The National Plan for the Advancement of Bahraini Women 2025-2026, adopted by the Supreme Council for Women (SCW) chaired by Her Royal Highness Princess Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa, wife of His Majesty King Hamad, identifies four priority areas for the coming phase: family stability, decision-making, economic participation and quality of life.
Each priority area includes initiatives distributed across five key pillars: policies, gender responsive budgeting, awareness and training, auditing and oversight and monitoring and evaluation.
The 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 co-ordinating 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.
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