At the Fortune Global Forum in Riyadh, the newly appointed Syrian minister of social and labor affairs, Her Excellency Hind Kabawat, spoke about the future of a nation emerging from nearly 14 years of civil war under a new administration. The country’s only female minister, Kabawat described her passionate appeals to Syria’s new president—and to the international community—to make sure that her status as Syria’s only female minister ends soon, with more women joining her.
The veteran diplomat, a former nonresident fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Syria Project, has assumed a central role in Syria’s transitional government. “First of all, quotas are so important,” she said in conversation with Hala Gorani, a contributing correspondent at NBC News. “If you don’t have quotas, women always will be excluded. So we need to put quotas in from the beginning.” She estimated that her industry is 70% female, and most of her new appointees are women, not because of their gender but because they’re highly qualified.
