In Dubai, the Women’s Pavilion has succeeded in making women’s rights advocacy a must

While Expo2020 Dubai is about to close its doors on March 31^st further to a positive outcome with over 20 million visitors, including 70% from the UAE region, the universal exhibition managed to bet on youth, attracting over 3 million people under 18. This openness to the world clearly seduced Emiratis, aware of the vital challenge which it represents to the Dubai economy and to the whole region. Over 32,000 happenings took place, massively attracting tourists and families. Among the 192 pavilions, the one dedicated to women took advantage of this crowd. Cartier, partner of the Women’s Pavilion, invited press to the closure festivities. But after six months of intense debate and conferences about women empowerment, what will remain of this temple dedicated to women?

Born from a double impulse, the Women’s Pavillon was a result of an unprecedented alliance between private and public sector. The need from local institutions to show a modern and open face of women in the Middle East and to establish a clear state of things on advancements regarding equality matched the impulse that the jewelry House Cartier wanted to generate in the whole region. Anchored for decades in the UAE and today led by Sophie Doireau, head of the Middle East region since last Fall, the brand’s subsidiary worked during four years alongside the authorities to build the pavilion’s concept dedicated to great women and the central role played by women worldwide throughout history up until today.

The challenge was therefore twofold: reconciling two points of view on women and combining exhaustive and upright visions of their contributions and impact on the world. For Sophie Doireau, points of view were never antagonist, to the contrary: “We have thought about this in an apolitical, inclusive way dedicated to the whole of mankind. The first idea of the pavilion was born from a conversation with Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid bin Sultan Al Qasimi, during a Cartier Women’s Initiative edition held in Singapore a few years ago. She was a member of the jury. She thought about a cultural location dedicated to women. I also considered that offering Dubai and its 2020 Expo as a welcome platform for an edition of our program profiled for entrepreneur women worldwide could be a great opportunity. Sheika Lubna helped me a lot on discussions with representatives of Expo 2020 who were also thinking about building a women’s pavilion. Organizers accepted to conceive the project with Cartier to widen audiences and content. We had this common vision that feminine empowerment was a question that needed to be addressed to visitors. The pavilion represents a perfect collaboration which stemmed from scratch. We have very quickly created an advisory board with seven people from different continents and specialized in subjects about men and women’s equality.”

Indeed, the first message to visitors at the entrance of the pavilion is eloquent: “When women thrive, humanity prospers.” In a didactic journey which sheds light on the impact that women have had on their world and on many challenges they still face daily, one can read many stories. The one of princess Dona Isabel, whom in the absence of her father and defying the court, used her power to abolish slavery in Brazil in 1888. Or the one of Fatima al-Fihri, a Muslim woman from Tunisia who founded the first university in the world over 1,000 years ago: the al- Qarawiyyin university in Morocco. And even the exceptional story of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a great American figure of the defense of equality and women’s rights, named at the Supreme Court in 1993, who sat as judge for 27 years.  The one of Nawal el Saadawi, Egyptian writer, activist, physician and psychiatrist who has struggled her entire life for women’s emancipation in the Arab world. And finally, the one of her highness Sheika Fatima Bint Mubarak, pioneer in terms of women’s rights in the Emirates region who enabled 77% of Emirati women to access secondary school and 70% of all university graduates to be women. But we also learn that 132 million young women are not schooled around the world. Many challenges have yet to be undertaken.

In fact, this was the central theme of conferences and talks which have happened over the six months during which the Women’s pavilion was open. Sophie Doireau continues: “Many subjects and debates were much listened to. These talks are bridges that are needed between generations and nations. Many pavilions of countries came with their ministry delegation to visit and speak. Women are the common denominator of many subjects which forge our daily lives today. In order to move forward, it is not about gender but goodwill.”

Invited by Cartier to celebrate the closure of the Women’s Pavillon, the press also met with the winners of previous editions driven by the brand fifteen years ago. The Cartier Women’s initiative. Coming from every corner of the world, they showcased on the Dubai opera stage the impact which the program had on their company. A great majority even declared having widened their network by 88% and widely developed their commercial skills. Rasha Rady, Egyptian entrepreneur at the head of her startup Chefaa, a digital platform driven through A.I. which helps patients to order, program and renew their recurring prescriptions, regardless of their location or income, explains: “Investors arrive today in the region and believe in startups created by women in Egypt and Nigeria. The Cartier Women’s Initiative has existed for 15 years and is an opportunity for all to exchange and learn from one another. It is a space free from competition, led by mutual respect. Fifteen years of entrepreneurship offer us clear examples of potential development. A global women’s community that understands your priorities is very rare. We know that as women we must manage our companies twice as well as men to prove our success. The women community of the Cartier Women’s Initiative is precious and allows to create significant connections for our respective businesses, anywhere in the world where we want to start a business.”

This milestone, which gathers the winners and great feminine figures of the public and private sector, enabled to push forward women’s contributions in the business, social and environmental sectors. “It goes without counting the 170 events organized along the months at the Women’s Pavillon. It attracted over 250,000 people from all cultures and horizons, explains Reem Al Hashimy, Emirati minster of international cooperation and general manager of Expo 2020. We are proud to have received the recognition of the GEEIS (Gender Equality European & International Standard). Women have a right to speak. World economy can only reach stability if women improve their status.”

An awareness which requires ever more efforts, said Cyrille Vigneron, Chairman and CEO of Cartier International during the gala closure: “Many gender bias exist in our societies. And unfortunately, they constitute an obstacle to the evolution towards equality between men and women, to the point that a terrible consequence of the pandemic has been the one slowing equality. The time needed to catch up on equality was valued at 99 years and is today considered to be effective in 140 years. We have lost a generation in two years because women are the first ones to suffer from economic and social catastrophes. This needs to stop.”

Even as a hopeful message and an opportunity to continue the work started in Dubai, Sophie Doireau concludes: “The district which was created for the expo will remain and the women’s pavilion could become a new heritage to continue talks and interactions.”