Towards Empowerment of Arab S&T Women for
Socio-Economic Development of the Arab World

The empowerment of women entails a qualitative and quantitative improvement in educational, training and engagement opportunities offered. It also involves promoting higher profile for women in the socio-economic development of their societies.
Therefore, it engages Arab S&T Women in all activities and develops their technical skills in order to strengthen their role on regional and international levels. This is reflected in all ASTF programs and activities including Funded Research, Collaborative Projects, Networks, Technopreneur Program, Technology Competitions, and Conferences. Despite so, their participation in our activities (representing global Arab situation) compared to Arab S&T Men is 15% and 7% in R&D and Business Development activities, respectively. This indicates that further effort is needed to encourage Women involvement in a way that allows better representation allowing creativity and innovation.
In the latest Arab S&T biggest conference, SRO4, participants emphasized the need to establish a coordination effort between existing programs and entities related to Arab S&T women. Comprehensive initiatives towards women scientists should be designed and implemented.


ASTF is proposing the below initiative towards empowering Arab S&T Women. It capitalizes on available efforts in the Arab region and stream line them for best achieving development goals. The initiative comes in three phases over three years:

Initiative entails many projects and activities. Each come with clear aims and deliverables, yet all complement each other for the achievement of the objectives of the initiative. Initiative Objectives: This initiative aims to:

1. Gather information on existing individuals, efforts, and institutions working in the field of empowering WS&T Arab Women.
2. Network and coordinate expertise and efforts for better of outcome.
3. Bring together capable teams of S&T Women to develop meaningful projects and implement them to show Women positive impact on socio-economic advancement in the region.
4. Create opportunities for better capacity building of talented young Arab Women through Fellowship, Mentorship and interaction with distinguished spirits.
5. End-up with new projects and initiatives that build-on experience gained in this initiative.

First Phase (2008): Setting up the Structure

1. Establishing Individuals Database of Arab Women Scientists and Technopreneurs.
2. Establishing Entities Database of Arab and International programs related to gender issues in S&T.
3. Establishing a website dedicated to S&T Women issues. This website will provide information on S&T women successes and offer information about events, and capacity building programs, and links.
4. Developing and Publicizing a ‘Good Practices List’. This list compiles efforts on: Women support (Logistic/Financial), Capacity Building, dissemination of information and special prizes. This would lead to a better representation and visibility of S&T women.
5. Organizing a biennale Conference on the state of Arab Women scientists and technopreneurs, their visibility and difficulties across the Arab world. This conference will bring together key players concerned with the subject including the under-representation of women on committees and panels.
6. Establish an Award to pay tribute to distinguished Women Scientists or Entrepreneurs.

Second Phase (2009): Reinforce S&T Women

1. Up-dating Databases; both the individuals and the institutions.
2. Enriching the website and adding new services. This may include adding studies, resources for capacity building, Polls, and other online-resources.
3. An electronic forum with women scientists to debate issues related to science and technology in the Arab world.
4. Networking (with the aim to coordinate) with Arab and international existing programs and organizations on S&T women’s role in the social and economical development of their societies.
5. Organizing a workshop to develop the projects identified by the Task-force teams during the first conference(to develop fundable projects).
6. Seek finance to enhance women participation and fund projects developed by the Task-Force teams.

Third Phase (2010): Launching of Further Programs

1. Continue developing both the Database and the Website
2. Developing a Fellowship program towards women in science and technology and have they stay for periods between 6 to 12 months in public and private advanced institutions.
3. Launching successfully funded project(s) that was developed by the Task-Force teams during the precedent year.
4. Organizing the second biennale Conference on Arab Women Scientists and Technopreneurs. Conference makes an opportunity to present the outcomes of the developed/funded projects.