How Can We Support the Contributions of Women in the Water Industry? Middle East Region perspectives.

As part of the workshop and to ensure a more meaningful experience, we encourage all the participants to fill a Pre-workshop survey here : https://rb.gy/skutag

(The pre-workshop survey will be an online form and will include a series of questions to gather insights around potential solutions to key challenges faced by women in the water industry. No personal information will be collected)

Given the global challenges surrounding water management, climate change, and sustainability, engagement of all talents and efforts may bring the most effective and long-lasting solutions. However, women still continue to encounter obstacles that prevent them from making meaningful contributions to the water industry.

The book “Women in Water: How to Support Everyone’s Contribution”, in which the project Women in Water had resulted, highlights the challenges women face in the water sector, such as limited opportunities, discrimination, and work-life balance. It addresses issues like self-confidence, age bias, and the importance of mentoring, aiming to create a more supportive and inclusive environment.

As reported in the recent Middle East Institute publication (https://www.mei.edu/publications/women-and-climate-change-mena-turning-adversity-opportunity), the Middle East and North Africa region is both a climate change hotspot and one of the world’s most gender-unequal regions. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report 2023 (https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-gender-gap-report-2023/), the region is the furthest away from equality with a 62.6% parity score, suggesting it would take 152 years to fully attain parity at the current rate of progress.

As part of the second phase of the Women in Water Project, we are eager to gather real-life insights from the Middle East region on what women, men, and organisations can do to address key challenges faced by women in the industry.

Different parts of the water sector: utility, academia, NGO, consultancy, regulator, government organisations, industry, technology supplier, research institute, etc.

After attending the presentations and discussions in this online workshop, participants will be able to:

• Recognise and explore the barriers and opportunities for promoting diversity and inclusion of women in the water industry with a focus on Middle East region
• Identify actions and measures that women, men, and water-sector organisations can adopt to enhance workforce diversity and create a more inclusive work environment, especially for women.
• Generate ideas for training programmes and social behaviour change campaigns within the topic for the Middle East region and globally.

• Highlighting the key challenges women face in the water industry through presenting results of the Women in Water Project, as well encouraging voices from Middle East region.
• Identifying actions and measures that women, men, and water-sector organisations can adopt to enhance workforce diversity and create a more inclusive work environment, in the Middle East region and globally.