Egypt Among 10 Worst Countries in Gender Equality: Report

Ahram Online
Sunday 22 Nov 2015

There has been no progress in regards to political empowerment for women in Egypt since 2006 according to the global report

Egypt ranks 136th out of 145 countries in gender equality in the world after Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to the Global Gender Gap report 2015.

The Global Gender Gap report, which marks its tenth year in 2015, was first introduced by the World Economic Forum in 2006 as a framework for capturing the magnitude of gender-based disparities and tracking their progress among the thresholds of political economic, education, and health.

This year highlights a worse decline in the status of women as Egypt ranked 129th out of 142 countries according to the Global Gender Gap index in 2014, and 125th out of 136 countries in 2013.

Egypt ranks the worst on the political empowerment of women (136). There has been no progress in regards to political empowerment since 2006. On the three remaining thresholds, Egypt ranks 125 on economic participation and opportunity, 115 on education attainment, and 97 on health and survival.

In the Middle East and North Africa region, Kuwait ranked 117th overall, followed by the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Tunisia. Yemen is the lowest-ranked country in the index, which at 145th, has remained at the bottom of the index since 2006 but has significantly improved relative to its own past scores.

With no country able to close the gender gap, Nordic countries, with Iceland on top, then Norway, Finland and Sweden consecutively, dominate as the most gender equal states.

Sweden, which ranks 4th on the Global Gender Index, prides itself on being the first feminist government in the world as it carries out a gender equality analysis early in the decision-making process.

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