SCW outlines family stability, decision making priorities in 2025-2026 National Plan for the Advancement of Bahraini Women
Manama, Aug. 9 (BNA): Based on the adoption of the National Plan for the Advancement of Bahraini Women 2025–2026 by the Supreme Council for Women (SCW), chaired by Her Royal Highness Princess Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa, Consort of His Majesty the King, the plan identifies four priority areas for the coming phase: family stability, decision-making, economic participation, and quality of life.
Each priority area includes a set of initiatives distributed across five key pillars: policies, gender responsive budgeting, awareness and training, auditing and oversight, and monitoring and evaluation.
The first priority, family stability, has been placed at the forefront of the plan to emphasise the importance of strengthening women’s role as active partners in building the nation, preserving national values and the authentic identity of the Bahraini family, and ensuring a stable family environment that enables women to balance their responsibilities within the family and society.
The second priority, decision making, reflects the SCW’s commitment to upholding the principles of equal opportunities and gender balance to ensure the comprehensive empowerment of Bahraini women. This focus aims to increase women’s representation in leadership and influence roles across all sectors, thereby enhancing their contribution to national development and enabling them to make a tangible impact in leadership and decision making positions.
The SCW has developed an integrated approach to addressing issues affecting Bahraini women and families, recognising the interdependence between family stability and women’s empowerment. The Council considers a stable family environment essential to advancing women’s progress in all aspects of life, as part of its goal to provide protection and stability for women throughout their lives.
The Council’s work extends beyond serving women individually to strengthening the family unit as the foundation of social cohesion and national prosperity. Since its establishment, the SCW has worked to provide security and stability for women of all ages and social circumstances, with the aim of supporting a safe and stable Bahraini family.
The SCW seeks to strengthen cooperation with its partners to achieve family stability, based on the belief that sustainable national development can only be achieved through stable families. This requires a fair partnership between men and women, with women acting as equal contributors to development and beneficiaries of its outcomes, while fulfilling their family roles. This includes allocating resources, developing plans and programmes, and implementing measures that address women’s needs in all areas and promote gender balance, enabling women to work alongside men as capable partners in building families and society.
Sustaining women’s presence in decision making positions reflects ongoing efforts to ensure gender balance in leadership as a developmental necessity, allowing for diversity of perspectives and expertise in decision making. International experience shows that institutions with balanced gender representation benefit from greater innovation and more effective performance. In line with SCW directives, national institutions in the public and private sectors, as well as civil society, are working to capitalise on women’s accumulated expertise, develop new female talent, and prepare them to compete for and succeed in leadership roles.
Among the notable national initiatives in this field is the Her Royal Highness Princess Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa Award for the Advancement of Bahraini Women, the first of its kind in its scope and objectives. The award serves as a scientific mechanism to produce tangible results in enhancing the competitiveness of Bahraini women as a productive and contributing force, by promoting a culture of gender balance and encouraging practices that ensure the sustained advancement of women in the labour market, thereby increasing their contribution to the national economy.
The award plays a key role in increasing women’s presence in leadership and decision making roles by encouraging public and private sector institutions, as well as civil society, to support and empower women employees, raise training and qualification levels, and enable women to attain senior and executive positions while reinforcing a policy of non-discrimination.
Within the family stability priority, initiatives under the “policies” pillar include reviewing legislation related to family affairs, enhancing the efficiency of social care, prevention, and protection services for women, reviewing the National Strategy to Protect Women from Domestic Violence, and expanding family counselling services to all governorates. They also include unifying procedures of family and child protection offices across police directorates, completing the establishment of family reconciliation offices in all governorates, and addressing the needs of women with disabilities or those caring for persons with disabilities.
In the decision making priority, policy initiatives include reviewing and developing policies that support women’s sustained presence in decision making positions across public, private, and civil society sectors; increasing women’s participation on boards of directors of public shareholding companies; and expanding women’s representation in the judiciary and diplomatic service.
Under the “gender responsive budgeting” pillar, family stability initiatives focus on enhancing housing services for women, ensuring that gender responsive budgeting is integrated into housing programmes and services for all eligible categories, including the “Masaken” Housing Project (1–2), and coordinating national efforts to meet women’s needs in emergency situations.
In the decision making priority, the SCW has included initiatives that ensure gender responsive budgeting supports women’s participation in decision making roles and sustains their presence in leadership positions in the banking sector and public shareholding companies.
The “awareness and training” pillar for family stability includes initiatives to enhance legal and family awareness through programmes for prospective spouses and parents on rights and responsibilities; workshops on family management, financial planning, and balancing work and family life; and awareness activities highlighting women’s role in instilling values and national identity in future generations. It also involves updating the school awareness package to include secondary-level content on equal opportunities, gender balance, mental wellbeing, effective communication, violence and bullying prevention, and self confidence building.
This pillar also covers implementing the fourth edition of the Her Highness Shaikha Hessa bint Salman Al Khalifa Award for Youth Voluntary Work, highlighting volunteer success stories, and assessing the award’s impact on youth volunteer initiatives.
In the decision making priority, initiatives include supporting women’s membership on boards of directors of public shareholding companies listed on the Bahrain Bourse through awareness activities on relevant laws and decisions, building women’s capacity to serve on corporate boards, promoting women’s participation in the judiciary, and developing their skills in judicial, diplomatic, and international forums.
