The Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly (ARLEM) welcomed the launch at the UfM Conference Women for the Mediterranean of the UfM Institutional Ministerial follow-up mechanism and its indicators, adopted this year by the UfM Member States, that will allow to monitor and measure for the coming years gender equality progress in the region. In its report adopted in 2018 on women empowerment, ARLEM already acknowledged that the lack of comprehensive, reliable and regularly updated equality data, segregated by gender in Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries made not possible to build up a comprehensive picture of women's condition across the Euro-Mediterranean Region.

ARLEM hopes that these indicators would help to provide policy and action-oriented recommendations. As Ms Laia Bonet Rull, Deputy Mayor of Barcelona and ARLEM member, participating at the UfM High-Level Conference on Women4Mediterranean which is taking place these days, stated: "The womenisation of politics will be key to eradicate inequalities and subjacent conflicts in the Mediterranean. Last year in a debate on the representation of women in politics of the regions, the ARLEM members concluded that quotas, mentoring, political-party funding and the broader objective of equity need to be considered in efforts to increase the representation of women in politics in the Mediterranean region."

ARLEM works in this field -which include the ARLEM award, an award for young local entrepreneurship in the Mediterranean that has a focus on women and their participation to take into account social development- reflects the centrality of gender equality and social inclusion in the agendas of the European Union and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.