Sucess Story of SDG5

April 24, 2019

In September 2015, 193 Member States of the United Nations , including Kuwait , adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that is comprised of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) In New York .

Aligned with  Kuwait National development plan (KNDP) , a set of goals and targets has been established to support Kuwait in ending all forms of discrimination against women. Therefore, the State of Kuwait represented by the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development (GSSCPD) initiated the implementation of the project “Support to the State of Kuwait in the implementation of SDG 5 on Gender Equality“. This project seeks to accelerate the implementation of SDG 5 and set in motion longer term transformative changes that will enable Kuwait in achieving the ambitious goals set under the women’s empowerment agenda of the SDGs in Kuwait.

Kuwait has made significant progress to close the gender gap in education during the past decades and now hosts a population of highly-educated young women and men. In fact, the Kuwaiti female labor force has doubled the percentage of women with university degrees than male counterparts. Although women’s rate of participation in the labour force in Kuwait is one of the highest in the region, Kuwaiti women remain under-represented in senior management positions in both the public (13 per cent) and private (15 per cent) sectors.  Empowering Kuwaiti women to participate fully in economic life across all sectors is essential to building stronger economies, achieving internationally agreed goals for development and sustainability, and improving the quality of life for women, men, families and communities.

In April 2019 at Alhamra Tower , 9 new companies signed the WEPs and joined the global community to promote women’s empowerment. The companies who signed were HSBC Kuwait, Amideast Kuwait, Alpassion , Balsam International, WMF, ACICO, Nasser & Al Nashie, and Limak, .

Moreover ,for the first time we witnessed the signing of an academic institution , the Gulf University for science and technology.

The fifth Goal of the SDGs aims to Achieve gender equality and women and girls empowerment , in the purpose of ending all kinds of discrimination against them. The goal also aims develop a progressive legal framework that promote equality between women and men.