The Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) supports Arab States in advancing gender equality and promoting women’s empowerment. ESCWA is mandated to foster regional integration, helping countries to exchange experiences and further cooperation in order to develop effective legislative and policy reforms to advance gender equality in the region.

To support cooperation between ESCWA member States on gender equality, ESCWA has built a national women machinery (NWM) web platform to increase access to information and enhance knowledge sharing between NWMs in the region.

The NWM platform allows national machineries and ministries working on gender equality to access relevant information in one centralized location and use the platform to compare policies and strategies with those of neighbouring countries.

The website is also linked to the ESCWA Index Simulator for Policymakers (ISPAR), allowing NWMs and related ministries to access multiple global gender equality indices and compare their rankings with those of other countries in the region and beyond. ISPAR provides policymakers with an interactive tool to assist them in developing and implementing policies to advance gender equality and improve their rankings in global indices.