Women, citizenship and change : the role of the women’s movement in the Arab world

Abstract

In recent decades, international academic research, official policy and civil society practice have highlighted a simple, neglected yet obvious truth: women are critical to human development in all its dimensions – economic, political, social, cultural and environmental. Women perform complex and critical roles at all levels of society, despite the fact that much of their contribution remains unrecognised, unquantified and unheeded in official statistics. Focusing investment and policy on women yields significant dividends in health and nutrition, education, children’s rights, demography, community development and care, local and national politics and democracy. As was elegantly captured in the 1995 Human Development Report ‘…human development, if not engendered, is endangered.’