IFC-Ureed collaborate to generate employment for women in Jordan, Lebanon

The MoU signed between both responsible parties will also highlight the need of women to join male counterparts in the online platform.

International Finance Corporation (IFC) signed an agreement with Ureed to provide ample opportunities to women in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This deal is to bring women of Jordan, Lebanon in the workforce to boost the economic graph of the region. The project aims to work with 1,000 women service providers from Jordan and Lebanon through training and other advisory support to increase opportunities available to them.

This deal will focus on providing an online platform for women to deliver content services to their users. This deal will see IFC analysing data on Ureed's business model, to track the behaviour of online customers to meet customers need. The MoU signed between both parties will also highlight the need of women to join male counterparts in the online platform.

The project is also part of IFC efforts to build resilience in Jordan and Lebanon, each of which is home to more than 1 million refugees. Innovative, income-generating opportunities for women will be crucial to help foster host community resilience.

"Our partnership with Ureed is a great example of how start-ups can help bring innovations and offer new solutions to long-standing challenges", said Mouayed Makhlouf, IFC Regional Director for MENA. "This is an innovative, holistic business model that can help create much needed new job opportunities for women, ultimately strengthening both the host and refugee communities in Jordan and Lebanon," he further added.

Ureed CEO in agreement sharing event said, "our partnership with IFC will strengthen our efforts to digitize the linguistic services we offer across the region. New technologies can help create more job opportunities for the many educated women across MENA and also help meet the growing demand for affordable and high-quality linguistic services from start-ups and smaller businesses in the region."

Unemployment remains high in MENA, with women and young people most impacted. Despite significant increases in graduation rates, Jordan's female labour force participation rate was estimated at about 14 per cent, while Lebanon's stood at 23 per cent in 2018.

Lebanon's economy stood at USD 54.1 billion dollars in 2018 and has a very high public debt with large external financing needs. Nearly 65 per cent of the workforce works in the service sector. On the other hand, Jordan is termed as 'upper middle economy' by the World Bank. Jordan is dubbed as a major economic powerhouse in the region which is more open to the women employment than regional peers.