Women can overcome seemingly 'insurmountable' obstacles, just like the UAE, minister says

Women can overcome seemingly “insurmountable” obstacles and achieve the impossible, Reem Al Hashimy, the UAE's Minister of State for International Co-operation, told a global gathering of top female talent in Abu Dhabi.

She cited the example of the UAE as a country that has succeeded in breaking barriers.

The minister was addressing women entrepreneurs, philanthropists, artists, athletes and media personalities from around the world at the second annual Forbes 30/50 event, on Wednesday — International Women's Day.

Ms Al Hashimy spoke about the importance of building bridges and breaking free of limiting mindsets.

“The key point, and I take this from my work in the ministerial portfolio and Expo [2020 Dubai], the key essence is that … we often feel that a lot of things seem insurmountable, but there are ways around it”, she said.

“We've managed as a nation in a very difficult neighbourhood to bring people of all different faiths together, to have one of the strongest economies. As a hydrocarbon nation we've managed to focus on renewable energy and we're going to be hosting Cop28 this year”, she said.

“The idea of possibility, the idea of opportunity, is so alive and well, but most of the time we're paralysed by our own mindset. And if we can break free of that and if we can try to emerge triumphant from that, we can do a lot of things together”, she added.

Many women around the world, although separated by distance, deal with “different variations of similar challenges” but they find solutions as “we bring our hearts to what we do”, the minister said.

The UAE has taken various measures to improve gender equality in the country, in line with its commitment to UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030.

“As the UAE prepares to host Cop28, two thirds of the UAE’s leadership team and more than half of the management team are women”, Noura Al Kaabi, UAE Minister of State, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.

The UAE was ranked first among Arab countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2022. It advanced four ranks in one year, rising from 72nd position to 68th globally.

Listed companies in the UAE have more than doubled the number of women on their boards of directors since 2020, as part of the country's efforts to improve gender diversity among corporations.

Women held 77 seats in the boardrooms of listed companies in 2022, up from 29 seats in 2020, according to a study by Aurora50.

Women accounted for 8.9 per cent of the 868 board seats of the 115 companies listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and the Dubai Financial Market as of June 2022, up from 3.5 per cent in 2020, the report showed.

The UAE also implemented legal reforms, giving women greater rights, such as increasing maternity leave by a minimum of 30 per cent.

Globally, while there have been major advances in dozens of countries in terms of equality for half of the planet's population, women rights' violations in many places serve as a reminder of the long road ahead.

A new indicator developed by the International Labour Organisation finds that women’s access to employment, working conditions and pay gaps have barely improved in the past two decades, the UN body said in a March 6 report.

The ILO's new Jobs Gap report, which captures data on citizens without employment who want to find a job, paints a bleak picture of women in the world of work.

The new data shows that women still have a much harder time finding work than men.

About 15 per cent of working-age women globally would like to work but do not have a job, compared with 10.5 per cent of men. This gap remained almost unchanged from 2005 to 2022.

By contrast, global unemployment rates for women and men are very similar, because the criteria used to define unemployment tends to disproportionately exclude women, the ILO said.

Panellists at the event on Wednesday spoke on the theme of women’s resilience, perseverance and the need for supporting each other.

While they acknowledged how far women have come over the years, they also called for greater gender parity in their respective fields, equal pay, more opportunities for career development, supportive mentorship and better access to budgets.

Mo Abudu, founder and chief executive of EbonyLife Media, emphasised that women need to find more ways to work together.

“Please find ways to network, support, help each other to break through, men do it time and time again”, she said.

Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz, director of the US-based Charles Schwab Corporation and board chairwoman and president of Charles Schwab Foundation, underscored the importance of women taking control of their finances.

“In the United States, and I assume in many other countries as well … women are unfortunately one step behind when it comes to their finances”, she said.

Women have to be two steps ahead in this area, she said.

“There are macro and micro reasons for that. From a macro [point of view], we live longer than men, we tend to go in and out of the workforce … to take care of our children or caring for elderly parents, and then of course we earn less money than men. So given that we live longer, we have more years of retirement.

“And so, given that we don't have this knowledge [of finances], we are not only affecting ourselves in our financial theory and competence, but we are affecting our families and our children and so it is generational … It's so important for each one of us to really have a basic knowledge of finances”.

Women have to understand how to build wealth and financial security for themselves, she added.

According to the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Gender Gap report, the world is still a staggering 132 years away from achieving gender equality.

The growing range of interconnected “polycrises” that are shaking the world are fuelling a cost-of-living crisis — which women are bearing the brunt of globally, the report said.

“Women have historically shouldered a disproportionate share of care responsibilities”, said Silja Baller, head of diversity, equity and inclusion at the WEF.

“What happened during and since the pandemic is that the care infrastructure broke down globally, leaving many women unable to return to the workforce.”