Source: United States Department of State
If the nations of the Middle East and North Africa are to enjoy economic prosperity and political stability, they need to fully include women, says Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine.

Speaking April 4 at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based policy research organization, Sonenshine said, "Study after study has confirmed that any country or region that ignores half of its population will undercut its chance of success politically, economically and democratically."

"The cost of systemic discrimination and of failure to harness the contributions of women will have consequences for prosperity, stability and violent extremism," she said.

Young people — a huge number of whom are unemployed — dominate the demographics of the Arab world, Sonenshine said, and will continue to do so until at least 2030. And while women are the largest cohort in higher education in many countries in many regions, women in the Arab world — according to a World Bank study — have the lowest rates of employment of any region, she said. "The economies of the Middle East will never reach their potential without women playing a significantly more active role in the workforce," she said.

Moreover, women have an important role to play in suppressing extremism, according to Sonenshine.

"Women are frequently the ones most intimately connected in the community, with families and neighbors," she said. "They are uniquely positioned to prevent extremist ideology from creeping in their communities. They are the community's most frequent teachers of respect and tolerance, and they can bring their attributes to more than the so-called women's issues space. They are good at conflict resolution, economic management of a household income and political leadership."

Sonenshine pointed to women like Tawakkol Karman, now a 34-year-old mother of three from Yemen and a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for nonviolent efforts to enhance women's safety, human rights and peacebuilding; United Arab Emirates minister of development and international cooperation Lubna al- Qasimi; and Dr. Ansam Sawalha, who brings educational opportunities and scholarships to girls and women in the Palestinian Territories. It is people like them, Sonenshine said, who help cultivate freedom, dignity, prosperity and innovation in their countries.

Women should also have the opportunity to govern, Sonenshine said. As half the population of the Middle East and North Africa, women — many of whom were on the front lines of democratic change in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya — are denied equal or even remotely equal roles in their governments, she said.

The conundrum facing this region, Sonenshine said, is that "women are needed in decisionmaking circles to bring about political change, but until there is political change, women have difficulty attaining influential political positions."

Despite the many challenges they face, women in the Middle East and North Africa are making some progress, and the United States is actively supporting gender equality throughout the region, according to Sonenshine.

For example, the United States via the U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative supports the Arab Women's Leadership Institute, which trains women leaders in government as well as civil society, Sonenshine said. In addition, U.S. embassies in the region, she said, conduct a myriad of workshops and programs to provide women with leadership skills. To coordinate all these efforts, Sonenshine said, the U.S. Department of State has an Office of Global Women's Issues and a special representative to Muslim communities.

Sonenshine said men, and especially boys, need to be drawn into the conversation of women's rights — and especially women's protection against sexual abuse. "We have to have boys and girls talking about these issues earlier," Sonenshine said. "It's hard to do it at your kitchen table. It's hard to do it in your classroom. But this is where it begins."

"Building a democracy takes time," Sonenshine said. "And women's rights aren't just rights, they're necessary. Countries all over this world will be stronger when everyone has a stake in the global system."

Learn more about the U.S. -Middle East Partnership Initiative on the State Department website.