API's 9th International Conference on "Women and Youth in Arab Development"

API's 9th International Conference provided a forum to debate the process of empowering Arab women to play their role in the region's development and ways of arresting the observed exclusion of Arab youth.

The following broad themes for the conference have been identified:

1. evaluation of the current economic, social or legal circumstances of Arab women from the perspective of development as freedom, and the exploration of approaches to improve them in the Arab region in general, or individual countries as case studies;
2. evaluation of the current economic, social or legal circumstances of Arab youth from the perspective of development as freedom, and the exploration of approaches to improve them in the Arab region in general, or individual countries as case studies;
3. a critical evaluation of the prospects for achieving the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) on women empowerment and gender equality on the one hand and those on youth on the other, in the Arab region or in individual countries as case studies. Such evaluation is to be centered on the resource implications of achieving the goals in question;
4. a critical evaluation of the state of women, and youth, unemployment in the Arab countries and the exploration of non-conventional approaches to reduce such rates in the future and the policy implications of such approaches;
5. development of relevant empirical methodologies for estimating the economic and social costs of excluding women and youth during the process of development;
6. development of relevant analytical frameworks for policy evaluation, and policy formulation, regarding streamlining women and youth in development plans in Arab countries;
7. review, and analysis, of the features of the current Arab gender reality and the exploration of changing trends; and,
8. critical assessment of the economic and social policies followed by Arab countries in the last five decades, with emphasis on policies targeting women and youth (if any).

For more information on the conference, please visit the Arab Planning Institute website.