Sarah Glubb

RIYADH: The G20’s Women 20 (W20) engagement group met in Riyadh on Monday for the first of this year's national dialogues on women’s issues.

The meeting, which was led by Saudi nonprofit Al-Nahda Philanthropic Society for Women, took place at Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University, the largest women's university in the world. It focused on women’s priorities and economic empowerment, along with ways to promote policies relating to inclusion in the labor market and entrepreneurship.

Dr. Inas bint Suleiman Al-Issa, the director of the university, opened the session with a presentation titled “Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University: Enabling Empowerment,” in which she discussed some of the establishment’s most notable initiatives designed to aid the advancement of Saudi women. She highlighted the university’s role in supporting Saudi women through study and research, its work with the National Observatory for Women, and the launch of its Master of Women’s Studies, among other things.

Al-Issa said that the university places great importance on the future of women in the Kingdom, reflecting its belief that they have an important role to play in achieving the goals of Vision 2030, especially in key sectors such as information technology, entrepreneurship and knowledge transfer.

The rest of the meeting featured three sessions. The first focused on the current experience of Saudi women in the labor market and technical training, the second on financial inclusion and entrepreneurship, and the third on monitoring mechanisms and strategies for follow-ups.

Saudi Arabia will host this year’s G20 summit, the first to be held in the Middle East, in November. The W20 is one of eight engagement groups established by the G20 to discuss financial and socioeconomic challenges. The others focus on the private sector, youth, labor, thinkers and researchers, civil society, science, and urban issues. They develop policy recommendations that can be presented to G20 leaders for consideration. Led by representatives of nongovernmental organizations from the host country, who work with peers from other G20 nations, these groups meet each year ahead of the main summit.

The next W20 meeting will be held in Jeddah on Feb. 27.