United Arab Emirates, 14 September 2022: Emirates Global Aluminium, the largest industrial
company in the United Arab Emirates outside of oil and gas, today became a signatory to the United
Nations’ Women’s Empowerment Principles. EGA is committed to promoting gender diversity
throughout its business as well as advocating for women’s role in society.
Established by UN Women and the UN Global Compact Office, the Women’s Empowerment
Principles are standards for businesses on how to promote gender diversity within the workplace,
their markets, and the community, in line with the United Nations 2030 Agenda and Sustainable
Development Goals.
This week marks the second anniversary of the EGA Women’s Network which continues to advocate
for the empowerment and development of women within the organisation.
Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of EGA, said: “Heavy industry around the world has
historically been male-dominated, and this must change for the good of industrial companies and
society. We have already made significant progress at EGA, and our next target is to increase the
proportion of women in supervisory positions at EGA in the UAE to 25 per cent by 2025, and for 15
per cent of all roles at EGA to be held by women by 2026. Becoming a signatory to the Women’s
Empowerment Principles enables us to work more closely with other organisations around the world
that share our focus on gender diversity and our belief that it drives business performance.”
Signing the Women’s Empowerment Principles is a public declaration by companies of support for
seven key actions to drive gender diversity – ranging from establishing high-level corporate leadership
for gender equality, to promoting the education, training and professional development of women, to
measuring and publicly reporting progress.
Dr Mouza El Shehhi, Executive Director, UN Women Liaison Office for the GCC, said: “We are
delighted to welcome EGA, the largest industrial company in the UAE outside oil and gas, as a
signatory to the Women’s Empowerment Principles. This step demonstrates EGA’s firm commitment
to advancing womens’ role throughout its operations. We look forward to EGA implementing the
principles as it works to become an increasingly gender-diverse organisation.”
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In 2020, the company launched the EGA Women’s Network, a forum for women at all levels of the
company to share their achievements and challenges, and to develop and grow.
EGA is a partner of Aurora50, a UAE initiative to build the pipeline of women with the required
experience for board-level positions. Nine positions on subsidiary boards within EGA have been taken
by women since the start of 2021.
