Saudi Arabia celebrates International Women’s Day

Saudi Arabia celebrates International Women’s Day by applauding the vital role that women play in the Transport and Logistic sector and emphasizing the critical importance of empowering women in the maritime industry.

The Kingdom has increasingly encouraged women to participate and lead in the Transport and Maritime sector, a key objective of Vision 2030. Key representatives include Alternative Representative to the International Maritime Organization, Ms. Hayat AlYabis, the first female representative from Saudi Arabia, and one of the first in the MENA region. Furthermore, the Kingdom's gained global recognition when Ms. Reem Alkhowaiter from Bahri was honored with the 'Young Woman Achiever of the Year' award at the ShipTek International Awards in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This significant achievement marks Ms. Alkhowaiter as the first Saudi woman to receive this prestigious award. Both Ms. AlYabis and Ms. Alkhowaiter actively seek to raise the visibility and participation of women in the sector where only an estimated 2% are female.

In celebration of International Women’s Day and as part of the ongoing IMOCARES project funded by the Kingdom two workshops in partnership with MTCC Caribbean and MTCC Africa were organised to explore from a regional perspective how to further promote the role of women in decarbonization.

The workshops continued KSA’s active engagement to promote women participation in maritime including the 2023 by hosted the first workshop dedicated to women working in biofouling management in partnership with IMO’s GloFouling. The workshop ‘Arab Women in Maritime: Biofouling Management Workshop’ that took place in Jeddah and welcomed two female participants from 18 nations to participate and expand their skill set to address environment and economical areas that arise from biofouling. 

These initiatives, guided by Vision 2030 are important steps for the Kingdom in encouraging women to join the maritime industry and to ensure that women are better represented in the maritime industry not just in the Kingdom but around the world.