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Women's empowerment key to development in Arab world

As International Women’s Day approaches, it is vital to remember that female empowerment furthers the rights of everyone in the Arab world.
A woman shouts slogans as others hold banners during a sit-in in front of Beirut's national museum, marking International Women's Day, March 8, 2012. Lebanese women held a sit-in, demanding to stop discrimination and violence against women in Lebanon, and asking for equality and citizenship rights for the children of Lebanese women married to foreign men. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir   (LEBANON - Tags: ANNIVERSARY CIVIL UNREST POLITICS) - RTR2Z180

March 8 is International Women’s Day, celebrated throughout the Arab states and the world. Our challenge remains to correct and enhance the status of women in most Arab societies through empowering them, recognizing their equality as citizens and enabling them to participate in political, social and economic life on an equal basis with men.

This will render human development in Arab countries not only possible, but also sustainable, and bring about a serious corrective measure to the state of the Arab world as a rich nation of poor people. Women's empowerment is thus both an inevitable instrument and a policy to bridge the gap between wealth and poverty.

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