Business & Money | Wednesday 15 June, 2016 11:33 am |

An announcement was made in the Kingdom of Bahrain with respect to the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Supreme Council for Women in the Kingdom ofBahrain and UN Women regarding Her Royal Highness Princess Sabeeka Bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa Global Award for Women Empowerment, in the context of the pursuit of the Kingdom of Bahrain to highlight the successes achieved reflected in the status of women at the national level, and in effort to circulate active best practices to enhance the status of women at the global level, while striving towards achieving the development goals related to gender justice.

The Wife of the King of Bahrain, President of the Supreme Council for Women, Her Royal Highness Princess Sabeeka Bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa, attended the signing ceremony which was signed on behalf of the Kingdom of Bahrain by, H.E. Hala Al Ansari, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council for Women, and on behalf of UN Women, H.E. Yannick Glemarec, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Policy and Programme of UN-Women, in the presence of senior officials and the press.

The Supreme Council for Women had taken the initiative to contact UN Women to launch Her Royal Highness Princess Sabeeka Bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa Award for Women Empowerment globally to coincide with the 10 year anniversary of the launch of the National Edition of the Award, and the success it has managed to attain in reinforcing the importance of the support and empowerment of women in both the public and private sector, giving countries worldwide the opportunity to benefit from this experience.

The official announcement, however, of the start of the registration process for the award, will take place during the participation of the Kingdom of Bahrain, in the 61st session of the Commission on the Status of Women, to be held in New York in March 2017.

The opportunity to compete for the award is open to public, private and civil society institutions, and individuals all over the world; where monetary budgets have been allocated for the award and its details will be announced at a later date showing the breakdown of the award as well as its requirements in order to ensure proper allocation of the budgets towards programs and projects geared to the development and empowerment of women.

The award aims to ensure the commitment of countries, official agencies and organizations through their legislative, public and private executive authorities, civil society in addition to individuals to adopt non-discriminatory policies against women; to achieve justice in equal opportunities between women and men in various fields; show appreciation to institutional and individual efforts, initiatives and projects that target mainstreaming women's needs and include the contribution to the positive change in the status of women towards more stable and productive lives; encourage the adoption of methodology to achieve sustainable impact in the development of the status of women in order to ensure they become value-added members within the family and community as well as encourage communities to stimulate their intellectuality and creativity in the field of women empowerment in order to achieve for women, their family and community, more social, and economic security.