Dubai : A first-of-its-kind UAE Gender Balance Centre for Excellence and Knowledge Exchange was launched on Tuesday. In cooperation with the World Bank and the UAE Gender Balance Council, the initiative will promote gender balance in the region.
The Centre will provide consultations to support gender reforms in the region, and will generate and disseminate knowledge on the topic, including through the exchanging of best practices in regards to gender balance.
Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, President of the UAE Gender Balance Council, the wife of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Presidential Court, said the new regional Center is an example of the commitment and achievements made by the UAE. It is aligned with the UAE government’s priorities under the 2026 UAE Gender Balance Strategy, particularly through its commitment to gender mainstreaming in the region through local and international partnerships.
The Emirati experience in supporting women and gender balance has become universally appreciated and a regional model to follow, officials said during the launch of the Centre.
Cooperation agreement
The UAE Gender Balance Council signed a technical cooperation agreement with the World Bank to exchange local solutions and information on women’s empowerment and gender balance, provide technical advice for the best gender-supportive policies at the global level, and to partner to promote gender balance in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa region.
The agreement was signed by Mona Al Marri, Vice President of the UAE Gender Balance Council, and Issam Abousleiman, Regional Director of GCC Countries for the World Bank.
Shamsah Saleh, Secretary-General, UAE Gender Balance Council said : “We have built a global partnership to strengthen our capacity. The World Bank really supports us in changing our policy. My role involves changing our policy and the new policies. Our role also involves gender budgeting with our partners. We work closely with the UNDP. So what we do we assess ourselves, we identify gender gaps and look at resolving this through gender balance programmes and policy implementation.”
Abousleiman said he was impressed with the growth of GCC in bridging the gap of gender disparity. “Across GCC we are seeing more women taking on leadership roles,” he added.
Abousleiman said the initiative is very timely for the MENA region, where the gender parity gap is the second largest globally. “We are delighted to partner with the UAE, the leader in closing the gender parity gap in the region. We believe that the Centre will be an effective platform for setting the tone for gender reform for the region, sharing the UAE’s reform experience, providing practical support to other reforming governments, and being a source of gender policy innovation in the region.”
Constructive partnership
The agreement comes within the framework of the UAE Gender Balance Council’s keenness to build and strengthen effective partnership relations with countries and international organisations that have distinguished expertise and experiences in gender policies to exchange visions, ideas and experiences with them on the best gender-related policies and to highlight the UAE’s tireless efforts in the field of supporting women. There have been many aspects of cooperation between the Council and the World Bank over the past seven years.
