind the scenes, the Ukrainian sports minister is “doing everything possible” to work with the International Olympic Committee on finding a solution that respects the Ukrainian position on competing and interacting with Russian and Belarusian athletes.
• Svitolina argued that exceptions should only be made if Russian and Belarusian athletes “come out with a clear statement… against their governments,” and remain vocal over time. But over the past year and a half, she explained, “we got nothing—and now it’s too late.”
• Athletes globally can do more to support Ukraine, according to Svitolina. “I think being vocal is really the least you can do… to raise the awareness that the war is still ongoing.” Beyond that, she implored them to not be scared about taking the responsibility to speak out.
• Svitolina explained that fans also have a role to play in supporting Ukrainians; that can include everything from waving flags at tournaments to sending donations to organizations supporting Ukrainians at home. Do “what speaks to you,” she told fans. “It really motivates me to do better, to do more.”

The next generation of sport stars

• Svitolina established a charitable foundation that supports young gifted tennis players in Ukraine. The foundation is planning to host tournaments in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities over the coming months. “I know how much kids love to compete, how much they love to play.”
• However, “safety is the [first] priority,” Svitolina said, recounting how when the war started, the foundation worked to try to relocate the kids and families that the foundation supports. And today, the foundation specifically locates courts that are in safe areas or near bomb shelters.
• The foundation also provides mental health services to the families. Svitolina noted that there’s “generally a lot of pressure” in tennis and other sports. And in addition, the budding athletes have seen immense suffering and hardship over the past year and a half. “It’s really damaging mentally,” she explained. “You need someone who will be there helping you on [a] mental level.”

A fighting spirit

• When it comes to getting in the zone on the court, Svitolina said she draws motivation from “the fighting spirit, the strength that Ukrainians have.” She added that it is an honor for her to have the power and platform of being a global tennis player, “to have [a] voice that I can use at different levels, especially right now during the war.”
• Svitolina hails from Odesa, which has seen a slew of deadly strikes from Russia, especially over the past several weeks. “[Russians] say that there was no attack in Odesa,” Svitolina said, calling Moscow out for its disinformation, “when I [just had] a call with my grandmother, and she said that her building was shaking from the missiles.”
• In addition to being a star tennis player, Svitolina is also a United24 ambassador and a new mom, having given birth to a daughter just nine months ago. She said her mission to bring “light” and “hope for all Ukrainians” motivated her to come back to competition as soon as possible, “not only for myself… but also for the Ukrainian people in this horrible time.”
• “Women are so strong, we don’t even know how strong we are,” Svitolina said. She encouraged other new moms to take time to recover, and then take their post-partum journey one day at a time. “We all have this power in us that we need to discover.”

Katherine Walla is an associate director of editorial at the Atlantic Council.

Watch the full event

The post Ukrainian tennis star Elina Svitolina: The sports world must get behind Ukraine’s cause appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On July 17th, the Atlantic Council’s empowerME Initiative, in collaboration with the United States Embassy in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), held a debut workshop in a series of four for the first ever Women Innovators Fellowship (Win) cohort in the country. The event focused on the significance of venture funding for women entrepreneurs in the UAE and took place both virtually and in-person at Abu Dhabi Global Market offices.

The workshop opened with insightful remarks from Daleya Uddin, Head of Public Affairs and Outreach at the United States Embassy to the UAE. This set the stage for a compelling exchange between Amjad Ahmad, Chairman of empowerME, and H.E. Yousef Al Otaiba, Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the United States.

The event also included a moderated discussion featuring Alifia Doriwala, Co-Chief Investment Officer RockCreek; Huda Al-Lawati, Founder & CEO, Aliph Capital; Zahra Rabih El Zayat, Chief Commercial Officer, evision e& Life – e& group. Lynn Monzer, Associate Director of the WIn Fellowship at the Atlantic Council moderated the session.

These panelists shared their insights into the existing challenges facing women in the UAE when it comes to venture funding, examined the transformative impact of women-specific programs, and explored strategies for boosting female participation and leadership in venture and growth capital.

Key Discussion Points

Amjad Ahmad, Chairman of the empowerME initiative at the Atlantic Council, kick-started the event by addressing a paradox within the UAE’s gender landscape. He noted that while women account for 70 percent of all university graduates in the country, they still face a sizable gender gap in entrepreneurial ventures. As per the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, for every five men initiating a business, there are only two women. This discrepancy prevails despite the UAE’s standing out as a regional leader in gender equality, according to the Global Gender Gap report. While this progress is noteworthy, it also emphasizes the need to promote further representation and opportunities for women in venture capital and entrepreneurship. Most importantly, we must foster more women in venture capital and private equity, according to Ahmed.

In her welcoming speech, Daleya Uddin expressed her strong support for the WIn Fellowship, underlining the critical importance for women to access to venture capital. She emphasized that “by ensuring that women are economically empowered, we are also ensuring that they invest in their families, communities, and economies”. As women are “better equipped with the necessary resources, they catalyze economic growth and foster societies that are more stable and resilient”, she added.

During the keynote conversation, H.E. Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba shed light on the UAE’s strategic push to drive entrepreneurship as a conscious effort to diversify beyond fossil fuel economy. He pointed out that “technology is the new future”, which means that the UAE must adapt, modify, and adjust its systems, structures, and financing in order to meet the needs of the future. He also emphasized the role of education in nurturing a risk-taking mindset and promoting entrepreneurship. Ambassador Al Otaiba touched on the cultural challenges hindering shifting attitudes towards women entrepreneurship in a society which traditionally values the stability offered by government jobs. Despite these challenges, he affirmed the UAE’s forward strides in this regard, citing the growing interest in entrepreneurship and innovation among the youth. On the needed strategies for boosting entrepreneurship in the UAE, Ambassador Al Otaiba stressed the necessity for robust public-private partnerships, as well as the establishment of more dedicated funds and incubators, specifically targeting women.

During the panel discussion, Alifia Doriwala highlighted Rock Creek’s strategy and its $300 million mandate from the Canadian government’s Equality Fund Portfolio to add a gender lens in investing in both the private and public sectors. Doriwala stressed that the fund focuses on demonstrating to investors that they can make a return on their investments while also advancing gender equity. This has led to the creation of more funds and products that are focused on gender lending, which were not available to investors before this mandate. Furthermore, due to the lack of women targeted funding, Rock Creek created a private debt strategy that specifically targets debt financing for women entrepreneurs in North America with no easy access to traditional capital. This fund is currently generating an eight to ten percent return, which is in line with any of its peers, according to Doriwala.

Huda Al-Lawati echoed Ambassador Al Otaiba’s sentiments, affirming that the government currently leads the charge in fostering and facilitating women’s participation, outpacing the private sector in these efforts. She highlighted three key challenges that women entrepreneurs in the region face. The first being cultural factors that can discourage women from taking risks or starting businesses; then comes the education system that promotes government jobs at the expense of the entrepreneurial spirit; and lastly, the regulatory environment that has strict bankruptcy laws, making it difficult for businesses to fail, which can significantly increase the risk of doing business.

Zahra El Zayat highlighted the development in venture funding, noting the recent inclusion of sustainability and gender equity as key investment criteria—a marked departure from previous practices. However, she also pointed out that women rarely submit their pitches for funding due to limited access to key networks—often male dominated. She also added that “there is constant pressure on women to finish their education and start a job rather than taking risks”.

Lynn Monzer explained that the common fear of failure can significantly discourage women from starting their own ventures. She raised concerns about the underrepresentation of women in venture capital boards and the existing homogeneity among investors. These factors can both dissuade women from pitching their ideas and contribute to an environment where women’s ideas are not given equal consideration to those proposed by men.

Regarding women’s specific programs and strategies in promoting gender equity and venture funding, Doriwala referred to existing research that highlighted the importance of women representation in venture capital (VC), where the more women you have in top GP positions in venture funds the more funding will go towards women entrepreneurs without the need for an explicit mandate. She stated that “relationship and networking is the entire essence of what venture funding is.” She further added that many women entrepreneurs do receive venture funding and accelerator capital but there is still very limited growth capital for them to continue the expansion curve.

Al-Lawati pointed out the significant role of unconscious biases—be it in AI or funding decisions. She noted the limited data on investment returns from women-led businesses as a major barrier to funding these ventures. She highlighted the work of Aliph Capital, where they publicly share data on the performance of companies with women in leadership roles, aiming to prompt positive changes in investment attitudes. Aliph Capital, she emphasized, “requires diversity from their partners to promote fairness”.

El Zayat celebrated the growing number of female role models and success stories inspiring women entrepreneurs in the region. She also pointed out that this helped uplift and scale the abilities of women in the region. She also highlighted the importance of remote work as an enabler for women in the region, helping them create a better work-life balance, which was not possible before the rise of emerging technologies.

All three panelists, El Zayat, Al-Lawati, and Doriwala, offered strategies to support female entrepreneurship in the UAE. El Zayat emphasized the importance of education and board service. She argued that providing women with access to education and opportunities to serve on boards would help increase their participation in the economy and create a more level playing field for female entrepreneurs. Al-Lawati, from her side, stressed the role of family in encouraging women starting a business. Drawing from her personal story, she noted the critical role families play in shaping women’s aspirations and that they should be encouraged to support their daughters’ entrepreneurial dreams. Doriwala chose to call on institutional investors to allocate more capital to women-led businesses. She argued that there is a large pool of capital available for investment, and that investors should be more willing to put their money into businesses led by women. She also called on investors to release more data on the performance of women-led businesses, in order to demonstrate their viability.

Concluding Notes

According to an analysis by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), global GDP could witness an approximate rise of 3 percent to 6 percent if women and men participated equally as entrepreneurs, which could mean an impressive $2.5 trillion to $5 trillion boost to the global economy.

The argument is clear: not only do women-owned businesses generate employment and stimulate economic growth, but they also have a significant influence on local communities. However, women remain the largest untapped talent in the world. They continue to face numerous challenges, from ingrained societal norms to barriers to accessing finance. Intriguingly, the economic disparity persists even though startups founded and co-founded by women generate 10 percent higher cumulative revenue over a five-year period, amassing $730,000 compared to the $662,000 accumulated by men.

Venture funding plays a major role in de-risking the innovation process by taking a bet on promising concepts by furnishing bright individuals with the resources to bring their ideas to the market. This in return, promotes innovative technologies, grows businesses, and contributes to economic development and competitiveness by helping firms commercialize new ideas.

The workshop featured the considerable work that the UAE government and institutions have done to increase women’s entrepreneurship and improve access to finance. It also shed light on the significant systemic and cultural barriers that female entrepreneurs in the UAE still confront when accessing financing. In 2021, less than 1 percent of the $3 billion invested in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) was allocated to women-founded startups. The panel discussion highlighted two main barriers:

• The lack of networks that could provide women with access to funds and information, as the networks that facilitate women’s access to these indispensable tools remains deficient. As per one study, in spite of the escalating number of female entrepreneurs in the MENA region, about 25 percent of the respondents reported facing challenges in networking. These individuals perceived networking events as being dominated by “old boys clubs”—environments where they felt a sense of discomfort and exclusion.

• The underrepresentation of women on venture capital boards. Although it’s hardly surprising that there’s a gender disparity in startup fundraising, the gap remains as pronounced as ever for women aspiring to attain leadership positions in venture capital firms—even as women have managed to rise in various other sectors.

The workshop concluded that women in the UAE hold vast and largely untapped potential. By engaging women entrepreneurs and providing them with easier access to the funding, the country can not only enrich its entrepreneurial landscape and fortify its economy, but also transform gender equity. Governments, financial institutions, and society at large are responsible for breaking down existing barriers and creating a supportive and equitable environment for women to grow, agreed the panelists.

Lynn Monzer is the Associate Director with the Atlantic Council’s empowerME initiative at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

Nibras Basitkey is the Program Assistant with Atlantic Council’s empowerME initiative at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

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WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 UAE

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Explore the initiative

The post Bridging the gender gap in venture capital appeared first on Atlantic Council.

On July 12th, 2023 the Atlantic Council’s empowerME Initiative, in collaboration with the U.S. Embassy in Manama and Bahrain FinTech Bay, held a first workshop in a series of four events for the Win Fellowship’s first cohort launched in Bahrain in June. The event, which took place both in-person at Bahrain FinTech Bay offices and virtually, focused on female leadership in the country.

The opening notes were delivered by empowerME’s chairman Amjad Ahmad. Keynote remarks were provided by H.E. Shaikh Abdulla Bin Rashid Al Khalifa, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain to the United States, and David Brownstein, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Manama.

The event encompassed a moderated discussion featuring esteemed panelists: Jordana Semaan, Head of Human Resources (Gulf and Asia), Global Head of DEI, Investcorp; Nidal Al-Basha, Head of Public Sector Innovation, Amazon Web Services MENA Region; Hollie Griego, Global Wealth Investments North America Head of Strategy & Platforms, Citi; and Marwa Al Saad, Executive Director at Human Capital, Mumtalakat Bahrain, with Suzy Al Zeerah, Chief Operating Officer, Bahrain FinTech Bay, skillfully moderating the session.

These panelists shared profound insights on the current state of gender equality in Bahrain, the successful initiatives and strategies propelling this progress, the remaining challenges, and the influential role of corporate initiatives in endorsing gender equality and promoting women’s leadership within Bahrain’s business landscape.

Key discussion points

Amjad Ahmad, Chairman of the empowerME initiative at the Atlantic Council kicked-off the event by introducing the remarkable achievements of Bahraini women in education, workforce, and politics. Women in Bahrain make up 83 percent of tertiary school enrollments, 54 percent of the public sector workforce, and 45 percent of leadership positions in official state agencies. In the private sector, women comprise 35 percent of the workforce, hold 17 percent of board seats, and occupy 35 percent of managerial roles. The political landscape is no different, as Bahraini women made major strides. They make up 20 percent of the total members of the Council of Representatives and 25 percent of the Shura Council. Ahmad emphasized that these achievements are the result of a number of factors, including government policies that promote gender equality, the strong educational attainment of Bahraini women, and the increasing participation of women in the workforce.

In his opening remarks, Ambassador H.E. Shaikh Abdullah bin Rashid Al Khalifa expressed his strong support for the WIn Fellowship, noting its role in exposing Bahraini top women entrepreneurs to life-changing networking opportunities, mentorship, and workshops, thereby increasing their economic participation. He also highlighted the significance of the transformation brought about by the Supreme Council for Women (SCW Bahrain), which has been instrumental in implementing legislative and societal safeguards for Bahraini women. As a result of these reforms, Bahraini women account for about 43 percent of the labor force. Continued progress is being made in areas of pay equity, entrepreneurship, pensions, and the enhancement of women’s physical and psychological well-being. Furthermore, His Highness underscored Bahrain’s commitment to digital inclusion, manifested in the government’s initiatives to train women in digital skills and motivate them to pursue STEM fields.

David Brownstein expressed his support for the WIn Fellowship, asserting, “we’re incredibly proud to support the WIn Fellowship here in Bahrain. Bahrain is a place where seeds flourish when planted.” He also pointed to the shared goals between the U.S. Embassy and the Bahraini government, with both parties aiming for a peaceful and prosperous state. “Achieving this requires the active participation of all society’s members”, he noted. He also affirmed the U.S. Embassy’s commitment to supporting Bahrain’s national strategy on gender equity and addressing inequality.

The panelists all agreed on Bahrain’s success in promoting women to all levels of the workforce and representation in government and boards, attributing this to both government reforms and a workforce that acknowledges women’s potential. They also recognized persisting challenges, like widespread biases against women, underscoring the necessity of a robust peer-to-peer network of women advocating for each other.

When asked about the factors that have contributed to Bahrain’s high ranking in gender parity among Arab countries, Nidal Al Basha stated several key aspects. Firstly, he mentioned the role of encouraging women to pursue STEM spatializations, which has been instrumental in promoting gender equality. Additionally, he emphasized on the importance of a supportive work environment that grants women extended maternity leaves, ensuring a balance between their professional and personal lives. Al Basha explained that Bahrain offers additional benefits for women, such as dedicated nursing rooms in the workplace, demonstrating a commitment to meeting their specific needs. The implementation of inclusive hiring and promotional policies also plays a significant role in enabling women to succeed and advance in their careers, according to Al Basha.

Marwa Al Saad emphasized further how Bahrain recognizes the immense value of human potential, considering it as one of the most valuable and inexhaustible resources. She stated that the high gender parity in Bahrain is attributed to various factors. “There is a mindset shift in the country that prioritizes growth and development, fostering an environment where both men and women can flourish,” she explained. Bahrain has also implemented robust policy and program reforms that establish a solid foundation for the advancement of all genders. These initiatives created equal opportunities and a supportive framework for individuals to thrive in various sectors. Al Saad also mentioned an exciting new initiative; the Bahrain Defense Force, which further demonstrates Manama’s commitment to gender parity and inclusivity. This initiative showcases the country’s dedication to providing equal opportunities and encouraging the participation of all genders in defense-related fields.

Jordana Semaan, from her side, mentioned that the one lesson that other countries in the region can learn from Bahrain is the emphasis placed on women and celebrating their success stories. “The importance of representation cannot be understated, as it serves as a significant motivator for other women to enter the workforce and unlock their full potential”, she said. By showcasing accomplished women and their achievements, Bahrain inspires and encourages others to pursue their goals and make significant contributions in their respective fields.

Hollie Griego focused on the importance of allyship among women, highlighting how it empowers and propels them into higher positions within the workplace. “Citi, following a similar approach to Bahrain, recognizes the significance of recruiting, training, and retaining women in its workforce” according to Griego. She pointed to the implementation of mechanisms that create an environment where women can thrive, allowing them to strike a balance between their roles as working mothers and providing the flexibility necessary to forge a successful career path leading to long-term security. These mechanisms serve as valuable examples that any country can adopt to promote gender equality and support women’s advancement.

Additionally, the panelists discussed the changing perception towards women in tech sectors, demonstrated by the increased hiring of female engineers at Amazon Web Services. They gave the example of the vital role supportive mechanisms at the workplace play in facilitating women’s advancement into senior roles, enabling them to balance their roles as working mothers. The importance of role models was also stressed, regardless of gender.

When asked about the challenges faced by Bahraini women, similar to women globally, Semaan referred to a UNDP report stating that 9 out of 10 people hold biases against women. This bias is present in both men and women, and is a significant obstacle to overcome. Semaan  explained the importance of alliances and support networks among women, highlighting their role in addressing these challenges. “In this region, there is still a cultural expectation for women to take on caregiving roles,” she pointed.

Al Saad further emphasized the importance of implementing gender-inclusive solutions to address these challenges, while Al-Basha focused onthe importance of mental health support for both women and men, as well as the significance of programs that help women re-enter the workforce after being on leave.

Griego acknowledged that while Citi is one of the few institutions with a female CEO, there is still much work to be done to address the gender pay gap at senior levels and promote women into those roles. She emphasized the significance of mentorship for women, as it plays a crucial role in guiding them through their professional journey and career growth.

Suzy Al Zeerah additionally pointed to the absence of sufficient female role models and mentors in Bahrain and in the Middle East in general.

Closing remarks

According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2023, Bahrain stands as the second highest in terms of gender parity among the Arab countries. This achievement is due to several important themes that have emerged throughout the discussion.

The commitment to supporting working women, as evidenced by extended maternity leave suggests an understanding of the importance of balanced work-life dynamics. This is also apparent in private sector policies, especially in terms of maternity leaves like in the case of Amazon Web Services, among others that are trying to create an enabling workplace for women to join. Research did actually prove that paid maternity leave increases women’s labor force participation and entrepreneurship, thus affecting the country’s’ economy in general.

An equally significant development in Bahrain’s gender equality journey is the strategic emphasis on digital inclusion and the promotion of women in STEM fields. Bahrain is a frontrunner in technological diversity in the MENA region. Digital activities contributed to 8% of Bahrain’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020, demonstrating the nation’s committed efforts towards enhancing digital inclusivity. As for the digital gender disparity, it is minimal in internet access (1.1 percent), while none-existent in mobile accessibility.

Furthermore, around a third of the broader ICT workforce in Bahrain are women and approximately 20 percent of startup founders are women, higher than the global average. Given the traditionally low representation of women in the global tech sector, Bahrain’s encouragement of female participation is a drastic step towards a more balanced gender equation.

Role models and allyship were discussed during the workshop. Both are important for women’s economic advancement. Afterall “you can’t be what you can’t see”. Championing female leaders in sectors such as tech and defense can potentially disrupt existing barriers, opening doors for future generations.

Despite this progress, Bahraini women, like many in the region, continue to face a variety of legal, regulatory, and sociocultural obstacles to economic participation and leadership. Initiatives to address this discrepancy are necessary for future growth and development. These barriers highlight the need to invest in women skills, establish strong networks, and develop clear metrics to measure progress in supporting women.

The private sector plays a key role in improving the condition of women and increasing their leadership. For example, the gender pay gap in Bahrain is prominent in the private sector-US$2,300 versus US$1,700 for women compared to only US$200 in the public sector-. Institutions need to actively work towards increasing female representation in leadership, by prioritizing the recruitment, training, and retention of women, play a critical role in creating a more equitable business landscape, concluded the speakers.

The discussion overall underscored Bahrain’s commitment to gender equality and its innovative approach to tackle this issue. However, it also highlighted the persistent challenges that need to be addressed to ensure lasting progress. The workshop served to place Bahrain’s journey as an inspiring model for other nations grappling with similar issues.

Lynn Monzer is the Associate Director with the Atlantic Council’s empowerME initiative at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

Nibras Basitkey is the Program Assistant with Atlantic Council’s empowerME initiative at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

WIn Fellowship cohorts

Jun 14, 2023

The WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 cohort

Building on the success of its inaugural cohort, the Women Innovators Fellowship (WIn) is expanding to Bahrain and the UAE, in addition to Saudi Arabia, as it continues to empower more women entrepreneurs from the Middle East. The program is thrilled to announce this year’s eighty-six recipients of its 2023 WIn Fellowship. The participants will receive a year-long program of executive education, mentoring, and networking opportunities in collaboration with Georgetown McDonough School of Business and with the support of the United States embassies in the three target countries and PepsiCo.

Feb 24, 2023

2023 WIn Fellowship Roadshow

The WIn Fellowship roadshow is led by the Atlantic Council’s empowerME Initiative in cooperation with Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business with support from US Embassy Riyadh, UPS, and PepsiCo. The WIn Fellowship Roadshow participants, chosen from a highly competitive cohort of more than thirty applicants, receive a fully sponsored trip to the United States for leadership training at Georgetown and meetings with US business and government leaders.

Jun 14, 2023

WIn Fellowship 2023-2024 Bahrain

Meet our 2023-2024 WIn fellows from Bahrain: a group of dynamic women entrepreneurs poised to expand their leadership and executive skills. They are on a mission to scale their startups to new heights, setting new benchmarks for success.

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empowerME

empowerME at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East is shaping solutions to empower entrepreneurs, women, and youth and building coalitions of public and private partnerships to drive regional economic integration, prosperity, and job creation.

Explore the initiative

The post An overview of gender parity in Bahrain: Progress, challenges, and the path forward appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Roya Rahmani and Melanne Verveer discuss Afghan women as the way forward and how the international community should engage now, nearly two years after the fall of Kabul. (Rahmani and Verveer’s biographies are below.)

• During the twenty-year US intervention in Afghanistan, metrics gauging women’s health and education and women’s presence in local and national politics all improved.
• Since August 2021, those gains are at risk of reversal. Women’s rights have deteriorated, and the international community’s efforts to engage with the Taliban and support Afghan women have been unsuccessful.
• Carrots such as international recognition and sticks such as public condemnations and threats of NGO withdrawal have proven ineffective, yet these strategies are endlessly recycled.
• The international community and multilateral organizations remain disengaged from strategic policymaking, passively supplying humanitarian aid without directing funding toward strategic future goals.
• The West lacks both knowledge of and leverage over Afghanistan’s leadership.

Establish a more robust forum for international consultation. Ad hoc consultations aren’t working: Regular meetings of experienced representatives need to be established. The core group should include the United States, the United Kingdom, several European Union countries, key Islamic countries such as Qatar and Indonesia, and NGO and multilateral representatives with on-the-ground knowledge.

Keep security strategy at the heart of engagement. Place the security implications of women’s oppression on every agenda of every meeting. As society disintegrates further, more room is created for terrorist groups to flourish, as shown by the growth of the Islamic State group’s offshoot ISIS-K.

Send female diplomats and delegations from Islamic countries. Bilateral engagement should feature overwhelmingly female delegations and prioritize consultative meetings with Afghan women to hear their perspectives on community needs. Furthermore, Islamic countries and organizations need to be key partners in the West’s efforts for humanitarian relief and overall engagement. Not only do they have the expertise and credibility needed to engage and advise on practical mechanisms for the implementation of programming, but direct engagement between more moderate Islamic countries and the Taliban could be influential. Qatar is a particularly important partner because of its role as an international interlocutor with access to the highest ranks of the Taliban.

Use aid as leverage by strategizing beyond immediate relief. Shifting Western aid from a focus on emergency humanitarian assistance to more sustainable, large-scale economic development initiatives reorients the sense of dependency from the people to the Taliban regime, which also creates a new potential point of leverage for the international community. Donors should craft aid distribution networks that are more local and grassroots, and use creative approaches to keep women at the center of all aid initiatives. This could mean developing aid programs specifically for widows, forming local partnerships that explicitly require the adoption of female-specific tasks.

Take advantage of the internet, and prioritize development projects that keep Afghans connected. Unlike during the 1990s Taliban regime, most Afghans have a mobile phone, internet access, and social media. These new tools must be used proactively by the international community to disseminate key information about the Taliban’s failures, coordinate mobilization, and provide educational resources. Development projects focused on connectivity and subsidizing local media will help keep information flowing into and out of Afghanistan.

A personal note

“While the regime stays in power, concrete steps have to be taken within the current context to counteract urgent security threats, provide critical aid, get children back in schools after a year-and-a-half gap, and address other imminent issues. Recycling policies from 1996 will not work. After twenty years of societal transformation, Afghanistan is a fundamentally different place.

Without innovation, no progress can be made.

Similarly, without engagement, no progress can be made.

Like other Afghan women, my entire life has been shaped by one conflict after another. Born on the eve of the Saur Revolution, I lived through the Soviet invasion, the Civil War, and the Taliban’s 1990s rule. Until the intervention, each chapter that unfolded was heartbreak anew. The revival of democracy and freedom brought hope. The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 was even more painful and shocking than anything before because it shattered an era that had been characterized by so much progress.

I have fought for women’s rights my whole life: the right to go to school and have an income, a voice, and autonomy. I am deeply disturbed and angered by what Afghan women are currently experiencing, and I share the instinctive desire to disengage from Afghanistan entirely given the Taliban’s inhumanity—or at the very least condition aid on women’s rights. However, this does nothing to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis. People simply suffer. Ultimately, we must be doing all that is possible to save lives. It is my hope that this report can help to make the road ahead clearer. The futures of so many Afghans—young girls banned from school, women imprisoned in their own homes, and an entire generation whose dreams have been crushed—depend on what we do now.”

—Roya Rahmani

Like what you read? Check out the full report here:

Ambassador Roya Rahmani has over twenty years’ experience working with governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector. She currently serves as a distinguished fellow at Georgetown University’s Global Institute for Women Peace and Security, the chair of Delphos International LTD, a global financial advisory firm based in Washington, DC, and a senior adviser at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. Rahmani was the first woman to serve as Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United States of America and held the role from 2018 to 2021. She was also the first woman to serve as Afghanistan’s ambassador to Indonesia, serving from 2016 to 2018. She holds a bachelor’s degree in software engineering from McGill University and a master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University.

Ambassador Melanne Verveer is executive director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace & Security, and board director at the Atlantic Council. Verveer previously served as the first US Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues, a position to which she was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2009. She coordinated foreign policy issues and activities relating to the political, economic and social advancement of women, traveling to nearly sixty countries. She worked to ensure that women’s participation and rights are fully integrated into US foreign policy, and she played a leadership role in the administration’s development of the US National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. President Obama also appointed her to serve as the US Representative to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

The South Asia Center is the hub for the Atlantic Council’s analysis of the political, social, geographical, and cultural diversity of the region. ​At the intersection of South Asia and its geopolitics, SAC cultivates dialogue to shape policy and forge ties between the region and the global community.

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Public Event Wed, June 28, 2023 • 3:00 pm ET

USAID Administrator Samantha Power on advancing LGBTQI+ inclusive development

AN #ACFRONTPAGE EVENT – A conversation on the United States’ efforts to advance global LGBTQI+ human rights and USAID’s commitment to global inclusion.

Human Rights Resilience & Society

Event transcript

Uncorrected transcript: Check against delivery

Speaker

Samantha Power
Administrator, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Moderator

Jonathan Capehart
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, the Washington Post and MSNBC

VICENTE GARCIA: Hello. Welcome to this special Pride edition of #ACFrontPage. I’m Vicente Garcia, senior director of engagement and external affairs at the Atlantic Council, and we’re delighted for today’s conversation featuring USAID Administrator Samantha Power on a topic important to me as a member of the LGBTQI+ community, but also to the Atlantic Council in our mission to shape the global future together through US global leadership and global engagement.

Today’s conversation will be led by Pulitzer-winning journalist Jonathan Capehart, who is the host of his own show on MSNBC, serves on the Washington Post Editorial Board, and a frequent commentator on PBS, and the list goes on. We welcome participation by those here joining us today in person during our Q&A session, but also welcome those joining online by using the hashtag #ACFrontPage.

Administrator Power, thank you for joining us here today. We’re very eager to hear from you about the Biden administration’s and USAID’s priorities at addressing global LGBTQI+ human rights. And so now I’ll turn it over to Jonathan to lead our discussion. Thank you.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thank you very much, Vicente, for the invitation to be here. Thank you all. One more thing, Vicente. As someone who reads teleprompter for a living, I really felt for you because that print is so small.

SAMANTHA POWER: Yeah, seriously. We’re just old, dude.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I know, it’s true, given the distance. But thank you very much for that introduction. And, Administrator Power, thank you very much for being here and taking the time to be a part of this important conversation.

So, as you well know, within the first month of taking office President Biden issued a memorandum that directed various parts of the US government responsible for foreign policy, such as USAID, to prioritize efforts to advance LGBTQI+ rights around the world. How are those efforts going? And what have been the biggest challenges?

SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you so much. And thanks to everybody for turning out. It’s a great energy in the room, great energy this month, and much needed, because we harness this energy to try to do this work in the world.

Well, first to say that USAID is one of fifteen agencies that is being responsive to President Biden’s direction to promote and protect and respect the human rights of LGBTQIA+ people around the world. And I’d say I feel very fortunate every day, no matter what issue I’m working on, to be at USAID, because we have this toolkit. We have programming in public health on maternal and child health. Of course we have PEPFAR, where we work with the State Department and CDC, which has, of course, made a major difference, saving twenty-five million lives and 5.5 million babies is the estimate for the good that it has done over time. And that’s had a particular effect on LGBTQIA+ communities around the world.

But beyond that, we do agriculture. We do economic growth and inclusion, livelihoods work. We’ve helped vaccinate the world. In many parts of the world, if you are LGBTQIA+, coming forward to seek social services may risk something near and dear to you, depending on the legal environment in which you’re working.

When the fallout from COVID occurred and you saw such economic devastation around the world, given the fact that LGBTQIA+ people are often working in the informal sector and may have had, in some instances, less backup, the kinds of crises that have befallen the planet have a disparate impact on marginalized communities and those that have, in a sense, faced preexisting conditions, you might say, including discrimination, stigmatization, violence, et cetera.

So we went forth. We have tripled the size of our staff. We have the great Jay Gilliam, who many of you work with, as our lead LGBTQIA+ coordinator at USAID. That position had been unfilled in the previous administration. This fiscal year we’ve had a dedicated pool of resources of around sixteen million dollars, which does everything from spot emergency assistance to people who need legal defense because they’re being rounded up in some cases or evicted to working really closely with the State Department to help identify people who would be eligible for asylum or to become refugees because of their vulnerability, because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

So, you know, I’d say you see a massive surge in programming, in attention. But for me, I think the—and the thing that Jay has helped us so much with and the team, if you believe in development in 2023—I mean, and actually seeing development outcomes that matter and reversing development setbacks that have occurred—it’s not enough to have, like, a little pot of money, or a big pot of money, even, dedicated to LGBTQIA+. All the programming we do on food security, on education, on health, needs to be—and the list goes on—needs to be attentive and intentional about going out of our way to make sure that we are not just practicing development but inclusive development.

And the biggest challenges—I’m sure we’ll get into them, and I know many in the audience are seized with them—is criminalization, and even in countries that already have criminalized LGBTQIA+ status, you know, new moves, desire to render more salient laws that may be on the books but being ignored by some communities, work in places like Uganda, because of the introduction of the anti-homosexuality act, vigilantes and citizens and others taking what’s happening in the legal space or in the parliament and getting signed into law and viewing it as license to do whatever the hell they want to vulnerable people.

And so it’s not just happening in Uganda. That’s, of course, something that has happened very recently. But we see the instrumentalization of the human-rights agenda that so many in the world aspire to see progress, that being turned on its head. And in places where anti-democratic forces are ascendant or are getting either support or abetted or at least not counteracted by authorities, you see those voices getting louder. And even when there’s not a law and that kind of legal ballast behind those voices, that, in and of itself, is terrifying and exclusionary and a deterrent, again, for these communities to come forward and access these programs at the very time where we’re really seeking to make sure that we’re leaving no one behind.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: So since you brought up Uganda and also your point about, you know, USAID has all of these programs. But there are countries where just presenting yourself to make yourself—avail yourself of these programs could put you in danger. So the question is what is the United States government doing or can it do to push back on what’s happening in countries like Uganda?

SAMANTHA POWER: Well, to start—and I would start with what I consider a statement of the obvious but, nonetheless, I think does need to be said because it’s not always the way things are done, which is you start from the proposition of nothing about you without you. This question of tactics and how to prevail or how to counteract are super complicated, right.

Imagine, like, being part of the Biden administration and the tactical questions about how we moved the Inflation Reduction Act and, you know, convinced Joe Manchin to be part of the—I mean, when we’re operating in someone else’s country, you know, understanding, you know, the complex ecosystem in which we work, drawing, I should say, at USAID very heavily on the expertise of our local staff, two-thirds of—at least-two thirds of USAID staff abroad are nationals of the countries in which we work so they can be a great resource, but fundamentally it is the communities that are going to be affected by these laws that provide cues to us on how vocal to be, how much to signal in a deterrent way in advance of the movement of a piece of legislation, which risks then putting the United States at the center of a national drama and potentially triggering nationalism and other forces or some, you know, historical, you know, dynamics—let’s put it that way.

And so—but even what I’ve just said is kind of simplistic because there is no one view. I mean, even within an organization people are debating at fever pitch, you know, what the right approach is. This is just really, really hard.

But we do come in with humility and really try to be in lockstep with the groups who we may have funded in the past or may be funding currently, and in the case of the anti-homosexuality act in—that Uganda has moved forward with President Biden was very clear that the law should be repealed. Came out with a public statement. Has talked—and this is one of the approaches that we have taken not only in Uganda but in other places that are threatening to put in place similar laws—talking about the effects, Jonathan, on this incredibly successful partnership that we’ve had in combating HIV/AIDS.

There’s one report in Uganda that shows that service utilization is down by more than 60 percent since the law was introduced and that’s people who are afraid of coming forward for vital health services because they’re afraid it could lead to their arrest or it could lead to their eviction or it could lead to vigilante violence.

And so here we are, you know, trying to get this epidemic under control by 2030 and we’re part of this grand global coalition and at the same time these steps are being taken that would set back not only the health of LGBTQI+ communities but the health in this instance of all Ugandans.

And so, in a sense, you know, really looking at what the practical effects are of being seen to license community involvement in discrimination, stigmatization, and even law enforcement as you see citizens, again, taking things into their own hands but trying to find also arguments that have broad appeal in terms of services or programs that a broad swath of the societies in which we work are enthusiastic about, you know, showing the link between those—for example, private sector investment. There’s not one country in which USAID works that isn’t interested in fueling economic growth recovering from COVID, getting young people to work.

Well, what does it mean if the multinational companies that we and the Commerce Department and the State Department have been working with to try to encourage them to invest in these countries? Their own anti-discrimination policies and values are not going to make that an attractive place for investment.

So it’s a combination of, you know, the State Department taking steps now potentially to sanction individuals involved in this measure in Uganda. That’s been something that’s been messaged publicly and, again, these sort of practical effects that are going to extend practical harms, that are going to extend beyond if this law is not repealed.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: And so let’s talk about another country. I was thinking when you say, in response to my question about Uganda, talking to the groups on the ground, getting their input into what USAID and what the US government should do, let’s talk about Ukraine. There’s a war going on, but hopefully at some point that war will end and reconstruction will begin. Where does the LGBTQI+ community play—come into the conversation about rebuilding? Both from making sure that they are whole in Ukrainian society, but also that their rights are protected and respected?

SAMANTHA POWER: Well, this is a complex issue and a complex question, and I could come at it a few different ways. But, first, let me just say that, you know, part of Putin’s motivation, as we well know, for invading Ukraine was watching Ukrainian society, the Ukrainian government, move at really rapid pace to integrate itself into Europe. And, yes, that carries with it a lot of economic benefit for young people in Ukraine, but much of the impetus behind what was, you know, between really 2013 and last year, such a shift, right, in an orientation that went in one direction and then shifted in another direction. Much of it was values-based.

That doesn’t mean everybody was with all aspects of the European agenda, or the European program, or the European Convention on Human Rights immediately. We’ve seen that, of course. But, you know, part of what Ukraine is fighting for and part of what Russia is trying to squelch is liberalization, is broad understanding of who human rights protections apply to. Now, again, that’s a kind of general statement.

What we do—then, shall I say, of course, following Russia’s invasion Ukraine’s work to liberalize and build checks and balances and build in human rights protections, although not making headlines in the American or even the European headline, that work has accelerated. Which is, frankly, remarkable that a country that’s fighting for its life and its people can walk and chew gum at the same time. But meaning, you know, you see [LGBTQI+] protections progressing not only through legislative measures, and regulation, and as we vet—as the Ukrainians vet and we support programs to vet judges, you know, their human rights credentials being assessed in this much more comprehensive way.

But also, again, as the economy—parts of the economy actually flourish—I know this is hard to believe. But, like, the tech sector grew by, I think, seven or eight percent last year. You know, that itself, young people being out and being integrated in the world, there’s just things happening in the society that I think is going to put Ukraine, you know, and above all [LGBTQI+] communities and individuals, in a much more supportive legal and social ecosystem as the whole rationale for the war is about integrating into Europe. And the criteria by which—that Ukraine is going to need to meet, the roadmap and so forth, is going to entail much stronger protections than have existed in the past.

To your point, I think, if I understood it, about reconstruction, again, that’s incumbent on this intentionality that I was talking about. USAID is a critical partner. I was just meeting with the minister of finance yesterday talking about reconstruction out of the recent conference in the United Kingdom. You know, as we think about procurement and nondiscrimination in procurement, you know, how are those checks and those protections built in? As we think right now about health services and making sure that those are restored every place we can, even places close to the front line or as territory is liberated, how does USAID support flow in a manner where we are constantly vigilant to how inclusive those services are, and whether or not they are provided?

I mean, you know, we’ve actually managed to distribute I think it’s something like sixteen million antiretrovirals in Ukraine, you know, just since the war, you know, has started. So, you know, in terms of the mainstream PEPFAR and HIV/AIDS programs, like, those have continued. We’ve managed to be able to keep those afloat. And that took real intentionality on the part of our health team and our Ukraine team.

But I think, again, the principle that we want to bring to everything we do in terms of inclusive development is just that it’s a design feature of any program that we do that we are looking to make sure we are going out of our way, just as we would for religious minorities and on behalf of religious freedom or for women in countries where women are discriminated against, to make sure that we are reaching the full spectrum of beneficiaries, and that any kind of social deterrent or normative factors are ones that we try to circumvent to make sure that we are being inclusive because that’s going to be in the interests of all—again, all individuals living in a country economically and in terms of their ability to—in this instance, to integrate into Europe.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: So what would you—what do you say to people who question why supporting LGBTQI+ rights should be a part of American foreign policy? Because you could see there might be some people around the world, or even in our own country, who think, you know, I’m down with the community, but why make that part of our foreign policy.

SAMANTHA POWER: Well, I think one way to take that question, which we do hear a lot and you might even say increasingly in certain quarters, but—is to imagine the counterfactual. You know, imagine a world in which US taxpayer resources are expended in a manner that, you know, in a sense perpetuates or deepens exclusion of individuals who are really vulnerable. I mean, that would be bad. And not only that, it would have the flavor, I think, in many of the countries we work, for a country that for all of our imperfections has long stood for human rights, it would have—it would have the effect, I believe, of being seen to kind of legitimate some of the rhetoric and actions and legal measures that are being put forward.

So, you know, there’s not, like, some place of neutrality here, right? We are the United States. We, you know, for many, many years in a very bipartisan way have stood for human rights. We have stood behind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which doesn’t have exceptions or footnotes excluding particular communities. We stand for implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, which explicitly say that no person should be left behind—again, without footnotes or caveats. So I think there are really hard questions about tactics, about in some places how vocal to be to not, again, put ourselves at the center of a narrative, because that in some sense is just what people who would seek to repress or terrorize vulnerable communities would like to see happen. So, again, it’s very, very difficult on the ground to find the right balance of tools.

You know, if you look at the Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda, the—you know, we spoke out with thirty-one countries. We spoke out with the United Nations independent expert that US diplomacy, when I was the UN as ambassador, was absolutely critical in securing the creation of that position. And the fact that that position has been renewed three times now, including most recently last year, speaks to, again, changing norms. The fact that international instruments more and more are including—sometimes explicitly, sometimes less so—[LGBTQI+] rights as human rights, the fact that we see same-sex marriage legalized this last year in Estonia and Slovenia, but also decriminalization in places as varied as Barbados and Singapore means that these principles are getting traction.

And these international instruments—and this is a critical part of President Biden’s agenda—are really important, Jonathan, because it gives citizens in a country, you know, where on the books there’s lots of happy talk about human rights, but it gives [LGBTQI+] organizations and individuals, you know, something to hang their arguments on; something to say, look, but the United Nations Human Rights Council just appointed this individual, this individual says this. And so when we can act in company, in a coalition, I think that’s always advantageous, and that is something we seek to do.

When the norms themselves—I was part of getting the Security Council for the first time in what at that time was the seventy-five-year history of the UN to condemn the targeting of individuals on their—on the basis of their sexual orientation—that had never happened before—and hearing from around the world what it meant for the United Nations Security Council to have done that. I mean, this was something that was a consensus document; you know, the Russian Federation, a number of African governments that had laws that were not respectful of these human rights on the books went along with that.

And so, again, thinking tactically about how to do it and how these norms become more salient in international law, I think, is very important. But it is in our interest to have maximum economic inclusion that’s consistent with our economic objectives as a country and our foreign-policy interests. It is in our interest to fight repression against whomever it is being carried out. And it is in our foreign-policy interest to stand up for our values.

President Biden’s polling, I think, reflects broad approval, surging poll numbers; I think a tripling in global polls about—when the question is posed, do you think Joe Biden will do the right thing, a tripling from his predecessor. And if you talk to people around the world and sort of get a sense of why, the fact that human rights are so central to President Biden’s argument and democracy and the importance of democracy delivering, that’s a major distinguishing feature not only of this administration but really of US foreign policy from some of the big geopolitical actors who are more and more active.

So if we go quiet, just in the same way that if we were to go quiet on the rights of Christians in societies in which they are being persecuted, and just defer to prevailing, you know, what is taken as prevailing popular sentiment, I think we would really shortchange what is distinguishing about American foreign policy.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: One more question from me before we open it up to Q&A, and that’s this. Everything you say is, you know, terrific and wonderful in terms of what the administration is doing, American values. But I just wonder, when you travel around the world or talk to your counterparts, particularly those in, say, Uganda and elsewhere, how do you respond to what they might say, such as, you know, well, your own country’s, you know, no—you know, no garden party. You’ve got book bans and drag-queen story hours being banned and don’t-say-gay laws. And we’re awaiting a Supreme Court decision, possibly tomorrow, definitely by Friday, on whether a cake decorator can say, no, I’m not going to decorate your cake because your same-sex marriage, you know, goes against my beliefs.

How do you deal with that when that is thrown back in your face from foreign leaders?

SAMANTHA POWER: You know, we have a policy that Jay has helped shepherd through USAID which will be the first-of-its-kind LGBTQIA+ policy that’ll be out soon. And one of its many, I think, important features is it speaks of the importance of going forth in a spirit of humility and ally-ship. And I’ve already spoken, I think, a little bit about the ally-ship point.

But in general—you know, you didn’t mention the insurrection. You know, like—

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, I mean, it wasn’t—

SAMANTHA POWER: There’s plenty—there’s—

JONATHAN CAPEHART: It wasn’t an LGBTQIA+ insurrection. So I figured I’d just leave—

SAMANTHA POWER: No, that’s a good point.

JONATHAN CAPEHART:—leave that out. But go on.

SAMANTHA POWER: No, but what I mean is in general we are standing up for democracy and human rights as we are facing domestically very, very significant challenges. And I’ve broadened the aperture a little bit from your question, though your question is very valid, you know, as focused on our discussion, our topic for today.

But I don’t even think we can think about LGBTQIA+ rights outside of the broader context of the anti-democratic movements that exist all over the world, including—you know, which include not recognizing results of elections, including resorting to violence, including, you know, some cases partnering with, you know, outside repressive actors who would seek to widen divisions within democracies.

So, you know, the statistics, it’s—you know, I think it’s sixteen years of freedom in decline around the world. And what we see is attacks on minorities generally—sometimes religious minorities; sometimes LGBTQI+ communities—are often the canary in the coal mine about a broader set of measures and a broader kind of consolidation of power away from the people and in the center. And certainly, a diminishment of checks and balances. I think that’s the abiding feature. And minority rights and the rights of marginalized communities fundamentally are checks on majoritarianism in our country and globally.

So, you know, I think if you go—and I’m not saying that we don’t have, you know, as you put it, kind of thrown back at us things that are happening in this country. But I think really since President Obama, and very much carried through with President Biden, we tend to kind of preempt that moment by situating the dialogue about [LGBTQI+] rights in our own struggles, and not leaving the elephant in the room, you know, over here. But to say, look, we’re—this is—we’re in the midst of, you know, many of these same challenges. There are forces in our countries—in our country that would also wish to go back to what is remembered as a simpler time.

And, you know, often I think that actually sets the stage for a more productive conversation, because it’s not a finger-wagging—you know, you may condemn something that has happened and use the leverage of the United States to demand, you know, a repeal. But it is not from a glass house that we are having conversations like this. And I was just in Africa, and I’ll be traveling again. I mean, the dialogue that we have is a humble dialogue. But it is one that has a North Star that I think can animate us both and that is rooted, fundamentally, not only in American values, at their core, but in international instruments and in universal values.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: And so we’re going to open it up to questions. There is a microphone, oh, I thought it was on a stand. It’s an actual person. Thank you. Thank you very much. We’re going to go until about—if I can find my thing—until about quarter to four. So the microphone is there. Short questions, so we can get more answers in. Go ahead.

Q: Hi, Administrator Power. My name is Ryan Arick. I’m an assistant director here at the Atlantic Council. I’m really thrilled to have you here today.

I wanted to ask a question related to US development assistance to Ukraine, and specifically how we’re looking at the LGBTQI+ angle as far as our assistance during the ongoing war. I would appreciate your thoughts. Thank you.

SAMANTHA POWER: You want to go one by one, or?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Yeah.

SAMANTHA POWER: OK.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Quickly.

SAMANTHA POWER: OK. So in brief, one of the things you’ll see, again, in the forthcoming policy, is a broad emphasis on thinking within USAID and within our humanitarian emergency programing about inclusion and about proactive outreach and services. I think there’s been—we’ve always, of course, been for an inclusive process to find and to serve beneficiaries. But to think—you know, to think that all beneficiaries will come forward equally in all communities is not accurate. And so, you know, how this plays out in any specific crisis area, you know, that’s going to be fundamentally up to our engagement with our implementing partners, like the World Food Program, like the ICRC and others. But there is a broad embrace of inclusive response and a broad recognition that gravity alone is not going to get you there.

Again, we’re quite far along in Ukraine because I think the government has every incentive—you know, not saying that there isn’t discrimination that occurs in Ukraine, or that some of those fears don’t still exist. But there are a lot of incentives pulling policy and enforcement in a constructive direction, given the European journey that they are very committed to. But imagine, you know, in other parts of the world where there isn’t that, you know, legal framework or that political will at high levels and so that’s why crisis is going to be very important.

The other thing I’d say is, of course, just continuing our HIV/AIDS work full speed ahead, any work we do in human rights, thinking—so, again, there’s the dedicated LGBTQI+ work and then there’s making sure that all of our programming in these other areas is inclusive of that.

So just—and, finally, just we’ve done a lot with hotlines. There’s so much trauma, so much need for psychosocial service and care. We work very closely with Mrs. Zelensky as well, who has really pushed mental health and so forth. So you will see both in our development programming and in our emergency humanitarian programming, provided the resources are there, which we have to work with Congress to continue to mobilize, but a very significant allocation as well to recognizing the trauma and then the unique traumas that may apply to different communities, including this one.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: OK. We’ve got six questions, ten minutes. So what I want to really try to do is two questions at a time. And, Madam Administrator, if you could—a little more brief—to the first two, ask the questions and then we’ll have the administrator answer. Quick questions.

Q: Hi, Administrator Power. My name is Katie. I’m a graduate student at Johns Hopkins SAIS right in Dupont Circle.

And my question for you kind of revolves around the other countries we haven’t talked about. We’ve talked a lot about Ukraine, Uganda. But what should the USAID and other people in the United States what other countries should we focus on for human rights violations, especially in the community?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: OK. Great.

I’m going to get one more.

Q: Hi, Administrator. My name is Divya. I’m an undergraduate at Stanford University and I’m currently an intern at the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency.

My question for you is how and if you have handled and talked about tech governance in regards to LGBTQI+ rights and misinformation, perhaps, regarding HIV/AIDS, vaccines, and more.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: OK. Two simple questions—in nine minutes. I’m going to—I’m keeping us on time.

SAMANTHA POWER: So on the first question, I would say that there is a spate now of laws, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa but not only, that are at various stages of legislative movement. Let’s put it that way.

Now, what focus entails, again, you know, I think filtering it through what do our partners on the ground think would be most advantageous for any particular individual or entity or institution to do, as we’ve discussed, it’s—you know, figuring that out is no easy proposition. But I think the New York Times recently did a study that did a lay down of how many country—what stage of passage, you know, these laws were.

I mean, it’s kind of—it’s kicked up what’s happened in Uganda and even our response to it has kicked up, you know, more vocal leadership to push through further exacerbating criminalization measures as, by the way, have really important positive decisions that have been made in Africa.

That, in turn, has generated a backlash and we’ve seen something very similar here, of course, over many, many decades where anti-discrimination ordinances, for example, in Florida—you know, I mean, decades ago—then kicked off major—you know, very, very pronounced counter reactions, massive fundraising, et cetera. That’s happening, too, where for a step forward it then, you know, ignites, you know, certain forces and antibodies and then you see, you know, proactive moves that really can set back those rights.

So, again, the tactics I think we’d have to be very, very case specific. But, you know, where I would—especially for those of you who are in civil society or not in the government per se, the actual support for the organizations. And you’ll have the chance, as well, in this country—those of you who are active in the LGBTQI+ community—through the Welcome Corps at the State Department—this is—I’m sorry I’m going on, but this is a very exciting development that we will actually have the chance—in addition to processing people who are being persecuted on the grounds of their sexual orientation or gender identity, we will have the chance as community members to welcome these individuals. Now, that infrastructure is being built and it’s not, you know—you know, yet where there’s a number for you to call, but all of us will have a—well, there’s a number to call for Welcome Corps, but I’m saying very specifically—

SAMANTHA POWER: For—from this—OK. I was told that we were—we were still some weeks away from that. Well, what is the number that people should call, then, if they want—

AUDIENCE MEMBER: There’s a link on—

SAMANTHA POWER: What is the link?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: RainbowRailroad.org.

SAMANTHA POWER: OK. That’s the State Department program?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: No.

SAMANTHA POWER: No, no, no, OK. So I’m—sorry, I was talking—

AUDIENCE MEMBER:—to Welcome Corps.

SAMANTHA POWER: OK, great. OK. So RainbowRailroad.org will refer you. I think the State Department piece we are still moving out to make sure that these partnerships can be ignited in rapid fire.

And then the second question, Jonathan, was?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I wrote in my notes tech governance.

SAMANTHA POWER: Tech governance.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Yes.

SAMANTHA POWER: Yes is the short answer. I’ve engaged them—

JONATHAN CAPEHART: We have—we have five minutes and five questions to go.

SAMANTHA POWER: Yes. I have—I have engaged them on disinformation generally, and this is a very important subcomponent. Discrimination isn’t new. Persecution isn’t new. The amount of disinformation, including deepfakes showing President Biden vilifying LGBTQI+—I mean, you know, these things are really exacerbating an already very challenging situation.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: OK. And so we have one, two, three, four, five questions, five minutes. Lord Jesus. All right.

Here’s what I want to do. I want you each to ask your very brief question so your question at least gets articulated, and then Administrator Power will answer. Real quickly.

SAMANTHA POWER: All five.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: All five. All five. Because now we have four minutes.

Q: Thank you very much.

Very quickly, what would you say to other countries that stand on principle of noninterference, we don’t get to tell other governments how to treat their people? Very briefly. Thank you.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: OK. Thank you.

Q: Yes. My name is Bishop Joseph Tolton.

Domestically in our country, White supremacy one can argue is cradled by the far religious right in our country. These actors are also responsible for the racialization of homophobia across Africa. Are there whole-of-government conversations about how to hold these actors accountable for their racialized efforts?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Great question.

Q: Hi. David Stacy, Human Rights Campaign.

As you know, nondiscrimination is a touchstone of equality, and the administration right now is reviewing the requirements for grantees and cooperative agreements and across the foreign assistance agencies. Can you speak to the need to do that and USAID’s role in helping the other agencies do something where we’re applying it across the board with all of the agencies on an equal basis?

Q: Hi. Mark Bromley with Council for Global Equality.

You spoke about the value of both dedicated LGBTQI+ funding and integrated funding, and we’re excited that that fifteen million is increased to twenty-five million this year. But on the integration point, how are you thinking about measuring integration for LGBTQI+ persons, particularly in places where, you know, being [LGBTQI+] may be criminalized, it’s difficult/dangerous to measure? How do we make sure that’s more than lip service and that that integration is really happening? Because that is where the true value lies.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: OK. Last question.

Q: Hi there. My name is Bryce Dawson from Counterpart International.

You mentioned the difficulties of minimizing intrusion and tactically advocating for LGBTQI+ rights in other nations, as well as mentioned potential procurement policies to ensure [LGBTQI+] protections. Do you have any in the pipeline that you’re working on or anything in the future?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I want to thank everyone for their—for their questions, all five of you or seven altogether. Madam Administrator, you have two minutes.

SAMANTHA POWER: Thirty seconds.

Well, you know, I think that in general we—in our engagements on human rights issues, we hear a lot about noninterference. I mean, there’s no question. I heard about it a lot at the UN. We hear it often from, you know, countries like the Russian Federation that have invaded another country and tried to take over the other country. We hear it from countries that are providing surveillance technology, you know, to other countries, or fueling disinformation in the countries in which we are working.

So, you know, it is a shield. It is an important one to take seriously, because we also, of course, respect sovereignty, and territorial integrity, and so forth. So USAID is active across sectors and involved in these countries. And this agenda, I think, is—and, by that, it’s the human rights agenda more broadly—is central to how we believe as well that we will get the most out of the programs that we are doing across sectors.

And that brings me—and that’s the kind of conversation we have. Is, like, I was using Uganda as an example about making sure that we are also making the pragmatic case for people who are very skeptical because, again, they—there is a kind of seamlessness to the way our work across governance and human rights in citizen security and in the broad sweep of development sectors—from agriculture, to education, to health, et cetera—they do come together in service of development objectives. And that’s what the SDG’s also enshrine.

And then I’m not going to be able to do justice to the other questions in full, beyond I think the point about measuring integration is very important. You know, for those who are not making their identity known to us, that’s not going to be something that, you know, we will be able to measure in that sense. But I think these are the kinds of things that we are working through, through this policy, to make sure that this isn’t just, yes, here’s our standalone programming, and then by everything else we do, you know, operates in the way that we’ve always done it.

And so it’s not going to be, you know, instant, where everything is happening all at once. But all of our missions have to have inclusive development advisors or somebody—and this will be evident out of the policy—but somebody who is a focal point for working on LGBTQI+ rights and programming. So we’re hopeful that that, plus our new office of chief economist, will help us develop a kind of methodology that will be responsive to this concern that somehow it’s going to be invisible and not done, which is certainly our objective is for it to be done and, when appropriate, visible. And certainly, at least visible to us so we know whether we’re achieving what we’re setting out to achieve.

And then, lastly, I would just say, because it’s coming, the point about nondiscrimination among beneficiaries is just really important. And that guidance will be forthcoming, we hope, soon.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Do you have any thoughts on the other question about—I wrote it down real fast, but I know I got it wrong—about the racialized religious efforts on LGBTQI+ rights that have been happening?

SAMANTHA POWER: Well, I guess all I would say on that—because there are others in our government, I think, who are working on the kind of conversation that was asked about—is just this is another part of the response to the noninterference charge, is—that we do hear from people who don’t want to be engaged on human rights issues. And that is that there are a lot of actors from outside who are very active actually in pushing certain forms of legislation that would have these discriminatory, and these exclusionary, and these dangerous effects. And so, again, the noninterference claim is usually made in a selective way.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: And with that, and just two minutes overtime, Samantha Power, nineteenth administrator of USAID. Thank you very, very much for being here.

SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you.

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One of the most glaring examples of governments’ poor performance is the egregiously low number of victims governments identify—a problem I routinely faced over the last two decades working on this issue as a federal prosecutor, nongovernmental organization leader, and US ambassador. The United Nations (UN) Protocol to Combat Trafficking in Persons is one of the most widely subscribed instruments of international law, under which governments commit to identifying the people whom traffickers exploit. According to the latest TIP report, however, governments around the world reported identifying only 115,324 human trafficking victims in the last year. This number comes from data governments provide to the US State Department about the number of victims whom law enforcement or nongovernmental organizations identify and who receive protection services. Although this number is higher than last year’s number, it is slightly lower than the high of 118,932 victims identified in 2019.

Meanwhile, the estimated number of human trafficking victims is increasing. Compare the number of victims that governments reported identifying with the UN estimate based on surveys and data modeling. The UN estimates that traffickers are compelling 27.6 million people into forced labor or sex trafficking.

If 27.6 million victims exist and governments are only identifying 115,324 victims, then the world only identifies less than half of 1 percent of the estimated victims (0.4 percent). This means that 99.6 percent of victims remain trapped by their traffickers, unable to decide where they work or who touches their bodies.

Sex trafficking dominates the discussion of governments’ lackluster victim identification efforts. Forced labor has received less attention, but in this year’s TIP report governments identified a higher number of forced labor victims than in any prior year: 24,340. This improvement, along with governments prosecuting the largest number of labor traffickers, is encouraging. However, when the victim identification statistics are isolated for just forced labor, governments are only identifying 0.1 percent of the total estimated forced labor victims.

Victim identification is made even more difficult due to state-sanctioned human trafficking. The TIP report found that in eleven countries, the governments themselves trafficked people. These offenders include Cuba, North Korea, Eritrea, and China, where millions of Uyghurs are forced to work in Xinjiang reeducation camps. It is especially odious when the government charged with identifying victims is, in fact, the perpetrator.

Without effective victim identification, governments cannot hold traffickers accountable, and people of goodwill cannot offer tailored, trauma-informed services to trafficking survivors. Society cannot address what it cannot identify. Victim identification is the prerequisite to successful prosecution and prevention of this crime. Yet, governments’ rate of victim identification is appallingly low.

It is time for governments to match their rhetoric with their resources and dramatically increase funding for prevention efforts, investigators, prosecutors, service providers, and trauma-informed care. Specialized investigative units should no longer be paper tigers. Survivor leadership should no longer be an ornamental add-on. Holding companies and individuals accountable for committing human trafficking crimes should no longer be elective. Human trafficking victims should no longer be prosecuted for the unlawful acts their traffickers compel them to commit.

Improvement and success must begin with increased victim identification. There are several practical steps that concerned citizens should ask their governments to take:

• Mandate that educators and health care providers become mandatory reporters.
• Invest in specialized investigative units and prosecutors focused on stopping traffickers. 
• Create pathways for survivors to rid themselves of criminal records caused by their traffickers. 
• Ensure companies are not using forced laborers to produce solar panels, electric vehicles, apparel, tomatoes, and batteries. 
• Fund trauma-informed services for survivors. 
• Elevate and center survivors in the fight to put traffickers out of business.

Traffickers thrive in an ecosystem where mere intentions and underfunded public justice systems are their only challenges. It is time for leaders to arise and become champions for freedom. Millions of victims count on governments, civil society, and faith communities to do more than merely care about their plight, designate awareness days, and think good thoughts. Survivors need the world to accelerate its strategic investment and meaningful action to increase victim identification.

John Cotton Richmond is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, chief impact officer at Atlas Free, president of the Libertas Council, and former US ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons.

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In line with other surveys of public opinion in wartime Ukraine, the KIIS poll identified strikingly similar attitudes across the country, with 75% of respondents in eastern Ukraine ruling out any territorial concessions compared to 84% in central Ukraine and 86% in both the south and west. This illustrates the unifying impact the Russian invasion has had on Ukrainian public opinion, and underlines the significance of the ongoing war as a major milestone in modern Ukraine’s nation-building journey.

Until very recently, international media coverage of Ukraine often depicted the country as deeply divided between pro-Russian east and pro-European west. This was always an oversimplification and is now clearly no longer the case. Instead, attitudes toward key issues such as the war with Russia and membership of NATO have converged, with strong support for Euro-Atlantic integration evident in every region of Ukraine. Meanwhile, pro-Russian sentiment has plummeted to record lows, especially in the predominantly Russian-speaking regions of southern and eastern Ukraine that have witnessed the worst of the fighting.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

This latest poll is an important data point that confirms Ukrainian resolve to achieve the complete de-occupation of the country. It also highlights the problems of viewing the current counteroffensive as a make-or-break moment in Ukraine’s war effort.

Some commentators have argued that failure to achieve a major military breakthrough in the coming months would cause a sharp decline in international support for Ukraine and force Kyiv to accept the necessity of some kind of compromise with the Kremlin. In reality, however, the Ukrainian public is staunchly opposed to the kind of land-for-peace deal that would likely form the basis of any negotiated settlement. As long as Ukrainians remain determined to fight on, few Western leaders will be prepared to abandon them.  

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seems to have a good grasp of the public mood in wartime Ukraine. He has consistently stated that Ukraine’s goal is the liberation of all regions currently under Russian occupation. This uncompromising position has attracted some international criticism, with China pushing for the resumption of peace talks and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urging Ukraine in April to cede Crimea to Russia in order to end the war.

Ukraine’s Western partners have been far more supportive, providing growing quantities of vital military aid while emphasizing that it is up to Kyiv alone to define what would constitute an acceptable peace. Following some initial hesitation, most Western leaders now also recognize the need for Russia’s invasion to end in a decisive defeat, and acknowledge that anything less would have disastrous consequences for international security.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

Conflict Russia Security & Defense Ukraine

It is easy to understand why so many Ukrainians reject the idea of striking a deal with Moscow, despite the terrible toll of the war and the inevitability of further trauma.

Perhaps more than anything else, this determination to liberate the whole of Ukraine reflects an acute awareness of the genocidal agenda underpinning Russia’s invasion and the horrors taking place in Russian-occupied regions. Every time the Ukrainian army advances and liberates territory, officials uncover the same grim evidence of war crimes including summary executions, torture, abductions, sexual violence, and mass deportations. For the vast majority of Ukrainians, the idea of condemning millions of their compatriots to this fate is simply unthinkable.

Many in Ukraine are also convinced that attempts to strike a bargain with the Kremlin are both futile and dangerous. Opponents of a compromise settlement note that the current war is no mere border dispute requiring minor territorial concessions, and point to Russia’s increasingly undisguised commitment to extinguishing Ukrainian statehood. They warn that Russian leaders would view any negotiated peace deal as a pause in hostilities, which they would then use to regroup before launching the next stage of the invasion.

Based on Russia’s own actions over the past sixteen months of full-scale war, it is difficult to see how any kind of compromise would prove workable. Putin himself has openly compared his invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great, and in September 2022 announced the annexation of four partially occupied Ukrainian regions representing around 20% of the entire country. If he is not decisively defeated on the battlefield, he will almost certainly seek to go further and attempt to seize more Ukrainian land.

A further factor fueling Ukraine’s commitment to complete de-occupation is the strong desire to free the country once and for all from the historic threat of Russian imperialism. This reflects widespread Ukrainian perceptions of the current war as the latest episode in what is actually a far longer history of imperial aggression that stretches back many hundreds of years.

For centuries, Russian imperial influence has shaped Ukrainian history in ways that have caused untold suffering to generations of Ukrainians while keeping the country trapped in a state of arrested development. Unless Russia is defeated and forced to withdraw entirely from Ukrainian land, this bitter cycle will continue. Ukrainians are under no illusions regarding the high price of victory, but most feel that the price of a premature peace would be far higher, and refuse to pass this burden on to their children and grandchildren. Anyone seeking to end the war without Russian defeat must first reckon with this resolve.     

Peter Dickinson is the editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service. 

Further reading

UkraineAlert Jun 11, 2023

Ukraine’s counteroffensive will likely create new reintegration challenges

By Lesia Dubenko

If Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive is successful, Kyiv will be faced with the significant challenge of reintegrating communities that have lived under Russian occupation for extended periods, writes Lesia Dubenko.

Civil Society Conflict

UkraineAlert Jun 7, 2023

Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive will aim to keep the Russians guessing

By Peter Dickinson

Speculation is mounting that Ukraine’s hotly anticipated summer counteroffensive may be underway but initial stages are likely to feature probes and diversionary attacks rather than a big push, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Drones

UkraineAlert Jun 6, 2023

Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive is a key moment but long-term resolve remains crucial

By Tennyson Dearing

Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive is an important moment in the war with Russia but it is critical to maintain a sense of perspective and underline the need for long-term Western backing, writes Tennyson Dearing.

Conflict Freedom and Prosperity

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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The post Beyond the counteroffensive: 84% of Ukrainians are ready for a long war appeared first on Atlantic Council.

360/OS

Jun 7, 2023

Activists and experts assemble in Costa Rica to protect human rights in the digital age

By Digital Forensic Research Lab

Our Digital Forensic Research Lab is convening top tech thinkers and human-rights defenders at RightsCon to collaborate on an agenda for advancing rights globally.

Cybersecurity Disinformation

Event transcript

Uncorrected transcript: Check against delivery

Speakers

Tracy Chou
Chief Executive Officer, Block Party

Julie Inman Grant
eSafety Commissioner, Australian Government

Neema Lugangira
Member of Parliament, Tanzania

Fernanda Martins
Director, Internet Lab

Moira Whelan
Director, Democracy and Technology, National Democratic Institute

MOIRA WHELAN: Hi, everybody, and thanks for joining us [for] a conversation about women’s political participation and the consequences of harassment. And before we get started today and I introduce our fantastic panelists, I just wanted to express my thanks to Access Now but especially also to DFRLab, who is cosponsoring this panel in particular. And what we’re going to do today is we’re going to walk through a short introduction, I’ll open the conversation to our participants, and then we’re happy to take your questions online.

So just to get us started, I first wanted to acknowledge that this panel is really a representation of a lot of the incredible work that’s been going on in our community for a really long time. And I would point to organizations that we’ve worked with such as DanishChurchAid, Internews, Policy, and many, many others. Here at RightsCon, there are more than thirty sessions happening to address these issues of online violence against women in politics.

And you know, so first acknowledging that others are doing the work. And then, saying that, some of the organizations that we work with—and I think an expectation we now have—is that if we’re doing this work, we face that harassment and that abuse as a community and as an organization, and that goes along with including the organizations that have helped organize this panel.

So first I want to say a little bit about NDI and how we came to this work. NDI is a democracy organization that trains women around the world to help them run for office, help them prepare for their life in civil society and the public sphere. And this issue has become blinking red for us. The number of women who are self-censoring, who are pulling out of politics, who are deciding another path is probably the biggest threat to democracy that we face today.

So we really started down the path of using our traditional models of working on information—on the information space and bringing actors together to address this issue. But we also believe it’s a solvable problem and I want to note that part of what we’re talking about today and the reason we’ve talked about building the community we want to build with our guests is because we want to talk about solutions but also some of the setbacks.

So without further ado, our panelists are Julie Inman Grant, who is the eSafety commissioner of Australia; and also Tracy Chou, who is the founder of Block Party and also an entrepreneur and is—we’re really thrilled to have her; as well as Fernanda Martins, who is the director at Internet Lab; and, finally, Neema Lugangira, who is a member of parliament from Tanzania.

So welcome, all of you, and, Neema, I want to start with you. The thing that we have noticed in doing this work is that it’s very rare for active female politicians to speak up because you don’t want to make, to use your words, this is not the agenda, right. You have other issues as a parliamentarian you want to address.

So I wonder if you can walk us through your personal experience of being so outspoken on the harassment you face and also what that’s done for your political experience.

NEEMA LUGANGIRA: Thank you very much. I, first, want to sincerely thank yourself, Moira, and NDI Tech for facilitating and enabling me to be here at RightsCon. So thank you, once again.

As you rightly said, that being a female in politics, unfortunately, the more outspoken you are, the more popular you are and well known the more abuse you get, and oftentimes you find on social media platforms the abuse that we tend to get it’s a group of people who want to disqualify you, discredit you, belittle you.

So instead of focusing on the issue that you’re presenting, instead of focusing on their agenda, they shift the issue and start focusing on the gender and, unfortunately, being a female politician what they do is they sexualize the issue. So they will sexualize everything that you’ve presented. If it’s a photo they’ll sexualize that. If you happen to take a photo with a guy in a meeting they’ll probably change the backgrounds so just to shift the narrative and to kind of belittle you and kind of shut you up.

And what that has done is, unfortunately, in Africa—and I believe it’s probably the same even in the Global North—is that the number of women in politics or female members of parliament who are active online is very, very minimal.

For example, in Tanzania we have about 146 female MPs and probably less than 5 percent active on social media, using social media for their work, and what that does—what that does very quickly it has a huge detrimental effect because, one, it limits our own visibility and if you’re not visible as a politician it limits your own reelection.

But it also takes a step back. You know, organizations like NDI are making strides to increase the number of women in politics but young women, aspiring women, they see us women in politics who are supposedly in power but we are being abused and we’re helpless and nobody comes to the defense of women in politics.

Like, I’ve seen it over and over again when a female in politics is being abused nobody comes to their defense. Actually, more people mob attack. It’s almost it comes—it comes kind of with the territory.

And just to sum up, I decided that since we’re a group that nobody speaks for us so I’m going to speak for members of parliament. I’m going to speak for women in politics, and as a result of that, yes, it brings about more abuse but then some of us have to go through it so that we can address this issue because I want to see more women in politics visible so that we can strengthen their visibility because we are doing a lot of incredible work and it needs to be seen.

MOIRA WHELAN: I couldn’t agree with you more and I think, quickly, I want to shift to you, Julie, because, you know, there is that issue of full participation and it’s something you’ve really focused on at eSafety in Australia and getting to sort of moving us from the research that we’ve worked on to the solutions.

I wonder if you can walk everyone through here this sort of example of addressing some of the concerns that Neema has raised in Australia.

JULIE INMAN GRANT: [For those] who don’t know what an eSafety commissioner is, we’re the first national independent regulator for online harms and online safety. And we were established in 2015, and so there is an Online Safety Act that enables me to take action when Australians report all forms of abuse to social media platforms, gaming sites, dating sites, you name it, and it isn’t taken down. So we serve as that safety net to advocate on behalf of our citizens when things go wrong online. We know tons fall through the cracks. And so we can bridge that inherent power balance that exists.

So I deal with everything from child sexual exploitation to image-based abuse, the non-consensual sharing of intimate images and videos. And I can say that recently we’ve been getting reports of deepfake videos of female politicians and other prominent women. We have a cyberbullying scheme for youth, and an adult cyber abuse scheme, which is at a much higher threshold to make sure that freedom of expression isn’t undermined. But we all realize here that targeted misogynistic abuse is designed to silence voices. And, as you say, women will self-censor.

Now, we—beyond these laws, we focus on prevention, in the first instance. Protection, through these regulatory schemes. And then what I call proactive change. So part of that has to do with putting responsibility back on the platforms themselves through initiatives like Safety by Design. You know, AI is a perfect use case as to how these—the collective brilliance of the technology industry should be used to tackling this at scale and preventing hateful, and misogynistic, and homophobic content from being shared.

So on the prevention side, well, first of all, I should say all of these forms of abuse are gendered. Ninety-six percent of the child sexual abuse material we look at—which happens, sorry to say, at toddler age—96 percent are of girls. Eighty-five percent of our image-based abuse are from women and girls. And then when you get more to the pointy end, we know that 99 percent of women experiencing domestic and family violence are also experiencing an extension of that, be it through technology-facilitated abuse, in 99.3 percent of cases.

So 89 percent of our adult cyber abuse cases are from women, and many of whom are either being cyber-stalked and doxed as [an] extension of domestic and family violence, or by perpetrators who specifically target women. And as Neema said, the way that online abuse against women manifests is different versus men. It’s sexualized. It’s violent. It talks about rape, fertility, supposed virtue, and appearance. It just manifests in very, very different ways. So I’ve had so many politicians say to me, you know, their male counterparts will say: Well, just toughen up, sweetheart, this is politics. Well, it is different.

So I actually tried to start a program called Women in the Spotlight to provide social media self-defense to women politicians, to journalists, to anyone in the public eye. And I was told by a previous government, we can’t fund that. That’s protecting privileged women. So I set up the program anyway, and started to do the training. And we can’t keep up with demand for social media self-defense training. And I don’t need to tell any of you that if being a woman receiving misogynistic abuse isn’t enough, if you’re from a—you have a disability, you end up—you identify as LGBTQI+, or you’re from a diverse background, that kind of abuse is compounded.

So again, I think we’ll continue to persevere. We need these prevention programs. We also know that the average professional woman in Australia is receiving online abuse. So one in three women. And 25 percent of them won’t take a job opportunity or a promotion if it requires them to be online. So we’re starting to see normalization of this kind of abuse across the population. And that’s why I’m trying to use my powers much more strongly to send a message that you cannot abuse people with total impunity. And this also involves penalties and fines for perpetrators, as well as the platforms themselves that refuse to remove content. We always try and work informally first, but I have used my formal powers. And if the platforms don’t comply, I can take them to court and to fine them as well.

MOIRA WHELAN: Well, and we are going to wing our way to Silicon Valley when we get to Tracy, but I wanted to stop in Brazil first and give Fernanda a chance. Because I think one of the things you said, Julie, was really about the intersectional issues as well that are linked to this. But also, the successes that you’ve had as civil society at Internet Lab, first having to prove to governments that this is a problem; second, getting them to pay attention and to work through the process. And I’m wondering if you can tell us a little bit about your involvement working with the government of Brazil.

FERNANDA MARTINS: Yeah, sure. Thank you, Moira, for this question. And thank you, DFRLab, for organize it.

I think Internet Lab, we have been working to improve the way that political gender-based violence is treated by governments independent of the government at the moment. So at this moment also it’s different because we have a progressive government, but at the same time we have parliamentaries that is not defenders of human rights. So the context is our fragile democracy, yet so we have these challenge to understand how we can contribute to this issue in Brazil.

So at this moment we have the fake news bill to trying to address the problems related to platforms, but it is important to mention that in the bill don’t have any mention to gender, any mention to LGBTQAI+ community, and a brief note about the law, political violence law and racism law in Brazil. But it’s like we are running in parallel avenues. It’s not connected. So we are trying to talk to government, talk to private sector, and understand how we can mix different social sectors to address the problem. And I think we have the law approved in 2021 addressing political violence, but we started the enforcement of the law in the last election and it was really weak. We need to just expand more the comprehension and not focus only on banal answers. We need education and other things in this context.

MOIRA WHELAN: Well, and I think that’s really important, especially as Julie was talking about so much the value of implementation and needing to see that it’s not just legal frameworks that are going to get us there.

But all of you have talked about the platforms. All of you have talked about tech. And I want to turn to Tracy now because I do have to tell you a story. Tracy was with us when DFRLab hosted us in Brussels to really introduce this issue and to really put it on the center stage, literally. And we’re big fans of Block Party. But, Tracy, we have a different panel here today. So we were here celebrating the success of Block Party, but I think you should maybe tell us about the current status.

TRACY CHOU: Yes. So, hi, everyone. I’m Tracy. I’m the founder and CEO of Block Party. We build technology to fight harassment online and make the internet safe for everyone. Until last week, our flagship product was available on Twitter to combat harassment, and it is now sadly on hiatus thanks to platform changes.

Before we get to that, maybe some context. I started my career as an early engineer at social media companies that are now very big platforms—at Facebook, Pinterest, and Quora—so I kind of understand how platforms are built and what are their incentives not just at the high levels for the companies, but also for individual people working at those companies.

And separately, I became an activist for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the tech industry, seeing how the people that are in the room really matter for the product that we’re building. That led to me getting a lot of harassment, and so I set out to solve that problem blending together the different parts of my experience…

So what we built on top of Twitter was something to solve my own problem, essentially a sort of spam folder where you can choose who you want to hear from. Everything gets filtered into that folder that you don’t—you might not want to see. You can review it later and take action later, involve your community for help. And it works really well. Like, it was great for me.

Silicon Valley talks about “dogfooding” your own products, building things that you use yourself. And it was great for me to experience the mental health impact of not having to see all of that terrible stuff. It’s not just me. It’s a lot of other folks that we’ve already heard from on this panel, people who are working in politics, people who are activists, academics. It’s been really sad to see that we’ve had to shut down—or, hopefully just put in hiatus. We’re really hopeful that we can bring it back in some capacity in the future. We’re already seeing the outpouring of folks who are who are using our product on Twitter really sad to see it go. There are people who are tweeting every day now saying, like, I miss Block Party, literally every day, because I’m now getting all this harassment that is no longer filtered. So lots more to share on that. That is the current status.

MOIRA WHELAN: Well, Tracy, I’m not going to—I’m going to stay with you for a second, because you should know that here in this room, I have heard repeatedly people saying they miss Block Party. We wish you could be here with us so that you could feel it directly, but we’re sending it to you virtually, because we need products like this. And I think the other aspect of this story that we would love if you could—if you could share it, if you can channel your rage into helping this room help you. You’re an entrepreneur. You’ve been building.

And yet—and it should be very obvious to all of us the business case for creating safe spaces for all people to fully participate online. And yet, your experience in Silicon Valley had been decidedly different. And I wonder if you can just kind of give us an insight into the experience of going with your fundraising rounds, and when you walked into rooms with funders. Because I think people here need to know just how challenging the environment is from beginning to end. It’s not just about fixing the existing giant platforms. We have a fundamental challenge here.

TRACY CHOU: Yeah. First, I might back up a little bit and talk about the decision to create Block Party as a for-profit entity. And that was because I believe that there is a business case, and that also that in order to align the incentives going for a capitalist approach, which is building solutions for people who pay for the value that they’re getting, is the best way. In order to build really compelling technology as well, be able to hire the best people in technology for a design and product engineering, also requires being able to pay those salaries. And so VC money, venture capital money, made the most sense to me, as aligning all of those things together. There’s a big opportunity there. And we need that initial capital to get going to build the technology.

So when I went out to raise I felt like, so I have, like, a pretty good shot at making this case. I’m a technical founder, with deep experience in top companies. I have two engineering degrees from Stanford, where I graduated with top honors. Like, this is a good resume that Silicon Valley typically likes. I’m solving my own problem, which they also talk about as a great thing. Like, if you know the problem intimately, because you experience it then you’re very motivated to solve it, and you know all the ins and outs of it. Again, usually something that’s very positive.

I did not have a good experience. There were a lot of people who were skeptical. You might imagine the typical demographic of VC, very white, very male. People were dubious that there was a market. So I was told that this was very niche, and also that it’s already a solved problem, and it will be solved by machine learning, the platform’s already addressing it, so, like, no issue anymore. I suspect some of this has to do with the fact that there’s a lack of diversity in the VC industry and even though our products are for everyone, they do disproportionately serve women and people from marginalized communities, who are more targeted by abuse.

I think there’s also the latent sexism in there, where even the people who thought that there might be a market here told me that they didn’t think that I could solve it, which is very frustrating. By comparison, I saw a number of men trying to tackle the same problem. Fewer credentials, building poor copycats of my product, raise exorbitant sums of money. In some cases, ten times as much. I talked with some of these founders and they would say things like, oh, well, just because, like, I used to work at Google and so, you know, I had the credibility. And I would just have to call myself and say, well, I worked at Google, and Facebook, and Pinterest, and Quora, and also have engineering degrees. But I guess that doesn’t matter when I’m a woman.

So very frustrating experience. Had to power through that. Ultimately did raise money. So very glad that I was able to raise the seed round last year and can actually hire people to keep tackling these problems. But I guess to the point that Moira’s trying to draw out here, there are really systemic issues. If we want to be able to solve these problems, we also need the funding to be able to do so. And when there’s systemic biases in the funders and they don’t believe that there is a problem here, we’re going to have additional challenges in trying to create these solutions.

MOIRA WHELAN: Well, thank you for that, Tracy. And I can’t say, again, you know, when we talk about the thing we’ve all been told of putting on a thicker skin, really, does it get any thicker than Tracy’s, having walked through that?

And Julie, I want to talk about these systemic issues, right? We actually had a question come in on Slido, so please all participate. But it gets to the next question I wanted to ask you, which was around the barriers. And is one of the barriers freedom of expression and where we allow freedom of expression and what is abuse? And I think, you know, you’re at the forefront of, like, how we define the digital experience for people, and I wonder if you can talk a little bit about: Is that a barrier? And then my second part is: Why aren’t more countries doing what Australia’s doing, and how do we help them?

JULIE INMAN GRANT: No, that’s—thank you so much.

And I want to thank Tracy for her perseverance. I’ve been watching her journey from afar, all this stuff about funding and tech bros. And this just shows you how gender inequality can manifest in so many different ways and at so many different levels, and we have to support technologists and entrepreneurs like Tracy to create, building these incredible products. Because I can say, having worked at Microsoft and Twitter and Adobe, that not enough is doing—being done inside and safety is always an afterthought. I mean, even if you look at the patterns of layoffs happening at companies like Twitter and Meta and Microsoft, the trust and safety people go first.

But I guess one thing that we have learned is that we’ll never regulate or wrest our way out of online harms with the speed, the scale, and the volume of content online. It’s always going to be a game of Whac-a-Mole, I guess, or Whac-a-Troll if you will.

But we are also talking about fundamental human behavior and societal ills that work underneath. And that was my experience at Twitter. I joined right after the Arab Spring with the belief that it was going to be a great leveler and people would be able to speak truth to power, but what I started to see very clearly is that women and those from marginalized communities were being silenced. So if you don’t draw a line about what constitutes online hate and online harm and you allow it to fester, then you’re actually suppressing freedom of expression. So it’s a—it’s a difficult line to tread.

Our parliament in Australia, online safety is very bipartisan. And there are different approaches that, of course, different parties would want to take, but collectively the government decided that they wanted to draw a line; and if online speech turns into online invective and is designed with a serious intent to harm, to menace, or harass, that we would draw a line and that we would have an investigative process, that there’d be lots of transparency and accountability, and multiple ways to challenge any decision I make. That’s the right thing. Never been challenged by any decision. And we’re actually helping to remediate harm of individuals.

So the good news is there are more countries coming onboard with online harms regulators. Ireland and Fiji both have online safety commissioners now. Of course, the online safety bill in the U.K. is pending, but that again is a much more polarized debate. Canada’s looking at this. I’m not sure where we’ll get to in the United States.

But we do want tech companies to start stepping up and protecting, empowering, and supporting people online. And that’s why five years ago we started the Safety by Design Initiative with industry to ask them to start providing the tools to do just that—to think about the design process, the deployment, the development process, the maintenance and the refresh process rather than retrofitting safety protections after the damage has been done. There will always be room for specialist tools like Block Party and [Privacy] Party, and we want to facilitate that—you know, let thousands of innovative flowers bloom so that we can all have safer, more positive experiences online.

We also have to keep an eye out in the future. I’m very concerned about the power of generative AI and these large language models and, you know, conversational models with the ability to manipulate—to manipulate young people for extortion, for grooming, for, you know, deep fakes and misinformation and disinformation. We need to think about immersive technologies and the Metaverse.

When we’re, you know, in high-sensory, hyper-realistic environments, the online harassment we’re feeling now will be much more extreme and much more visceral. Think about with haptics and headsets that are picking up, you know, your retinal scans and flushing, what that technology can tell these major companies about you. Neuro technology—you bring that into a toxic mix.

If we don’t start putting the onus back on these technology companies to be thinking about the risks and how their technologies can be misused and have them doing this at the forefront we’re never going to be able to get ahead of this.

So I do hope that more governments come on board. We’ve just established a global online safety regulators network with members who are independent statutory authorities who can demonstrate a track record on human rights and independence. But we’re also making room for observers for governments and other organizations that want to consider best practice in terms of setting up online harms regulators.

And with the DSA and other developments, I expect in the next five or ten years we will have a network of online harms regulators and we will no longer in Australia feeling like we’re at the head of the peloton going up [a mountain] with no one drafting behind us.

I think governments need to get together with the civil society sector and start to counter the stealth, the wealth, and the power of the technology industry. It’s the only way we’re going to get ahead this.

MOIRA WHELAN: Well, and I couldn’t agree more and I should say I think we all want to live in Julia Inman Grant’s internet. You know, that’s definitely the space we want to go.

I’d also point to the global partnership that Australia, the United States, and others have founded to address online abuse that NDI is very happy to support and we like the direction it’s going. But I think you made one really important point and that was the really clear leadership of civil society in both identifying this issue, making it a global issue instead of a personal issue that each politician is facing.

And you had, Fernanda, talked a little bit about the barriers you were facing. So you talked about tech versus government and I wonder if you can expand on that a little bit and tell us, like, where do you spend your time. How do you prioritize both of those needs and who needs to change first? Who needs to change in what way to—you know, this is what civil society does. You put yourself in the middle and you change it.

Please tell us a little bit more about how you’re doing that in Brazil.

FERNANDA MARTINS: Yeah. Sure. It was great to hear from Julie because I was thinking in similar things here and we know—we live at this moment a shift of violence concept and in less years ago when you talk to platforms about gender-based violence online we are talking mainly about dissemination of [non-consented materials].

And now when we try to talk about political violence it’s like we are tension the relationship between freedom of expression and the limit that needs to exist. So it’s interesting to note that when we look at the Brazilian context, in the legislative context we have some laws directed to domestic violence. And when we talk to platforms, they told us about the necessity to protect women related to these issues and violence that is targeted by ex-partners, for example.

But it’s difficult. It is a challenge made—government made platforms and everyone involved in this issue—that we are in public is fair. And not just women; we are talking to marginalized groups in general. So our effort at this moment is to demonstrate that, OK, we demonstrated before that the violence exists, so now what we can do inclusively when we talk about difference what needs to be excluded in platforms, what to be—have flagged that there is content here, it is an insult; but we have—we have, too, platforms that have the policy that public figures need to be more tolerant to attacks and insults, as Meta’s platform. So how we can educate society in general if the example on platforms is, say, women candidate could be attacked, the other could be attacked—women, LGBTQI+ community.

So we need to change the policies, and we need to—we need strong—make strong our laws and their relationship globally. So I think it is a little what we’re trying to do.

MOIRA WHELAN: And I think it’s an excellent point. When you were working with NDI on our program to identify interventions, we identified twenty-six. We have colleagues at Web Foundation, at CG, at other places that were coming up with theirs. We just did an inventory, and we have, like, 450 identified opportunities for changes.

But I want to turn us to Neema, because it all comes back to politics, right? A lot of those changes weren’t just with platforms. They weren’t just with governments. They were also within political parties. How media outlets, you know, cover it. Because even though we’re talking about these major global issues, as a politician that’s still a very personal experience and it’s still very—you know, it’s hard to look at fixing the whole tech system when you’re going through this every day. And I wonder if you can talk about—bring us a little closer to home, and what we need to do, and what are the barriers getting in the way of fixing it, for your own political experience?

NEEMA LUGANGIRA: Thank you. I think one of the things—there are different moving blocks. The first one is the social media platforms. And exactly like what she just said, in the sense is that it is expected because we’re in politics we should have thick skin. But why should I have thick skin? Why should I tolerate abuse? If you’re not able to abuse me online, why should you abuse—if you’re not able to abuse me offline, why should you abuse me online? So the challenges on the social media platforms is although Julie said a positive feedback on AI, at the same time artificial intelligence also has an issue.

In the sense that we have—myself, and my colleagues—we have reported on a number of times, you report on abuse, and it’s written in Kiswahili, for example, or the local language, and you try to even go further and translate it. But still, someone replies and says: This doesn’t violate our rules. And you’re thinking, what rules? This violates every kind of rule. So on the social media platforms, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. And I think one of the things through organizations like NDI is to give us the opportunity also as the women in politics to be in the same room with the decisionmakers at the social media platforms. Because we need to tell them these issues, and they need to hear these issues from us. Not from someone else, but they need to hear these issues from us.

Secondly, when it comes to media, in a lot of countries, unfortunately, media—the way the media do the gender profiling of women in politics also results into abuse. You may find that maybe you’ve been in a meeting. There were several pictures that they were taken—that a particular media took of you. And they decide to use the picture that shows some parts of the body accidentally. You know, maybe your dress went a little bit down, so your shoulder is showing, or the cleavage is showing. And they would use that picture and say: Maybe Honorable Neema said such and such, such a brilliant thing. But because the image they chose to use, it totally shifts the issue and it results into abuse. So sometimes the gender profiling is also an issue.

But the other thing that I’m currently working on in Tanzania is to try and see—there are a lot of laws that are existing that talk about bits and pieces of online abuse. But none are more, like, specific for women in politics. So I’m trying right now in Tanzania to push that we should have a regulatory reform on our political parties act and election acts, so that these two acts recognize online abuse as an offense. Because there’s a number of offenses in political parties acts whereby if you can be proven—let’s say you’re a male, and you have—you’re vying for a position. If it can be proven you’ve done a GBV offense, you can be taken off the candidates list.

So I’m trying to push that online abuse should also be recognized for women in politics, because a lot of the abuse that we get is also related to politics. So that can also reduce a certain group, a group of people, at least those who are aspiring to get into politics. And it can give us the power to now start documenting this. And if you hear, maybe, I don’t know, Gregory has been nominated for something, you can go and use that particular law and say: This person has been abusing women online, kind of thing. So trying to push the political parties act and the election act to do so.

But at the same time, I set up an NGO called Omuka Hub. And what we are trying to do is to strengthen online visibility of women in politics and continentally we are trying to do that through the African Parliamentary Network on Internet Governance, again, to strengthen the visibility of women in politics. But to do that, organizations that have funding or that are talking about digital development, digital gender gaps. Oftentimes they don’t remember that there’s a group of women in politics. So I would like to stress that whenever we are having interventions, we should have funding also allocated to support the training and the capacity, exactly like what Julie said. A lot of us are online, but we don’t know how to protect ourselves.

Very recently, I experienced the most horrific abuse through WhatsApp. Like, I have—I have experienced it a lot on other platforms, but it was the first time experiencing it in WhatsApp. So these are people I know in an WhatsApp group. And it went on for, like, four days. I didn’t want to leave the group, because I didn’t want to be seen like I’m running away, but it didn’t want to be seeing them. And you can’t help it, because they’re there. And I actually got to learn that you can archive the group, so you don’t see it. I just learned this, like, two weeks ago. So I can tell you.

But that was about, like, three or four days of excruciating, like, emotional rage. And you can’t do anything about it. You want to respond, but people are calling you, you know, you’re an MP. Don’t respond. So you’re keeping quiet. At the same time, you have to show up in Parliament, do your contributions. You have to show face and do all of that. But why should I be doing that? Why should I have to do that, you know?

MOIRA WHELAN: Absolutely. I want to back up to one thing. We’re going to go to two things. We have, like, less than five minutes, and I want us to do two things. One, we got a question from online. And I think one of the things we really tried to do here was show the completely different environments that we’re dealing with, right? We have Australia, we have Brazil, we have Tanzania.

And we got a question asking, we’ve all cited social media regulation as an opportunity here, but that’s a challenge, right? How do you regulate social media from all different perspectives and from all different countries, recognizing cultural challenges, recognizing the responsibilities they have to localize platforms? So I don’t know who wants it—who wants to pick up on the—on the regulation. Maybe Julie and Neema, quickly.

And then after that, what we’re going to do is you have a captive audience. We have the entire digital rights community here. We need to send them out with something to do. We’re all good at that. We’re going to give them a job. So be thinking quickly about what your job is for everyone in this room. But, Neema, and then Julie, and then we can kind of go around.

NEEMA LUGANGIRA: So very quickly, in terms of the regulation, I think one is we cannot avoid regulating social media, but the issue is how to regulate because we still want the environment—you don’t want it to be stringent. And we can learn from other countries who have done it. But the bottom line is, especially for Global South countries who don’t have that muscle that Global North have, what I would like to say is when Global North are negotiating with social media companies, getting into agreements, they should insert requirements that the same behavior they do in their bloc—in the EU or the US, Canada, Australia—they should also behave the same way in Africa. We’re seeing the same thing with data protection. They are doing a great job in the EU, horrible job in Africa.

MOIRA WHELAN: That’s a good point.

We’re going to flip it over really quick to Julie and then, Tracy, you’re up with your pitch. So go ahead, Julie, if you want to jump in on that one.

JULIE INMAN GRANT: I was just going to say, you know, the challenge is that laws are national and local and the internet is global.

Moira, you’re aware that we just issued a number of mandatory codes and are working on standards that will apply to eight different sectors of the technology industry. This has to do with illegal and harmful content, specifically child sexual abuse material and terrorist and violent extremist content. But it isn’t very easy for these global technology companies to sort of quarantine their activities just to Australia, and that applies to safety as well. So the hope is as—you know, and like the European Commission deploying the Digital Services Act and possibly the AI Act, as we’ve seen with GDPR there should be systemic changes and reforms that happen.

But again, the really important thing in bringing different countries together with different needs, different levels of resourcing and funding, and even different political systems and approaches to regulation is going to be challenging. And one of the reasons we set up this global network is to prevent a splinternet so that countries coming onboard can learn from what is best practice.

You know, we did not have a playbook. We had to write it as we went along, and we’re happy to share those learnings. And there will be others who will engage and will try to something different that will be successful. So, again, it has to be a whole-of-society approach to tackling this.

MOIRA WHELAN: Absolutely.

So, Tracy, you have, ironically, like a tweet level because we have less than a minute and we’re going to try to get around. So Tracy, then Fernanda: What’s the pitch for everybody here?

TRACY CHOU: I actually want to comment on the regulation side, which is that regulation can also create the space for more solutions. So it doesn’t just have to be about the content or behaviors that are happening. The reason why Block Party had to shut down our classic product on Twitter was that there was no openness in the APIs, these programming interfaces. And what regulation can do here is require that openness such that we can have these consumer solutions. There’s a bill in the New York State Senate introduced this legislative session, S.6686, which introduces this concept. So just want to put that pitch out there for on the regulation side what we can do.

The other one-line pitch is Block Party has a new product called Privacy Party, and this is making it so that we are teaching people what they should do to be safe online and also helping to automate that. So we have automated playbooks for you to lock down your social media settings. Check it out. Give us feedback. And we want to keep building these tools to help keep people safe.

MOIRA WHELAN: Thank you so much, Tracy.

And Fernanda, last word.

FERNANDA MARTINS: I think the next step is to change the way that we are looking at indigenous, women, Black people, and LGBTQAI+ community because we are—we have been seen as a problem to solve, but we are part of the solution. So we need to be included. The digital rights field need to be include these people, these communities to solve the problem together.

MOIRA WHELAN: Absolutely. And I would also say none of us have mentioned it, but we need more male allies. So any of you are out there, we need men in all of these companies, in government, in civil society joining us in this conversation. So we hope to see—that’s a mantle I would take.

So thank you all for joining us today. Have a great RightsCon. Really appreciate everyone being so brave to share your individual stories.

FERNANDA MARTINS: Thank you.

JULIE INMAN GRANT: Thank you.

TRACY CHOU: Thank you.

NEEMA LUGANGIRA: Thank you.

The post The international community must protect women politicians from abuse online. Here’s how. appeared first on Atlantic Council.

While some of the most powerful economic institutions in the world are led by women at the moment, Calviño is unfortunately right. With Kristiana Georgieva at the International Monetary Fund, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala at the World Trade Organization, Christine Lagarde at the European Central Bank, and Janet Yellen at the US Treasury, we’re given the impression that women are at the helm of economic policymaking. However, this success has not translated into broad representation. Structural barriers continue to prevent many women from reaching top roles in finance and economics—and the problem is more pronounced than in other areas of policymaking.

A leaky pipeline

Of the 190 member countries of the IMF, 26 have women as finance ministers and only 17 have women as central bank governors. That means just 11.3% of policymakers in those two roles are women. The average proportion of women serving as cabinet ministers globally is meaningfully higher, at 22.8%. What is it about the economic portfolio that results in such a drop off?

The reasons for this disparity can be attributed to a variety of factors, such as male-dominance in the study of economics, barriers that prevent women from being promoted, and social perceptions of women’s abilities. These structural and social barriers create a “leaky pipeline,” where small gender gaps in participation at early stages can accumulate over time to result in large disparities at the top of institutions.

Economics requires mathematics and quantitative skills. However, girls often receive the message that they are not as competent in these areas from a young age. The lower participation of women and girls in STEM-related activities is well-documented, and similar patterns are present in economics. Across major US and European academic institutions, women represent around 35% of PhD candidates in economics. Women also tend towards more social research areas such as health, education, and labor while men dominate areas like economic theory, macroeconomics, and finance—the subfields from which top policy leaders are often drawn from. There is nothing preordained about these trends in specialization. They are driven by social expectations, gender biases, and a lack of role models.

However, educational differentials don’t fully explain the disparity. After all, while the role of finance minister or central bank governor requires experience with economics, that doesn’t have to include a PhD. We can look to US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and ECB President Christine Largarde (both lawyers) as examples of such exceptions.

Women are also held back by an array of barriers to promotion in big economic and financial institutions. Men are more likely to be promoted than their female counterparts with comparable qualifications. For example, the US financial sector employs around 9 million workers, with women comprising the majority of the entry-level workforce but holding less than a fourth of the top leadership positions. Women are impacted by the “motherhood penalty” caused by gendered expectations around parenting and work. This penalty can be exacerbated by a lack of parental leave, but even when leave is available, women use it more than men and are stigmatized for it. The promotional gap makes it more difficult for women in economics and finance to achieve the caliber of resume that candidates for finance minister or central bank governors usually have.

Finally, there is an unconscious bias against women’s ability to effectively conduct economic research and policy. As a whole, both men and women rate male applicants higher for positions that require quantitative skills, and female financial advisors are punished more severely for misconduct. Surveys in the US found that when central bankers were introduced without their credentials in a media announcement, people were more likely to doubt the commitment and ability of the Federal Reserve to balance inflation and employment if a woman was the spokesperson. Another study found a correlation between countries with high inflation and a lack of female central bank governors, and suggested that women are hindered by a bias that men are more “hawkish” and therefore more committed to fighting inflation.

Not a quick fix

In 2013, after over two years without a woman sitting on its six-member Executive Board, the ECB committed to a gender diversity action plan. At the time, only 14% of senior managers were women. The ECB’s action plan includes up to 20 weeks of paid parental/adoption leave for either parent and a target of a minimum 50% women in new hires across all levels of staff. As of the end of 2022, 38% at the senior managerial level are women. While 38% is not parity, it does represent a real increase as a result of the ECB’s diversity policies.

As President Lagarde said, “Being surrounded by men is not something new, but it is something that is always disappointing.” The barriers that women face aren’t new and neither are the suggested solutions. There is no magic pill for improving gender representation. Instead, there are a myriad of policies that tackle the different aspects of the “leaky pipeline.” From improving opportunities in education, to committing to equitable hiring practices, the approach to gender equality in economics must be holistic.

Jessie Yin is a Young Global Professional with the GeoEconomics Center.

At the intersection of economics, finance, and foreign policy, the GeoEconomics Center is a translation hub with the goal of helping shape a better global economic future.

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The post Only 11 percent of finance ministers and central bank governors are women appeared first on Atlantic Council.

As he pondered the course of the war, Henri-Lévy came to the conclusion that the best way to combat the West’s mounting impatience with the 15-month war and counter the push for preliminary negotiations was to show rather than tell. Instead of writing an essay, the 74-year-old French filmmaker and philosopher took to the road to illuminate the bravery of ordinary Ukrainians against what he calls the “master terrorist” in the Kremlin.

The film, which carefully traces Henri-Lévy’s journey across Ukraine, is about far more than jerky shots of the Frenchman and his crew dodging bullets and drone attacks. It is about Ukraine’s defiance of Putin’s attempt not simply to wage a war of territorial conquest, but to efface the idea of Ukrainian nationhood itself. “If I dare to give a certain logic to this crazy war, it is in the logic of the denial of Ukrainian identity,” he says. “This barbarity matches the logic of denying the very existence of Ukraine.”

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

As he journeys from Ukraine’s capital to the east, Henri-Lévy captures the dignity of the Ukrainian people through short vignettes that remain with you long after the credits roll. The Frenchman focuses on ordinary Ukrainians like the elderly woman who appears in the documentary engaged in the quotidian task of stirring a steaming pot of borscht and pleads for an end to the constant violence that has upended her life. She hopes to make it to her seventieth birthday, she says.

In Kyiv, after another Russian air strike hits a woman’s apartment, she apologizes profusely to Henri-Lévy for wearing a dirty black coat. Her kitchen is unusable after the bombing and her crockery is battered, but she’s more focused on the state of her appearance. She takes the French filmmaker to her makeshift bed, a chair inside a bathroom tub where she waited out the aerial assault, and smiles with pride at her ability to snatch a few hours of sleep.

Another scene captures everyday life for those who couldn’t leave cities and towns that Russia has pounded relentlessly in the east. A man who appears to be approaching pension age tries to chop wood with an axe, complaining that it’s warmer outside than inside.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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In Pavlograd, the French filmmaker dons a hard helmet and overalls to cover his black designer suit and spotless white shirt as he descends below ground to watch Ukrainian miners drill iron ore. The precious ore is eventually made into bullet-proof vests for soldiers at the front. After the steel miners are done for the day, they carry on packing care boxes of food and medicine for displaced families.

Henri-Lévy observes that every steelworker is a hero, just like the brave men and women on the front lines. In one of his characteristic meditative asides, he observes that the Greeks and Romans admired heroes in part because they were so rare. “In Ukraine, heroes are everywhere,” he says. The Frenchman confesses that he keeps coming back to Ukraine because it is rare in history to see so many people embody heroism in one place.

The documentary also features moments of exhilaration. Henri-Lévy captures joyous scenes from recently liberated Kherson, where hundreds mill in the main square, some searching for power to recharge their phones and tell their loved ones they are still alive. Perhaps the hardest and most powerful scene comes when Henri-Lévy visits a torture cell that still has fresh blood on the floor. The Russians never actually appear on film, but their depraved conduct casts a dark shadow over the documentary.

This film is anything but neutral and Henri-Lévy makes no attempt to disguise his sympathies. “I am partisan. I don’t give five minutes to the Jews and five minutes to the Nazis,” he says.

The Frenchman has consistently refused to engage in bogus moral hand-wringing when it comes to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Instead, he is clear about which side he’s on, as viewers of “Slava Ukraini” will no doubt recognize. “I want the Ukrainians to win,” he commented on May 11 at a screening of the documentary at the E Street Cinema in Washington, DC.

Melinda Haring is director of stakeholder relations and social impact at the Superhumans Center. Jacob Heilbrunn is Editor of the National Interest. Haring and Heilbrunn are both non-resident senior fellows at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. “Slava Ukraini” was shown at a series of screenings in May organized with the Ukrainian American charity Razom. It can be viewed on Apple TV and YouTube.

Further reading

UkraineAlert Apr 8, 2023

Human wave tactics are demoralizing the Russian army in Ukraine

By Olivia Yanchik

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has not gone according to plan but he still hopes to win a long war of attrition. However, Russia’s reliance on human wave tactics risks undermining morale within his invading army, writes Olivia Yanchik.

Conflict Defense Policy

UkraineAlert Apr 6, 2023

NATO poses a threat to Russian imperialism not Russian security

By Peter Dickinson

Russia’s passive acceptance of neighboring Finland’s NATO membership raises serious questions over the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the invasion of Ukraine as a response to NATO expansion, writes Peter Dickinson.

Conflict Disinformation

UkraineAlert May 12, 2023

Andriy Yermak: Italy is defending common European values in Ukraine

By Andriy Yermak

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is right to say that helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian invasion is about freedom, justice, and common values, writes the head of Ukraine’s Office of the President, Andriy Yermak.

Conflict Economy & Business

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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The post New Bernard Henri-Lévy documentary challenges Ukraine fatigue appeared first on Atlantic Council.

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Woman, Life, Freedom: Eight months of ongoing protests in Iran

AN #ACFRONTPAGE EVENT – An in-depth conversation examining the ongoing anti-government protests in Iran following the murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini, and the decades-long fight for gender equality and social justice in the country.

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The people of Iran have faced unprecedented violence from their own government in the eight months since protests arose after the death of a twenty-two-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman at the hands of the so-called “morality police.”

But rather than let injustices ranging from beatings to executions quiet them, the Iranian people continue to showcase their bravery while speaking out against these abuses and others, with Iranian women and girls exhibiting particular courage. 

As they do, Iranian women and girls not only tap into a more than century-old history of protest in Iran, but also show new resilience and creativity in their fight for change.

“This is full of energy. This is full of anger. This is different, but with some of what had been before,” Mehrangiz Kar, an Iranian women’s rights lawyer and writer, said at an Atlantic Council Front Page event on Thursday.

She, along with Iranian women’s rights advocate Azam Jangravi and Iranian actress/writer/activist Nazanin Nour, gathered in Washington to accept the Atlantic Council’s 2023 Distinguished Humanitarian Leadership Award on behalf of the women and girls of Iran who are fighting for freedom and equality. 

Read on for more highlights of the discussion with Kar, Jangravi, and Nour, moderated by PBS NewsHour correspondent Ali Rogin, about the reality from the ground and how the world can support the Iranian people.

The ingenuity, and bravery, of protest

• Amid the poisoning of thousands of schoolgirls and other threats of violence, Iran’s girls have made an undeniable mark while engaging in creative dissent, including recording themselves tearing and burning photos of Iran’s supreme leader—which typically mark the beginnings of their textbooks and the walls of their classrooms. “Gen Z is very adept at using TikTok and Instagram, and figuring out how to make things trend and go viral,” Jangravi said.

• On International Women’s Day, five Iranian girls danced unveiled while participating in the “Calm Down” challenge that riffs on the hit song by Nigerian singer Rema and American artist Selena Gomez. The forty-second video gained global attention from mainstream outlets and garnered millions of views online. “We have never seen that level of social media activity to move a movement forward when it comes to Iran,” said Nour, who has used her own platform as an actress and writer to speak out about what’s happening in the country.

• Taking their protest online has also underscored the risks Iranian women face as they speak out. In the case of the “Calm Down” video, the girls were later detained and made to give a forced apology. Many Iranians believe the schoolgirl poisonings have been at the very least tolerated by the Iranian government as punishment for their activism. “It’s very difficult for anybody to believe that a regime that uses facial recognition technology to send tickets to women who aren’t wearing their hijab properly cannot find out who is behind these poisonings,” Nour said.

• It’s a reminder that, since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the women of Iran have put their lives on the line while seeking gender equality and basic human rights. “Women have used activist campaigns, NGOs, to protest the violation of their rights and demand justice and equality. However, they have paid a heavy price for their activism, including suppression, threats, imprisonment, and mental and physical torture,” Jangravi said.

Searching for new solidarity

• All three women said more attention is necessary from the international community to force change from the Islamic Republic and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “Now [the world] can understand that it’s not enough that human rights institutions work to remove gender discrimination in Iran. We can understand that all Western governments should work with human rights institutions,” Kar said.

• Some four million Iranians now live abroad, and that diaspora has grown its economic, political, and social clout. “Now we have seen the diaspora rally around the people of Iran. I had never seen that level of unity,” said Nour, who is herself the daughter of Iranian immigrants and was born and lives in the United States.
  
• Even the “smallest action,” such as female officials refusing to wear headscarves while meeting with Islamic Republic officials, helps. “Overall, the global community needs to condemn the actions of the Islamic Republic, not legitimize them,” Nour said, criticizing how the United Nations (UN) gave Iran a leadership role on at the UN Human Rights Council 2023 Social Forum on Wednesday: “It’s an absolute slap in the face to Iranians.”
  
• That decision came just days after two men, including a dual Swedish-Iranian citizen, were executed for running a Telegram group criticizing Islam. “The government is trying to create real fear among the people through execution,” Jangravi said. The actions of those two men, and a number of Iranian women who have joined the protests, including choosing to wear shorts as a form of civil disobedience, showcases how people “from all levels of society” have come together to create change.

Nick Fouriezos is a writer with more than a decade of experience reporting around the globe.

The post Eight months into anti-regime protests, Iran’s women show creativity as they press on ‘full of anger’ appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In recognition of this reality, the Atlantic Council’s Distinguished Leadership Awards in Washington, DC on Thursday evening honored an all-female slate of awardees who embody “the rising role of women’s leadership in shaping a better world,” as Atlantic Council Chairman John F.W. Rogers put it.  

World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the first woman to serve in her role, leading the trade body as it has navigated unprecedented challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and global instability. US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines is also a path-paver. As the first woman to oversee the US Intelligence Community, she has steered its work to address escalating global threats. 

Nasdaq Chair and CEO Adena T. Friedman, the first woman to lead a major US stock exchange operator, has focused her tenure on modernizing and diversifying Nasdaq. And General Laura J. Richardson, commander of US Southern Command, has used her passion for global security to promote the rule of law, human rights, and democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Rounding out the roster are the brave Iranian women and girls who have stood up, despite enormous risks, to fight the Iranian Republic’s discriminatory laws, drawing support and attention from across the world.  

“This group is a representation of how far we have come,” Richardson said as she accepted her award, “but also a reminder of how much work there is to be done.”  

Below are more highlights from the gala. 

Laura Richardson: “A solution to these complex challenges… starts with the United States” 

• The four-star general issued a call to action for Latin America and the Caribbean: “Our partners are struggling to deliver for their people,” she warned. 
• The region, Richardson explained, is getting hit by the effects of poverty, crime, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. “This desperate situation allows the Chinese Communist Party to step in,” she said, adding that China presents its Belt and Road Initiative to Latin American countries under the guise of wanting to invest. But it’s “really to extract countries’ critical infrastructure,” she explained, with China providing “its debt traps of loans, shoddy work, cost overruns, and bribery of senior officials.” 
• In addition to that, Russia’s “prolific disinformation campaign”—delivered through media companies with audiences in the tens of millions in Latin America—“only further exacerbates” the difficulties these countries face, said Richardson. 
• Solutions for Latin America and the Caribbean’s challenges start with the United States, Richardson argued. “Team USA is committed to democracies across the globe,” she said, explaining that the United States is bringing together all elements of national power to help: diplomatic, economic, military, and informational. “This region is our shared neighborhood, and good neighbors take care of each other,” she said. 
• Richardson noted that women, peace, and security—a policy framework that calls for the participation of women in peacebuilding and conflict resolution—is “a critical component of successful democracies.” Shaping the global future together will take a community, she explained. So “we must be intentional about recruitment, retention, training, and [the] advancement of women,” she said, “because if we take our eye off the ball, we risk losing an entire generation.”  

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: “Support strategic interdependence, not overdependence”  

• Okonjo-Iweala spoke of trying to find the positives in “a world of doom and gloom.” And one place to do that is multilateral organizations such as her own. “We need places where nations can come together,” the WTO head said. “And truly interact even when they disagree—in fact, especially when they disagree.”
• Okonjo-Iweala pointed out that at the WTO, geopolitical rivals such as the United States and China can sit down and talk trade to the benefit of their citizens. “We need to shore up the multilateral institutions we have instead of taking for granted the services they provide,” she said.
• Okonjo-Iweala nodded to the many criticisms of the WTO and acknowledged that multilateral institutions “need to be reformed to be fit for purpose for the twenty-first century.” While there were job losses in recent decades, she added, not all were due to trade—technology and other factors played a role. 
• Meanwhile, Okonjo-Iweala added, “our biggest successes go almost unnoticed.” One she called out was the Information Technology Agreement, a 1996 agreement that has grown to eliminate tariffs on what Okonjo-Iweala said was nearly three trillion dollars in trade in 2021. 
• “So if we let multilateral fora wither, if we fail to preserve what they are doing well and improve what needs improving, the costs will be high,” Okonjo-Iweala said. “Support strategic interdependence, not overdependence.” 

Avril Haines: “Success of our mission depends on our ability to work with others” 

• In accepting her award, the director of national intelligence recalled how in its annual threat assessment—published in February—the US Intelligence Community identified two strategic challenges to national security: competition among great powers, rising regional powers, and nonstate actors for influence over the international system; and challenges that transcend borders such as climate change, health, and security.  
• “The intersection of these challenges [underscores] the importance of working together with partners and allies, private industry, and organizations like the Atlantic Council,” explained Haines, “which bring us together and raise the standard of our work… with the belief that through civil discourse, we can advance our common cause.” 
• That underlying common conviction, according to Haines, is “that a healthy transatlantic relationship is fundamental to the strength and quality of an international system that is capable of addressing today’s challenges.” 
• In guiding policymakers with valuable intelligence, the Intelligence Community must interact with people outside of the community who can test hypotheses, provide alternative perspectives, and challenge biases and underlying assumptions, Haines explained. “The success of our mission depends on our ability to work with others across a range of fields and disciplines,” Haines said, “and it requires us to engage with diverse voices and perspectives from all backgrounds and walks of life.” 

Nazanin Nour: “Stay the course on equal rights for all“

• Iranian-American actress and activist Nazanin Nour joined Iranian women’s rights lawyer Mehrangiz Kar and Iranian women’s rights advocate Azam Jangravi on stage to receive the Distinguished Humanitarian Leadership Award on behalf of the women and girls of Iran. (Mahnaz Afkhami, CEO of the Women’s Learning Partnership, received the award in absentia.) Despite “great personal risk,” Nour said, the women and girls of Iran “are pressing for a brighter future.” 
• Nour explained how after the 1979 revolution, new leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini banned women from holding jobs, obtaining an education, accessing contraceptives, and more. “To this day, the clerical leadership of the Islamic Republic has hinged on the repression of women,” Nour argued. “Time and again, the regime’s response to women’s calls for greater freedom has been swift and brutal. But the extraordinary women of Iran have persevered.” 
• Those women have not only persevered, Nour added, but they have also “been in the vanguard demanding change” and learning from the rest of the world about how to secure rights and freedoms. She pointed to the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, which surged following the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022. “Today, women and men are marching side-by-side in support of a revolution that was launched by women and girls,” Nour noted.  
• Nour described the movement as “modern… in its language, slogans, and approach,” as women and girls have disseminated their message worldwide by using social media. That, Nour said, has helped create “a truly global movement which, at this moment, is in dire need of collective action; and we can all agree on that.” 
• Nour encouraged the audience to “publicly condemn” the United Nations Human Rights Council’s decision to appoint the Islamic Republic of Iran as chair of its Social Forum. “The Islamic Republic and human rights is an oxymoron, and it’s a slap in the face to the people of Iran that have been brutalized, oppressed, and tortured.” 
• “It is easy for the sacrifices of the protestors to disappear from the headlines,” Nour noted. “I implore you to continue your solidarity. I implore you to support democracy. I implore you to stay the course on equal rights for all.” 

Adena T. Friedman: “When faced with global challenges, we must find global solutions” 

• In line with the Atlantic Council’s mission to advance global prosperity, Friedman noted that “markets are foundational to strong economies and to vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems.”
• “When faced with global challenges, we must find global solutions,” Friedman said. Nasdaq, she explained, aims to use its expertise and technology to “help build trusted market infrastructure all over the world.”
• Nasdaq has a role to play not only in established markets, but in emerging markets as well, Friedman said. “We can support their efforts to bring in more foreign investment through well-functioning, high-integrity, and vibrant capital markets,” she explained. 

The global fight for freedom 

• Almar Latour, the CEO of Dow Jones and publisher of the Wall Street Journal, implored attendees in a special address to cast their thoughts to a Russian prison, where Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich remains detained six weeks after he “was unjustly arrested,” Latour said, “on false charges of espionage.”  
• But while Gershkovich is the highest-profile journalist persecuted for doing his job of late, he’s not the only one. Latour noted the kidnapping of journalist Austin Tice in Syria, the arrest of publisher Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong, and the arrest just last week of Nicaraguan journalist Hazel Zamora. “Dictators around the world are determined to stamp out independent reporting,” Latour said. “And we cannot allow them to succeed… The world is watching. It’s watching how the US and democracies around the world respond to this assault on the press. The world is watching how we in this room are responding.” 
• Russia’s war in Ukraine is “a historic inflection point of breathtaking significance,” said Atlantic Council CEO Frederick Kempe.  “Some people say we have to separate the war in Ukraine from China and China’s challenge. I think the challenges are inseparable. This is not a time for half measures. The future of the global order is at stake. Its institutions, its principles, its values, as imperfect as they are, are worth defending. And that is what motivates the Atlantic Council.” 

Katherine Walla is the associate director of editorial at the Atlantic Council.

Daniel Malloy is the deputy managing editor at the Atlantic Council.

Watch the full event

The post The 2023 Distinguished Leadership Awards: Honoring the women shaping the global future appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Public Event Thu, May 11, 2023 • 11:00 am ET

Woman, Life, Freedom: Eight months of ongoing protests in Iran

AN #ACFRONTPAGE EVENT – An in-depth conversation examining the ongoing anti-government protests in Iran following the murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini, and the decades-long fight for gender equality and social justice in the country.

Human Rights Iran Middle East Women

Event transcript

Uncorrected transcript: Check against delivery

Speakers

Azam Jangravi
Iranian women’s rights advocate and a Girl of Revolution Street

Mehrangiz Kar
Iranian women’s rights lawyer and writer

Nazanin Nour
Iranian-American actor, writer, and activist

Moderator

Ali Rogin
Correspondent, PBS NewsHour

Introductory remarks

Holly Dagres
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Middle East Programs;
Editor, MENASource and IranSource

HOLLY DAGRES: Good morning, everyone. My name is Holly Dagres, and I am a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs, and I’m honored here to give remarks for today’s Atlantic Council Front Page event.

Zan, zendegi, azadi—“women, life, freedom”—the slogan heard across the globe. Contrary to the lack of media coverage, this month marks eight months of ongoing protests in Iran against the Islamic Republic. Protests that are taking place in various ways, from street gatherings, rooftop chants, graffiti, to public displays of not wearing mandatory hijab. This continuity is unprecedented. The clerical establishment is in a tinderbox situation, and it’s only a matter of time before the protesters pour into the streets en masse because the people of Iran have had enough. They want the regime gone.

As I speak over thirteen thousand schoolgirls have been poisoned at schools across the country. Many believe this is a punishment for their participation in anti-establishment protests. Additionally, in the past two weeks there have been an alarming rise in executions, with over fifty-seven executed. Human rights organizations widely believe that these wave of executions are an effort to instill fear and silence dissent. Every day, women remain defiant against mandatory hijab, by appearing in the streets without the veil. And even in some cases, dresses and shorts, items of clothing only seen at home, behind closed doors, ordinary freedoms we here take for granted.

The world admires and applauds the bravery of the people of Iran, but especially their women and girls. As an American of Iranian heritage, I’m absolutely thrilled to introduce this incredible cohort of Iranian women who will be accepting the 2023 Distinguished Humanitarian Leadership Award on behalf of the women and girls of Iran at tonight’s Annual Distinguished Leadership Awards… which I should note will be livestreamed.

Dr. Mehrangiz Kar is a human rights lawyer and an activist. She was one of the first women attorneys to oppose the Islamization of gender relations following the Iranian revolution of 1979. Kar has been an active public defender in Iran’s civil and criminal courts, and has lectured extensively both in Iran and abroad.

Azam Jangravi is an Iranian paralegal, human rights advocate, and former political prisoner, residing in Canada. She is primarily known for being one of the girls of revolution street during the protests against compulsory hijab in 2017. Jangravi was taken into custody in 2018 after removing her headscarf in protest on Enghelab Street, standing atop an electricity transformer box, and waving it above her head. She was later released temporarily on bail and fled from Iran to Turkey, before relocating to Canada.

Nazanin Nour is an Iranian-American actress, writer, and activist. She has appeared on shows such as Netflix’s “Big Mouth,” “Madam Secretary,” and “Persia’s Got Talent,” and can currently be seen in the film “A Thousand Little Cuts” on Showtime. Nour could most recently be seen on stage in Washington starring in the studio theatre production of “English.” She is one of several Iranian Americans in the public eye speaking out on the ongoing situation in Iran.

I’d like to also note that Dr. Mahnaz Afkhami is sick with COVID-19 and was unable to attend, but she is recovering.

Finally, I’m delighted to introduce our brilliant moderator, Ali Rogin, of PBS NewsHour. Ali, over to you.

ALI ROGIN: Holly, thank you so much, and welcome to everybody in the room today and to all our viewers tuning in online, and I’m honored to be joined by these three incredible women.

As Holly mentioned, we are here today to discuss the state of women’s rights and human rights in Iran from prerevolution all the way to the current zan, zendegi, azadi movement and we can do all that in forty-five minutes. That is a very steep task but I know that this is a very well-equipped group to do just that. So let’s get right into it.

The first question I’m going to ask and, parenthetically, before I do I want to note I’m going to ask a few questions and then we’re going to open it up to questions from the audience here and online. So please submit your questions in the format that’s already been presented to the group, and for this panel each of the questions I’m going to ask, the first one will be open-ended, and then each one will be directed to one of you specifically. But I invite anybody to weigh in as well.

So the first question—as Holly mentioned, the Islamic Republic is doubling down on its repressive tactics. It’s increased. There have been thirteen thousand schoolgirls that have been poisoned. Hangings are at a historic high. So what do these oppressive measures tell you about the state of the regime and whether or not it is under pressure from these protests? Whoever would like to begin. Maybe we go down the line.

Dr. Kar?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: OK. As you know, in this movement regular women, students of university, students of high school, all labor and they are involved with that, and in zan, zendegi, azadi all Iranian women from all layers of the society, they are—they were working and now they are working in some other style.

And something that you asked about that, like poisoning, poisoning daughters in high schools, we think the—you know, the reason is because they were working a lot in the movement. And one of their activity was—because probably you don’t know that in schoolbooks, the first page is a picture of Khomeini and the second page is a picture of Khamenei, and the students of high school, sometimes they—you know, they taking out these pictures from their schoolbooks and simply removing—removing—

ALI ROGIN: And they’re removing [them] from the—from the walls?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: Yeah, removing, in front of the camera—in front of the camera. And these, you know, film and video posted to some media outside the country, and that’s the reason.

I think they are very against the against daughters in high school. And we think that now this is some kind of revenge sometimes… and the government doesn’t care about that and doesn’t say anything and doesn’t investigate—very serious investigate in that, and they don’t say what is this. Sometimes, they say something that is not true… They say that this is not true. This is something that, you know, they pretend that there is nothing, there is no poison.

And this is something that the people in Iran, now they are very angry with that because the students of—women students, daughters and students of high schools, they don’t have any safety, any security. And the parents now, they are very angry. And they go around the high schools, and they say: If the government cannot guarantee our daughter’s life and our daughter’s security, we will go around the high school and we will, you know, find something that they poison them, and this is our duty if the government doesn’t do their duty.

ALI ROGIN: So that’s going to be a big test.

But I’m curious to get all your thoughts—and I apologize; we didn’t discuss this in advance—but who do you think is behind these poisonings?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: The government.

ALI ROGIN: Is it the government?

NAZANIN NOUR: I mean, everybody believes it’s regime—the regime is complicit, because this is also a regime that has eyes and ears everywhere. They’re able to—they kidnap dissidents abroad, and bring them back to—for execution. They have intelligence on dissidents abroad. There was the, you know, kidnapping that was—that the FBI foiled the plot against a leading voice, Masih Alinejad. So, it’s very difficult for anybody to believe that a regime that uses facial recognition technology to send tickets to women who aren’t wearing their hijab properly, cannot find out who’s behind these poisonings. So, everybody believes that the regime is actually behind this.

And it’s been going on since November of 2022, so that’s months now that this has been happening. And there’s countless videos on the internet from activist groups within Iran that are showing girls in hospitals, you know, with oxygen masks. They can’t breathe, they smell tangerine in the air, or rotten fish in the air. So, it’s very real.

And I know that the regime tries to downplay it, but, you know, it’s also very difficult to kind of loiter around a girls’ school in Iran. And so, again, it’s—again, that’s why it’s very difficult for anybody to believe that the regime is not complicit in this. Parents that have gone to ask questions are met with brute force by regime forces. So, not only are no answers being given, this is still continuing as of just a few days ago, we saw videos from other poisonings. And it’s across all cities and provinces in Iran, too. So—

ALI ROGIN: So, what I’m—what I’m curious about is—Azam, is this an example of the regime really feeling the pressure, that they are taking these steps of poisoning young girls?

AZAM JANGRAVI: Actually, I don’t know. It’s really complicated. But it might be the regime is behind of this situation.

Mehrangiz and Nazanin mentioned about poisoning, and I want to talk about executions. Well, the government is now trying to create fear among people by increasing executions. In the past ten days, over fifty-five people have been executed in—from in which twenty-six Baloch citizens executed. And I think—this by the suppression of Islamic Republic of Iran.

But the protest is ongoing in Balochistan, and every Friday they shut down the internet. And I think we have to talk about Balochistan and Kurdistan and—because the suppression in that areas every time increased by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

ALI ROGIN: That’s a very, very important point.

Azam, I want to stay with you and ask, let’s take a step back and let’s talk about the factors that led to this round of protests.

AZAM JANGRAVI: The protests that begin in mid-September were unprecedented in their scale and duration. People from all level of society, including women of various cities and social classes, came together to demand change.

A key point of contention was the mandatory hijab laws, which require all Iranian women to cover their hair. And although the protests were initially led by women, they soon expand to include men as well. The government attempt to suppress the protest with violence and repression, but the movement continued to grow and gained momentum. People from different backgrounds joined in—driven by a shared sense of frustration with the current government. While there have been some reports of misinformation circulating about the government’s intention, most people understand that the issue of mandatory hijab is just one of the many issue that need to be addressed.

It is clear that until there is real change in Iran, people will continue to demand change and speak out against the injustices in Iran. As I said, the government is now trying to create really fear among people by execution. Two men were executed in the past week, Yousef Mehrdad and Sadrollah Fazeil Zare were executed for just running online group criticizing Islam. Dual Swedish-Iranian citizen also executed last week. Additionally, more than eleven individuals are currently on deaths way—on death row in connection with the now recent protests. The world has been outraged by these killings and has called on Iran to stop them. We need to act now and raise our voices and call on the Islamic Republic to stop their executions.

ALI ROGIN: Nazanin, to Azam’s point about the need to raise your voice, we’ve seen some really interesting subversive ways that protesters, especially the young women and girls in Iran, are using social media. They’re using just formats that the regime is not familiar with to register their dissent. So does that add a new dimension that we haven’t seen before in previous iterations of these protests? And how is that affecting how this message is being communicated to the regime?

AZAM JANGRAVI: Yeah, absolutely. Social media’s been a huge help actually in this movement. It’s the first time that we’ve seen it. Gen Z is very adept at using TikTok and Instagram, and figuring out how to make things trend and go viral. An example of that is the video of the girls of Ekbatan. I don’t know if everybody saw that video, but there’s a song by Rema, a popular Afrobeats artist, with Selena Gomez. And they have a song called “Calm Down.” So these young girls made this dance video, and then they were detained afterward, of course, and had to give a forced apology video.

But that went viral. And that caused everybody around the world, from various countries—I mean, this—it was, like, trending billions in hashtags on TikTok. And it raised awareness for people to understand what’s actually happening in Iran. It gives people outside of Iran a connection to those inside showing, hey, we’re actually more similar than you might think, because a lot of people don’t have information on what Iran was like prior to 1979 either. And so social media’s been a really huge tool in pushing this forward.

And this is also—the Gen Zers are the ones who were at the forefront of all of this. And as Dr. Kar and Azzi said, this is—these poisonings seem to be a retaliation for the fact that they have been ripping up pieces of the supreme leader, they’ve been setting fire, there’s countless photos now that are iconic, that Time replicated, with the girls with their backs to the camera with the middle finger. So all of these things that they’re doing, they’re very smart. They know exactly how to get the attention of people across the world, and it’s—we have never seen that level of social media activity to move a movement forward when it comes to Iran.

ALI ROGIN: And it’s fascinating because it really does seem to be techniques using forums that are just completely unfamiliar to especially the conservative clerics.

So Dr. Kar, for you, you have—for a long time, part of your scholarship has been about tracking the divisions between the moderates, the reformers within the government, and the hardliners, looking from the 1990s to now. So can you get us up to date on what is the balance, what is the tension currently in the regime between moderates and conservatives? Is there any tension there, or is it just completely overrun by conservatives? How do you see those tensions playing out now, versus in previous decades where there was a bit of a reformist element?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: At the beginning I would like say that I practiced as a lawyer twenty-two years in Islamic Republic of Iran, so when I started to practice as a lawyer in Iran I was very young, and immediately we had Islamic—the revolution, Islamic Revolution and victory of Khomeini in this revolution. So I had been in a very complicated situation, not because I was a lawyer but because I was a woman and lawyer. I think two criminal in their eyes, because they—immediately they said that women cannot be judge, so they removed all female judge from judiciary system. And we were not sure that they give us permission to continue work as a lawyer, but they did, and they said because everybody is able to choose a lawyer, probably a mad lawyer, a crazy lawyer, and this is—and Islam—Islam doesn’t care about that. This is something that the people—

ALI ROGIN: If you want to choose a female lawyer, that’s your choice.

MEHRANGIZ KAR: Yes, is your choice; if you want to choose a mad, you know, lawyer, that is your choice. And that’s why we could survive. This was the reason, the base of our job.

So I can say that since Khomeini ordered for mandatory hijab, this movement started in Iran and continued. But sometimes it was very slow, it was very hard; sometimes it was getting clear and obvious. I can say that in first decade we were very, very active for mandatory hijab. And for something that is full of, you know, our penal code and family law after they came on power are full of discriminations against women, gender discrimination, and we can say this is some kind of gender apartheid. But we cannot have demonstration. Just somebody like me started talking and writing about these legal discriminations.

After that, the second we had involved with a very bad war between Iran and Iraq, and eight years we had been involved with that. And that’s why everything was closed about women’s rights and human rights, and nobody could talk about that in any other country that is involved with war. So we can say that during the time everything was slow or nothing. Nothing was active in that.

After war, after eight years that the war was over, Hashemi Rafsanjani was on power as president and he ordered open very small, very small opportunity for writing and talking about something, but under control—under very heavy control.

ALI ROGIN: And remind us, this is in the 1990s?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: 1990s, yes. And because I should make short everything, this is history and it is not easy—

ALI ROGIN: No, it—you’re doing a great job.

MEHRANGIZ KAR: After 1990, we reached 1996. And 1996 is very important period of revolution history started because the name is reformism movement. And the president, Khatami, and the people—most people of Iran, for the first time they voted to a president of this system, this political system. After that, because the slogan was different like rule of law and like we should—we should have civil society, it was very important because he ordered and the reformists ordered that women can have independent NGO. And it was very helpful for women. It was the first time that something like that happened in Iran.

But either during this time they didn’t give me permission because it—

ALI ROGIN: How interesting, during the reformist era.

MEHRANGIZ KAR: No, yeah, everything was under control. And they said: No, no, you cannot. You cannot have any NGO. And I do have all documents of that.

But some of young Iranian women, they could register and they could be active as NGO. This was something that started, you know, another kind of—

ALI ROGIN: Activism, or another kind of activism, or—

MEHRANGIZ KAR: Yes, yes, yes, as NGO.

ALI ROGIN: Yeah.

MEHRANGIZ KAR: And it—and they could be very active.

And then, after that, we had some campaign like one million signature and no to stoning and something like that. And Iranians—some part of Iranian women, they came to streets and it was very important. They came to public area, and they were talking and they were giving a slogan against discriminations, not against political system.

But after that, step by step, Ahmadinejad came and stopped everything and suppressed all women activists. And you know, they—most of them, they left Iran, and now they are all over the world. And after that, everybody thought that everything is stopped and never—you know, never be active about women’s rights. But as you know and as you see now, everything is full of energy and started a movement: Mahsa; and zan, zendegi, azadi. This is full of energy. This is full of anger. And this is different with some other that we had been before that.

ALI ROGIN: And to—Dr. Kar, to your point about how many activists left Iran, so now the diaspora is very rich, very, very vocal. And so, Nazanin, I’m curious to get your sense of what is the state of the diaspora now? Are they united around these protests, any more so than perhaps the cohesion was in previous years?

NAZANIN NOUR: Yeah. I want to say, just to that point too that you brought up of differences in the government, reforms, et cetera, that the people—the information coming out of Iran and people I talk to on the ground, most people don’t see any difference between any—they all think it’s the—you know, they’re all cut from the same cloth. So it’s a regime that’s irreformable and irredeemable in the eyes of the overwhelming majority of Iranians.

To the diaspora, yes, I remember in 2009 I was actually in Iran. I got there two days before the election, the Green Movement elections. And I witnessed what happened afterward, which was the violent suppression and oppression by the state to quash those protests. And I remember that it must have been like a blip in the American media. Maybe it was in a forty-eight-hour news cycle, and then it was gone. And so—and we’ve had protests that have built up in Iran since—you know, for the last twelve to thirteen years. But if you just want to go back, 2017, 2018, 2019. There was bloody November in 2019, fifteen thousand protesters got killed within a few days and it wasn’t on the news at all.

And now we saw that actually, yeah, the diaspora rallied around the people of Iran. I had never seen that level of unity in the entire time that I’ve lived in this country, as far as, you know, giving a spotlight and attention to Iran. There’s protests and rallies that have been held in—major protests and rallies held in cities and countries all over the world ever since September. Most of them are happening in cities every weekend.

And while we would love more media coverage, and attention, and a spotlight kept on Iran and all the atrocities—the poisonings, the executions, the fact that the people want this regime gone—the unity that I’ve seen and the level of attention is something that I’ve never seen before. And it’s absolutely necessary and vital to keep, you know, because their internet gets cut off. They don’t have the means, a lot of the times, to get the messages out. So it is up to the people in the diaspora to continue to amplify their voice and make sure that the world hears what they’re saying and what’s actually happening inside of the country.

ALI ROGIN: Absolutely.

Let’s take a couple questions from the audience. I invite anybody who has a question. While you’re thinking of your questions, I’d love to ask, Azam, you were one of the kind of, as we say, OGs of the anti-hijab movement. You stood on an electric transformer, as we said. You’re a girl of revolution street, which is where these protests were happening. So what does it mean to you to see these women and young girls in the streets now?

AZAM JANGRAVI: The fight for women’s rights in Iran has been ongoing for over forty-four years, as Mehrangiz says. One of the first protests against mandatory hijab in Iran occurred on March 8, 1980, where women have used various campaigns, activist groups, NGOs, to protest the violation of their rights and demand justice and equality. However, they have paid heavy price for their activism, including suppression, threats, imprisonments, and mental and physical torture.

In 2018, when I decided to protests against mandatory hijab, there were already ongoing protests against the regime in Iran. The Iranian public was expressing their anger in the protests with a wide range of chants directed towards the regime and its leadership. In the same days, Vida Movahed performed a symbolic act of taking her scarf off and putting it on a stick to peacefully protest hijab laws—a brave move that followed forty years of women’s activism. And this is important because the forty-four years ongoing activism, you know? And I also wanted to be part of these forty-year-old movement and raise my voice against mandatory hijab laws.

As an Iranian woman, I had experienced a lot of problems in my life, particularly when I decided to separate my ex-husband. And these difficulties made me more aware of inequality and separation that Iranian women have to endure. This made me think about what was happening to Iranian women. Then I felt compelled to protest against such cruelties, you know. I believe that each woman in Iran has explained it and said similar problems as this is a year of separation.

My hope was to be part of the activists who cared about creating more awareness in society. And on the day I protested, no one stood by me or supported me when I was arrested, you know. And right now we have seen every man stand for women. This is the more important things. I think this learning and becoming aware process has done so that men are now standing by women, fighting for human and women rights.

ALI ROGIN: To that point—and I’m so sorry to cut you off, Azam, but I do want to get to some audience questions. And somebody asked something that I think ties into this, which is the solidarity that we’re seeing, is that translating to internationally.

Somebody asks, how do you see the influence of regional solidarity among women. Is it active in places like Afghanistan? Are they giving each other energy and support as needed? So let’s broaden it out and look at the regional solidarity that’s happening. What are you all seeing? Whoever wants to take that. And I think, unfortunately, that may be our last question of the session.

NAZANIN NOUR: I mean, there were videos of women in Afghanistan that were marching with signs in solidarity with the women of Iran as well. I mean, they’re neighbors and, you know, African women are under terrible suppression and oppression themselves.

And I feel like there has been a global outcry but there needs to be more. There’s actions that have been taken by various countries. At the U.N. there’s a fact finding mission that was created. You know, people banded together and got the Islamic Republic kicked off the Commission on the Status of Women, for example.

But I still feel like there hasn’t been the amount of solidarity that there needs to be and the amount of support for—it’s a human rights issue. It’s a human rights crisis. It’s a women’s rights crisis. So we need people from around the world in various countries that also believe in women’s rights and human rights to also stand up for the women, girls, and the people of Iran.

ALI ROGIN: Excellent. And somebody else asks a question. With all that is going on we see regional neighbors like Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Iran. What does this mean for the protest movement? Are there any implications with other countries in the region normalizing ties with Iran?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: You mean the relationship—the new relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia?

ALI ROGIN: Yes. Yes. Are there any implications there for the protest movement?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: … We cannot predict the future of these negotiations because a lot of, you know, challenges are between Iran and Saudi Arabia and I don’t believe that everything could be. But we know Saudi Arabia that we—everybody knows is very serious, serious with Islam and with limitations and the discriminations, gender discrimination.

But now we are—you know, we are hearing that something has changed either in Saudi Arabia and this is something that Iranian people they are watching that and they think why they are—you know, they are pushing to a very bad situation, war situation, and Saudi Arabia is going toward and this is something that Iranian women know and they think about it but they don’t compare themselves with women in Saudi Arabia because we had a very different background during shah, during Pahlavi. Pahlavi changed a lot of things in Iran, like women’s rights.

ALI ROGIN: Right.

NAZANIN NOUR: But also anything that—like, anything that legitimizes the government is not going to be a good move. Anything, you know, that emboldens them is not going to be a good move, or solidifies their status.

But it’s not deterring people in Iran from protesting in their own ways. They still do come out to the streets. It might not be to the same effect as it was a few months ago, but the fact that women are taking off their hijabs, men are supporting them—also by wearing shorts, by the way, because that’s not allowed. So, that’s one way that people are dissenting, using civil disobedience. So those types of things are continuing to happen, and they’re not going to stop. And schoolgirls, university students in general, boys and girls, have been protesting for the last few weeks, as well.

So, I don’t believe that that is going to stop what has already started in Iran. There’s no going back, is what the people of Iran say.

ALI ROGIN: In the time that we have left, I’d like to go around. And in a few sentences, can you tell me what you would like to see from the international community, to give the support that this movement needs?

Dr. Kar, would you like to begin?

MEHRANGIZ KAR: Now we can understand that it’s not enough that human rights institution, international human rights institution, work for removing gender discrimination in Iran. Now we can understand that all Western government, they should work with human rights institution because, as my friends mentioned about execution, now it’s very important if they can stop it. Because if everybody is getting crazy in Iran by this situation, and either us that are outside Iran, when we get this news we cannot—we cannot—what could we do?

ALI ROGIN: Right.

MEHRANGIZ KAR: Because six others, they do one execution in Iran now. And all of them that call it an investigation, it is not justice. They don’t have lawyer. They don’t have lawyer. And the lawyer is coming from government and it is related with government.

So we can say that international community can do a lot of work for Iran, but so far we cannot see any results of that in this movement that now it is our focus.

ALI ROGIN: Azam.

AZAM JANGRAVI: As an internet security researcher and digital security trainer, my concern is about internet, because the Islamic Republic of Iran, when it wants to suppress the people of Iran, they shut down the internet. And it would be good for Iranian people if the international community find a way to help people for internet, and—especially VPNs, especially, you know, support us for helping people, for internet shutdowns.

ALI ROGIN: Right, we’ve seen that the sanctions don’t really seem to discriminate between uses for speaking out, and for doing business with the regime.

AZAM JANGRAVI: Exactly.

ALI ROGIN: Nazanin.

NAZANIN NOUR: I just think overall, the global community needs to condemn the actions of the Islamic Republic, not legitimize them. Even the smallest action, like heads of states, when they meet with Islamic Republic officials—women not wearing the headscarf. You know, it’s not obligatory; they don’t have to do it.

I think things like, you know, the U.N. just appointed the Islamic Republic to a commission that’s overseeing human rights. And it’s an absolute slap in the face to Iranians, because they just executed two people two days ago, simply for running a social media channel that was questioning religion. So, the world needs to stop doing things like that, because all they’re doing is solidifying and emboldening the regime.

They need to pass legislation and do things that support the people of Iran, instead of emboldening the regime. They need to hold them accountable for human rights abuses. They need to, you know, list—the EU can list the IRGC as a terrorist organization. The US can pass the MAHSA Act. There’s a lot of things that can be done that haven’t been done yet. And I hope to see that.

ALI ROGIN: Nazanin Nour, Mehrangiz Kar, and Azam Jangravi, thank you so much for being here today. This has been a fascinating conversation, and congratulations tonight on the award that you are receiving from the Atlantic Council. It is so well deserved.

I think we can all join in a round of applause for this incredible panel.

MEHRANGIZ KAR: Thank you. Thank you for having us.

AZAM JANGRAVI: Thank you.

ALI ROGIN: So that concludes the program. Thank you so much for joining us.

NAZANIN NOUR: Thank you. Ali.

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This female-oriented brain drain is an under-researched and underrecognized phenomenon seriously impacting the contemporary Middle East and North Africa. Part of this is due to the lack of relevant data and a widespread international tendency to underestimate the potential of women’s participation in the workforce. However, the existing data on women’s education, participation in the labor market, and migration patterns demonstrates a correlation and indicates a disproportionate desire for women to seek career opportunities elsewhere.

As women gain access to education, their involvement in the workforce lags. The average female-to-male tertiary education ratio is 108 percent, with more women obtaining university degrees. Yet, the World Bank has reported that the labor force participation rate for women is 19 percent compared to the 71 percent rate for men. The increasing number of women and girls who are provided access to education closely aligns with the increasing number of women who are emigrating from the Middle East. Many of them are migrating independently for career advancement and educational opportunities.

This correlation is evident in Egypt, where half of the doctors—the majority of whom are women—have left the country to pursue career opportunities in the healthcare field. Women are also more likely to remain abroad over their male due to gender disparities in the labor markets back home. Not only are numbers high in countries such as Syria and Yemen, which are currently facing widespread and violent conflict, but countries such as Jordan and Morocco, which should otherwise have high female employment rates and low brain drain rates, remain some of the worst in the world for female economic participation.

Causes for female brain drain  

Although women’s education is increasing rapidly, there are many gendered factors that both prevent women from entering the workforce and deter them from remaining in it. Women are often hesitant to pursue career ambitions or are pushed out of their careers due to workplace harassment, discriminatory employment practices, a dearth of safe transportation options, and social norms. Additionally, women have to take on the majority of childcare responsibilities without a range of public childcare options available to ccompensate for the disproportionate burden.

Women also face low wages, meaning that they expect to receive minimal returns on the heavy investment they made to pursue their careers. This is exacerbated by the fact that women are often the last to be hired and the first to be fired—a phenomenon that increased dramatically due to the COVID-19 pandemic. If they do manage to obtain a job or keep it, they have fewer opportunities to advance in their careers once they enter the workforce. This glass ceiling for women in MENA has often been attributed to traditional gender roles and discriminatory practices.

Why women matter 

It is well known that women’s economic participation improves and promotes the overall economic development of the region. If female brain drain continues to accelerate, the entire region will face the consequences, including economic stagnation and the social ostracization of an underutilized demographic. A 2022 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) study found that improving the female employment rate to meet the current male employment rate could increase the region’s GDP by up to 57 percent, which translates to $2 trillion. Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon are expected to benefit the most from improving female employment rates. Additionally, improving female representation in positions of power and diplomacy has been proven to encourage more sustainable peace and increased democratization in the region. For these reasons, it would benefit all parties involved to take action against women’s brain drain in MENA.

This can involve deliberate steps to increase economic opportunities for women and foster a more inclusive, female-oriented workplace, such as quota-based initiatives and female-oriented legislation. Legislation would include protections for women against workplace harassment, assistance in childcare responsibilities, and equal payment.

The efficacy of gender-based labor legislation is evident in Gulf countries. While Saudi Arabia suffered a major gendered brain drain in the early twentieth century, women’s participation in the economy has grown significantly, rising to a record 37 percent in 2022 due to gender reforms implemented in the prior five years and the Vision 2030 economic diversification plan. These measures included quota-based initiatives that aimed to increase women’s participation to 30 percent, a ban on gender discrimination in the workplace and discriminatory hiring or firing practices, and the criminalization of sexual harassment. These types of measures must be implemented across the Middle East in order to even the playing field for women in the workforce.

The PwC’s 2022 survey found that the factors enabling women to go into work include relevant workplace policies as well as the ability to work remotely, access to transport, flexible hours, and access to jobs that match their skills. Policymakers must keep these factors at the forefront to compel women to contribute to the labor force. Additional solutions to this problem could include female-oriented grants or scholarships. Finally, the current social norms prohibiting women from career aspirations must be challenged. That taboo is more than a detriment to women—it is a problem for us all. If steps like these are not taken, women will continue to depart MENA at an increasing rate.

Britt Gronemeyer is a Young Global Professional at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs.

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