The fight for women empowerment and inclusion in the workspace has been an ongoing fight in our world. Although female participation in the labor force has seen an ongoing increase from 1980 till 2021, however, as per the World Bank Gender Data Portal: “The global labor force participation rate for women is just over 50% compared to 80% for men. Women are less likely to work in formal employment and have fewer opportunities for business expansion or career progression.”
Education as a direct road to employment
There are different opportunities to invest in to further increase this female participation in the labor force on the long run and make sure that women are getting the opportunities they deserve. One important opportunity which has a direct impact on women employment is education as shown in the results from year 2000 onwards. The more women are educated, the higher their chance of inclusion and employment. This is verified through different studies done across countries by IZA Institute of Labor Economics and on Science Direct, which show that “educated women were said to increase their problem solving, life skills, flexibility and openmindness” which in turn had an effect on their increased participation in the workplace. Therefore, to increase labor force participation for women, the focus should also be directed to the countries with the lowest rates which are mostly, as shown in the results in the map, countries in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.
The road to achieve Gender Equality and increase women inclusion in the workplace
Investing in scholarships and school programs/workshops targeted to women, is a long term solution to increase the global labor force participation rate for women. These scholarships and development programs/workshops should also be targeted towards topics of high impact and high demand in the job market. Later stages can also include legal reforms to achieve gender equality and decrease gender discrimination in the workplace. Therefore, we call all advocates, politicians in donor countries, and international organizations to have action plans in process in countries that need it the most to make sure that we reach SDG #5 by 2030.
Trading is one of the most important industries in the UAE, as this is one of the richest countries. The UAE also imports many products, among which foodstuff, machinery, and equipment occupy the first positions among the most imported products in the Emirates. The availability of food is not an issue for residents of the UAE; supermarkets carry all the food they could possibly need or want. But how can a nation with the parched territory and hot weather all year round have access to a wide variety of food? Simple: The UAE is greatly reliant on imports.
-Did you know?
UAE faces a trade deficit when it comes to its food market due to limited arable land, increasing climate issues, and acute water shortage.
-What are the challenges?
With the recent COVID-19 outbreak revealing the precarious nature of imports, the UAE is now putting a strategy in place by investing in technologies to find a solution to food security.
-How can this situation improve?
They need to reduce the imports through a new food strategy which is investing in ag-tech!!
This situation can be improved through “Magic – Breathable Sand” which is one of the solutions that was developed by the Dake Group in partnership with the Rechsand Technology Group from Beijing. This type of sand is covered with a specific technology that allows air to travel through its particles and captures the water that it contains. They believe that it could be applied to desert sand to retain water and fertilizer usage by 70% and 50% respectively.
It was then tested and it worked: they were able to grow around 28 fruit trees including mango and lemon groves.
Various institutions in the United Arab Emirates provide a range of funding options to modernize agriculture.
Dubai’s Food Tech Valley: It’s a new initiative that seeks to increase food production in the UAE and establish it as a major international destination for the sector. Based out of Dubai, ICBA works by assisting farmers and agricultural organizations in developing policies and methods that will maximize the management of local natural resources. They provide advice on the optimum crop varieties to harvest as well as soil and water quality.
Water Scarcity: To make seawater drinkable and useful for agriculture, the United Arab Emirates mainly relies on an expensive procedure called desalination.
“Water is scarce. And as we already know, 90% of the water available in the UAE is desalinated water which is very costly and consumes energy,” explains Idland.
If half of the water was saved and used for agriculture, 30 tons of tomatoes could be produced every day. Additionally, there would be less need for the expensive and energy-intensive process of desalinating seawater.
Vertical Farming and New Technologies: The past few years have seen a lot of attention paid to Vertical Farming. The government and the corporate sector have invested millions in the technique despite the significant expense associated with it. In order to develop vertical farming facilities in the Emirate, the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) announced in April that it would invest $100 million in four businesses, one of which being AeroFarms.
-Visualization and Analysis.
By looking at the data from World Development Indicators, we get the results in Tableau as below: “Imports Vs. Exports”
The data line chart in the World Development Indicators shows the percentages of food exports and imports in the United Arab Emirates from 1999 to 2021 that led to a “Trade Deficit”.
-Things to note.
Why is it magical for Desert Farming and Food Security?
Breathable roots are produced by breathing sand, and they can change the forest or other green cover.
Given that desert soil is free of any chemical or fertilizer contamination, it encourages quicker adoption of organic farming techniques.
A small layer of sand can save billions of gallons of water annually by reducing water use for agriculture, farming, forestry, or gardens by 80%.
Additionally, the breathable sand can transform desert farming to increase production quantity and quality.
-Quote.
“Increasing self-production within the local region and reducing the reliance on imports is what we are focusing on,” says Chandra Dake.
“We [in the UAE]are only looking at a few hundred thousand hectares to be food secure, and it is not too far,” he says.
Wages and salaried workers is a crucial topic that has been discussed world wide and addressed in different ways. Several factors affect the total number of salaried workers in a country including the available job opportunities, the demand and supply enforced on labor force, and the type of field a worker is in. As such, this has created huge gaps and inequality in wages and salaried workers all over the world.
To better understand this feature, the below graph displays the changes of wage and salaried workers percentage over the years from 1991 to 2019 in the MENA region.
Looking at the graph, we can see that Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman are countries that remained to be the top in terms of wage and salaried workers throughout the years as compared to other countries in the MENA region such as Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and others. These top 5 countries all recorded over 95% of the workers are salaried and waged overr the years.
Moreover, looking more closely at other countries, we can see that countries such as Lebanon has a maximum of 65% of workers who are salaried workers and Libya with the lowest value among all countries.
This shows that among the countries in the MENA region there exists huge gaps and inequalities between workers in countries mainly due to scarce job opportunities in middle and low income countries such as Lebanon. This huge difference has caused a large number of fresh graduates in Lebanon to seek jobs outside of their country and mainly towards UAE and Saudi Arabia.
“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” —Malcolm X
Asia, my helper at home is from Ethiopia and dropped out of school at lower secondary school age because of poverty,and she once told me “If it was up to me, I would choose to get educated. However, this is my life.”236 million children and youth in the world are Asia where 57 million are in the Central and West Africa region. These adolescent need all the help they can get in order to get out of the conditions they are living. They have the right like every child to have access to education.
Adolescents who can afford it are sent to private schools in several African countries. But many people in rural areas and poorer households do not have that option.
The above map shows the average of Adolescents out of school on all over the world from 2000 till 2021 where the African region has the highest average from all the others.
The increase in dropout rates is due to several reasons. According to UNICEF, adolescents dropout rates are influenced by child marriage, conflicts and disasters, and gender discrimination. Also, Poverty plays a major role in increasing the rates of adolescents out of school where they are forced into employment at a very young age to accommodate the living demands.
There is a positive correlation between Average % of poverty headcount ratio at national poverty line & average % of Adolescents out of school throughout the years for all countries. The highest average percentage of poverty is in the African region such as South Sudan having 82.3% which leads to have high average percentage of adolescents out of school (51.18%)
Also, there is a positive correlation between Average % of child marriage at the age of 15 & average % of Adolescents out of school throughout the years for all countries. The highest average percentage of early marriage is in the African region such as Niger having 37.38% which leads to have high average percentage of adolescents out of school (83.03 %).
All countries, especially those with low levels of education, should restrict early marriage.
Due to the several factors mentioned, Adolescents are forced in employment where Niger for example has the highest Average of Adolescents in employment (50.23% ) compared to other African countries as shown in the above graph.
Actions to be taken:
• Raise awareness on the importance of education
• Provide financial support for poor families
• Provide flexible, affordable, high-quality school options
• Improve the access to education
• Ensure that all adolescents complete free, equitable secondary education.
All the above factors are important in guaranteeing a better future for children. However, it is recommended that they be accompanied by the right laws that prevent child employment and provide equal opportunities for females to participate in the workplace.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is incorporated into organic matter during photosynthesis. It is a result of burning fossil fuels and burning biomass, and it is also released with changes in land use and other industrial activities. It is the main greenhouse gas produced by humans that has an impact on the planet’s radiative balance. Since it serves as the benchmark for measuring other greenhouse gases, it has a global warming potential of 1. Since the industrial revolution, using carbon-based fuels has quickly increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, accelerating global warming and contributing to anthropogenic climate change. Fossil fuel burning and cement production are the main sources of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Co2 emissions in Lebanon is considered a crucial and serious problem. The tons are increasing throughout the years, and the government should find solutions to decrease this rate.
The graph, shows the CO2 emissions metric tons in Lebanon from 1990 to 2017, as shown the level of CO2 emissions in 1990 was 2.005 metric tons, however, the level increased in 2017 and became 4.300 metric tons.
Denmark is from the countries that had a high level of CO2 emissions, however, this rate start decreasing throughout the years.
According to the graph, the CO2 emissions were 10.13 metric tons in 1990, this rate decreased to 5.75 in 2017.This proofs that Denmark took the necessary measures to decrease this rate. Denmark achieved this reduction through producing energy from renewable energy sources such as (wind, solar..). This graph also shows the renewable energy consumption in Denmark from 1990 to 2017. Renewable energy consumption is the ratio of the overall (primary) gross inland energy consumption to the gross inland consumption of energy derived from renewable sources. It is determined by adding up the gross domestic renewable energy consumption. In 1990 the consumption rate was 7.04, this rate increased to 35.20 in 2017.There is a negative relation between CO2 emissions and renewable energy consumption.AS renewable energy consumption increase, the co2 emissions decrease.
Since CO2 emissions are the reason behind climate change and global warming, Lebanon must rely on Sustainable Development Goal 13 which aims to “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impact” and SDG 7.2 which aims to increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.
Lebanon must:
Increase the amount of energy produced from renewable sources (wind, solar)
Industrial enterprise modernization using the finest technologies available
Replacement of fossil fuels by renewable sources of energy
Rail and water transportation are two low-carbon public transportation developments.
