“Advocating for Gender Equality along the countries of the Rift Valley Red Sea Flyway Webinar. “

Birdlife International- Amman

Gender is a core issue in Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The region has the world’s lowest rate of female economic participation, and, despite increasing levels of education amongst women in the region, this figure has been resistant to change, which is why the Migratory Soaring Birds (MSBs) Project, funded by GEF and coordinated by UNPD, aims to contribute significantly to the gender issue. Hence, the MSB project team decided to host a gender webinar tackling “Advocating for Gender Equality along the countries of the Rift Valley Red Sea Flyway “, on May 24,2023.

Presenters included an array of Gender specialists, Ghadeer al Majali, National Project Manager from UNDP/Jordan, and Shannon Anstee, senior programme officer from Birdlife International. They explained what gender equality and its basic goals is, which is not just about women but also about having the same opportunities despite gender. They also emphasized that empowering women is a key aspect of achieving gender equality. The webinar explained the UNDP Gender Marker applied in the MSB project and for potential UNDP-coordinated future projects, and explored MSB BirdLife partners work under the Gender Indicator in the MSB Project Results Framework.

Osama Alnouri, MSB project manager said: “As the second Tranche of the MSB project adopted a UNDP Gender Marker 2, BirdLife partners under the Migratory Soaring Birds Project increased their capacity efforts to mainstream gender within their national operations and in line with BirdLife Quality Assurance System covering gender policies".

The webinar concluded in an explanatory discussion of understanding of gender policy guidelines and the possibility of adapting these guidelines to help achieve organizational goals and objectives. In addition, the webinar came out with a set of recommendations, the most important of which are: Organise more capacity building support including training workshops, strengthen the incorporation of gender perspectives in the formulation, and develop standard mainstreaming, increase knowledge and awareness of the benefits of women's participation in decision making, ensuring women’s participation and consultation, and requesting Birdlife international partners to develop data on women and having leadership roles in national NGOs.