It is time to switch on the female engine for Lebanon’s economic recovery. Now

 

 

Investing in women is not just a proven socio-economic investment case. It is a nation-building methodology.

 

Our national female data crisis

The Gender Gap Report of 2021 by the World Economic Forum says the world needs 267.6 years to close on the gap in economic participation and opportunity for women. We are ranked 132 on economic enablement out of 156 countries indexed around the world.

Despite our limited available data, Lebanon clearly needs a lot more than 276.6 years to close our gender economic gap. According to World Bank research in 2019, 49.7% of the Lebanese population is female, but only 9.9% of small and medium-sized enterprises are women-led. IFC data in 2019 shows that only 4.4% of our executive seats are held by women. And yet, World Bank 2019 statistics sized the Lebanese population at 49.7% female.

Go female: Power in the better half

A new Lebanon means the opportunity to do things differently.

While half of our population has systemically been barricaded from effective economic inclusion, our numbers do speak volumes: there can be no economic recovery without the full meaningful inclusion of women.

A female-led recovery can reignite our society, country, and prospects for a just and thriving future. We are in a special window to, for once, face the political, economic, social, and legal injustices hammering women with structural re-invention.


The same way our poverty is multi-dimensional, so needs to be our recovery:

Set the ground with human rights

A female-led social investment strategy for economic revitalization must begin with human rights. Human rights are a key accelerator to economic recovery.

Invest in gender-centered data

Women and girls are hit hardest by our national track record of information inequity. It is essential to finally break this vicious victimization cycle and drive social investments towards human-centered research.

Sponsor long-term education for girls

As household income and purchasing power continues drying up, so does the ability for families to invest in their children. Families will be forced to choose only one child or two to go to school. Boys will begin to come first. Our girls will be increasingly left behind. Dedicated scholarships for the long-term right to education of girls is today indispensable.

Prevent the trend towards human trafficking

Keeping our girls away from an education isolates them, debilitating their abilities to achieve their fullest potential. This is early grounds for child sex trafficking and forced child marriage. Local civil society organization and donors need to introduce anti-human trafficking to their recovery plans so that we can disable the problem before it becomes too big for even humanitarian funding to squash it.

Champion dual household income with gender parity

The extreme financial destitution of families makes the need for dual-income households an absolute necessity for years to come. Society must let women need become income generators. Employers have a responsibility to guarantee gender parity in wages. Any gender gap in salaries will hurt the chances of every single household working hard to exit poverty.

Empower women with meaningful know-how

While our labor market has always failed to invite, welcome in, and embrace our women, new faces in our marketplace can stimulate, innovate, and enable economic growth. To enable job creation, we must also channel social investments towards value-adding capacity-building and vocational training. The more women learn, the more we will be able to give back.

Invest in women-led businesses

Let us not forget that women are consumers. The buying power of women is essential to unlock. Women-led businesses know best how to serve half of our population. Women executives are also caretakers for their teams and supply chains. The more there are women in leadership, the bigger our market and economy can grow.


Do not cause harm

Humanitarian aid and social investments must do no harm when attempting to do good. When funding is not strategically designed, honorably deployed, and ethically monitored, women and girls will be most hurt. And more often than not, silently.

There are many opportunities for us to recover, build, and serve our Lebanon. Women and girls are our most agile national resources with the most promising returns on investment and impact multiplier effects. Without us, our future will be endangered, leaving Lebanon limited, crippled, and disempowered to only our other national half. It is our women who will make sure that we never do things like before again. Ever. That is the Lebanon we all deserve.