Looking at trade policy through a gender lens (Opening Session)
03 March 2015
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am very pleased to welcome you all to the event "Looking at trade policy through a gender lens". UNCTAD contributes to the celebrations and commemorations of the International Women's Day with this event and with a film scheduled on Friday, March 6th, screening "Women and Men".
UNCTAD is committed to using trade and development policies to tackle different types of inequalities in the world; whether it is inequality between countries, within countries or between different social and demographic groups.
Addressing gender inequality and promoting women's empowerment remains a critical part of our mandate, our everyday activities and among our long-term goals.
But before I continue, and as a preamble to the discussions we will have this morning, let me define what we, in UNCTAD, understand by women's empowerment.
Women's empowerment refers to women's ability to exercise strategic influence to change their own lives as well as the structures that place them in subordinate positions to men. Empowerment has many dimensions: personal, social, political and economic.
Women's economic empowerment, an area in which a lot of work remains to be done, can be understood as making markets work for women, as enabling women to have control over resources, and as eliminating inequality in the labour market.
Investing in women's economic empowerment sets a direct path towards gender equality, poverty eradication and inclusive economic growth. Women make enormous contributions to economies, whether in businesses, on farms, as entrepreneurs or employees, or by doing unpaid care work at home. But despite progress made so far, women still remain disproportionately affected by poverty, discrimination and exploitation.
Gender discrimination means that women often end up in insecure, low-wage jobs, and that they are barely represented in senior positions. Gender discrimination curtails women's access to economic assets such as land and loans. It limits participation in shaping economic and social policies. And, because women perform the bulk of household work, they often have little time left to pursue economic opportunities.
Addressing gender equality is not only an end of trade and development policy but also a means of implementing and achieving other universal development goals related to health, nutrition, education and equality.
Gender equality is certainly a moral imperative; and it is also good economics!
In UNCTAD, we support countries in making economic and trade policy a force for inclusive development. And we are here today to share with you two of our most recent products on trade and gender.
The first one is a research paper titled "Looking at trade policy through a gender lens". It summarizes a number of country case studies undertaken between 2010-2014 on the impact of trade liberalization and facilitation on gender equality and women's wellbeing. These studies offer countries concrete policy guidance on how trade policy can promote gender equality. The countries covered include Angola, Bhutan, Cape Verde, the Gambia, Lesotho, Rwanda and Uruguay. The summary paper presents key findings as well as economic and trade policy recommendations to promote gender equality in these countries.
The second product relates to capacity building. We developed a first-of-its-kind teaching package on trade and gender for developing and transition countries. We hope that this will enhance the teaching and research capacities on gender and trade at academic institutions in developing countries, and provide tools to government stakeholders to mainstream gender into trade policy. The training includes discussions on theoretical and empirical links between trade and gender and training in quantitative methods to analyse these links empirically. A set of multimedia presentations and an online course on trade and gender have also been developed as part of the package. At present, over one hundred students from different parts of the world are enrolled in the online course.
You will soon be hearing more about these research studies and training initiatives. I would like to stop here to open the floor to our distinguished speakers and to our interactive debate.
I thank you very much for your participation in this event, and hope you will join us on Friday to watch together a vibrant film dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women.