Going for Growth
Box 4.3
Connecting Women with International Markets: The International Trade Centre Few trade policies sufficiently consider gender issues. This is a glaring omission if trade policy is meant to contribute to poverty reduction, as 70 percent of the world’s poor are women. The ITC’s Women and Trade program is working to assist trade support institutions and governments to ensure that trade strategies take gender issues into account and to help strengthen these organizations’ links to women entrepreneurs. The program has three main objectives: • Improving policy makers’ capacity to design, implement, and evaluate export strategies and national development plans that build on the role of women in trade • Improving the representation of women and gender issues in trade support institutions • Improving the competitiveness of women-owned enterprises in developing countries ITC’s work with the Cambodian government presents a good example of its work with developing countries in East Asia. Cambodia included the impact of international trade on female employment in its 2007 Diagnostic Trade Integration Study (DTIS). Silk weaving and the production of silk products were identified as having a medium-to-high human development impact, with particular importance for women. The ITC then worked with the Cambodian government to develop a silk sector strategy. The subsequent investment in the export potential of the silk sector helped to reduce rural poverty generally and to increase the economic empowerment of women more specifically. The DTIS helped to facilitate south-south learning from such examples of good practice through its support to the Expert Round Table on the Gender Dimension of the Enhanced Integrated Framework in 2008. The meeting brought together developing countries, the WTO, and numerous experts to discuss how to better address gender issues in the Enhanced Integrated Framework—a mechanism through which trade-related aid is channeled. The meeting resulted in a document outlining 24 case studies of best practices and lessons learned on the subject of “unlocking women’s trade potential.” Source: International Trade Centre.
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