In September 2015, the UN member states adopted the sustainable development goals, which included Goal #5, “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”, an important step in improving the situation of women and girls throughout the world.  Still today, women are fighting for the same economic and social rights as men. According to UN Women[1], much progress has been made in the advancing women’s rights.  However, much more needs to be done to ensure that women are no longer confined to low paying, low quality jobs and denied access to basic necessities such as water, health care, education, and sanitation.

 

In Israel, gender equality has always been an important issue and The Equal Rights for Women Law 5711-1951 was enacted only three years after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Today we have a new Ministry for Social Equality which deals with gender equality, minorities and young people.

 In 1998, the Authority for the Advancement of the Status of Women was established, and is now permanently within the Office of the Prime Minister. The authority was created in order to promote gender equality as well as supervise the gender policies in every governmental body and municipality. Today in Israel many notable women take center stage in the economic and political realm from Ms. Karnit Flug, the Governor of the Bank of Israel, also the three largest banks are headed by women and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

 

Few people know that Israel is also working hard on fighting for gender equality on the international front.  The Golda Meir MASHAV Carmel International Training Center (MCTC) was founded in Haifa in 1961 by MASHAV – Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – to conduct training activities in the socio-economic arena, with an emphasis on gender equality.  Two visionary women were behind the Center’s establishment: Prime Minister Golda Meir, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Mina Ben-Zvi, MCTC’s founding director. Their progressive views on the need for the advancement of women were far ahead of their time. 

 

For nearly 55 years, hundreds of training activities have been carried out by MCTC for the benefit of women and men from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Oceania, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. The Center focuses on Economic Empowerment, Leadership, Education, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, all with gender as a crosscutting issue. Our objective is to   provide a platform for policy makers to identify innovative approaches for social and economic growth while strengthening the global network of women leaders, enabling women to participate in the development process of their communities and consequently advance their status.

 

Our yearly program includes courses in Israel at our Center in Haifa as well as On-the Spot workshops given by Israeli experts in many developing countries. We hold biennial conferences for Women Leaders from around the globe on topics declared by the United Nations to be of current international concern. Our Center also holds regional seminars for participants from the Palestinian Authority and other countries in the Middle East as well an annual conference on the Critical Role of Judges in Combating Trafficking to name a few.

To date, some 20,000 professional women and men from developing countries and transitional societies have been provided with tools for women’s empowerment and development, through training activities at MCTC in Israel and thousands more abroad.