Significant progress has been made throughout the years in advancing gender equality. However, women and girls are still likely to be marginalized in many economic sectors and face precarious employment. Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development therefore aims to ‘achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’.

Tourism is one of the key economic sectors with the potential to contribute to greater gender equality and the empowerment of women. This is especially important because tourism is one of the world’s fastest growing sectors which accounts, directly and indirectly, for 10 % of the world’s jobs and GDP.

To better capitalize on this momentum and focus on the topic of the empowerment of women and girls in Africa, a regional Congress will be held in Accra, Ghana from the  25 to 27 November 2019. Within the framework of the congress, UNWTO will use the opportunity to present the second edition of its Global Report on Women in Tourism which includes an update of the initial report done in 2010 and this version will feature a focus on the Africa region. 

The Leadership Taskforce, a forum for debating proposals and activities geared towards promoting female empowerment and leadership in the region, will be engaging its members to discuss the progress of the Women in Tourism Empowerment Programme (WiTEP). Furthermore, the UNWTO Secretariat is working on a second edition of the Global Report on Women in Tourism with the support of the German Development Agency (GIZ), UN Women and UNWTO. This edition will be presented during the conference.