Voice: economic empowerment of low-income Egyptian women

This research sets out to examine the enablers and constraints of Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) programmes in Egypt. The purpose of the research is to explore and identify the factors that hinder women in the Middle East and Africa region (MENA) from participating in Women’s Economic Empowerment programmes to inform future planning for such programmes. The research is particularly interested in contributing to the United Nations Global Sustainable Development Goals (UNGSDG) by setting a case to work towards achieving at least 7 of the 17 Goals set by the UN. These will be further clarified on the following page. By looking into the enablers and constraints of WEE programs in Egypt, this research will establish a base to step up towards contributing and promoting those important goals.

Using an auto-ethnographic lens, through group gatherings with women from three different regions in Egypt, narrative contributions were collected and analysed to extract data and draw results. These group gatherings were conducted in sessions, where each group consisted of around five women. Due to the COVID-19 situation, the sessions were conducted remotely via zoom. A local facilitator physically was present with each group. Thematic analysis was conducted to find out the enablers and the constraints.

The main findings illustrated that women were bound to household activities as their core responsibility, female decision making is highly impacted by husbands, and factors enabling them to work are education, family situation, infrastructure, and financial needs.

There are shifting contextual factors, such as engagement with employers, that the WEE programs need to address. This would involve employees’ rights legislation, such as birth-related leave and availability of funded or subsidised nurseries, as well as training.

To bring about effective change for women beyond a first steppingstone requires the involvement of local, regional, and global actors if WEE programmes are to have an impact on the health and well-being of communities and countries facing what could be catastrophic futures due to global factors.