Collaboration with GIZ

Lead

As part of the LEAD program by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), EAF Berlin developed and facilitated mentoring programs to promote women's political participation in Jordan, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories.

The goal of LEAD was to strengthen democratic transformation processes. This requires the active participation of both men and women across the region. However, many countries in the Middle East rank at the bottom in terms of women's political participation. Too few women are involved in local councils and similar bodies. Those who are active often lack the sufficient knowledge or experience to contribute professionally in relevant areas, such as municipal budgeting.

EconoWin

The GIZ EconoWin MENA program aimed to improve career opportunities for female employees through internal corporate mentoring programs, taking into account the culture and situation of each country as well as existing efforts to support women in the participating companies. Experienced employees in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco served as mentors.

The mentoring programs

EAF Berlin provided guidelines, advice, and materials for the matching process (selecting mentees and mentors), which was carried out by GIZ coordinators in each country.

The concept included:

Introducing professional mentoring as a (previously limited or unknown) method of informal and strategic learning in the respective countries.
Discussing and developing new, adapted forms of collaboration between mentees and mentors regarding roles, relationships, management of the mentoring process, and goal setting, while taking cultural and hierarchical challenges into account.
Consulting on creating a successful mentoring process in terms of methods, communication, topics, feedback, culture, etc.
Contextualizing mentoring to meet country-specific characteristics and needs.