In 2022, the Global Trade and Gender Arrangement (GTAGA) welcomed two new participants: Colombia and Peru. The news did not make headlines: the signing ceremony coincided with the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in June, which attracted most of the trade-focused media attention.

The GTAGA has been heralded by many as “ground-breaking,” a “landmark,” and an innovative and comprehensive initiative. But is it really? What does it add to trade and gender provisions in existing agreements and how far can it go to redress gender inequalities in participating countries?

This article unpacks what GTAGA entails in practice, what officials from participating countries say about its potential, and what responses have emerged from the wider trade and gender community.

GTAGA’s origins and objectives

The idea of a GTAGA originated in the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Inclusive Trade Action Group (ITAG) and came into being in 2020, with Canada, Chile, and New Zealand as its first three participants. The non-binding arrangement, commonly known as GTAGA (pronounced “gee-TA-gah”), aims to promote “mutually supportive trade and gender policies to improve women’s participation in trade and investment and in furtherance of women’s economic empowerment and sustainable development.” It is a stand-alone text, not linked to a specific trade agreement. Current GTAGA participants are Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, New Zealand, and Peru.

Alicia Frohmann, a trade policy specialist who delivers technical assistance on gender and trade in the Latin American region, told IISD that “Canada, Chile, and New Zealand agreed on GTGA in the aftermath of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which did not include gender specific provisions.”

GTAGA’s content

GTAGA is a cooperation-focused initiative, strongly geared toward improving women’s access to trading opportunities. While none of its provisions impose legally binding obligations on its participants, it does provide a framework that they can build on for the future.

In its five pages, the Arrangement acknowledges that “women’s enhanced participation in the labour market, the growth of women-owned enterprises and entrepreneurship, women’s economic autonomy and access to, and ownership of, economic resources contribute to prosperity, competitiveness, and the well-being of society.” GTAGA further notes “the importance of adopting, maintaining, and implementing gender equality laws, regulations, policies, and best practices” and recognizes the need for evidence-based trade interventions to respond to barriers limiting women’s opportunities in the economy.

GTAGA participants undertake to enforce their laws and regulations promoting gender equality and improving women’s access to economic opportunities. They reaffirm their obligations under other international agreements addressing women’s rights or gender equality and recognize that it is “inappropriate” to weaken or reduce the protection provided in domestic gender equality laws with a view to encouraging trade or investment.

GTAGA participants agree to encourage enterprises to incorporate gender equality standards, guidelines, and principles and to support the goal of promoting gender equality in the workplace. The Arrangement notes that temporary special measures relating to licensing and qualification requirements and procedures “aimed at accelerating de facto gender equality” are not to be considered discriminatory by GTAGA participating countries.

Similar to gender chapters in recent bilateral trade agreements between Brazil, Canada, Chile, and other economies, GTAGA sets out detailed possibilities for cooperation among its participants through dialogues, technical assistance, exchange of experts, and the sharing of information and best practice. Articles 8 and 9 set out a non-exhaustive list of activities, including capacity-building; access to education, including digital skills development; measures to foster leadership and entrepreneurship; business development; access to networks; trade missions; and government procurement.

The Arrangement establishes a working group to identify, coordinate, implement, and report on activities, as well as to interact with stakeholders. GTAGA further calls for the identification of a Contact Point for Trade and Gender in each participating country. A first periodic review of the Arrangement is scheduled for 2023, at which time participants are also due to look afresh at GTAGA’s legal form and consider whether to undertake negotiations for a treaty-level instrument on trade and gender.

What does GTAGA add to existing gender provisions?

GTAGA’s provisions show several parallels to gender chapters of other trade agreements, and its participants are all parties to trade agreements with provisions that explicitly refer to gender equality. This begs the question of what the Arrangement adds to what already exists.

Former Chilean Foreign Minister Andrés Allamand—who served under the Chilean administration that helped develop the Arrangement—noted the benefits of developing a multi-country arrangement like GTAGA compared to negotiating bilaterally. The Arrangement “takes inspiration from trade and gender chapters,” he told participants at an OECD-organized meeting in June 2021.

GTAGA therefore “represents a second step, reinforcing and complementing countries’ commitment to gender issues and encouraging them to work together. Also, it allows us to go global, as the G in its name suggests,” Allamand said. Chilean officials serving under the current government concur with his comments, pointing out that they cannot always achieve as much as they would like with regard to gender equality in the country’s trade agreements. “Not all our trading partners are as committed to gender equality as we are,” a Chilean trade official told IISD in Geneva recently, explaining that “we can go further with an Arrangement such as this.”

An important feature, a Peruvian trade official affirmed, is that the Arrangement “is open to more interested countries to join, thus increasing the learning space and the number of cooperation activities that can be proposed among participants.” The official further highlighted the arrangement’s focus on cooperation, which “allows Peru to advance in the area of trade and gender in a manner that is in line with the circumstances that apply in the country, and to benefit directly from training activities and the exchange of experiences with leading countries on issues related to the empowerment of women through trade.”

Writing for TradeExperettes, an international network of women who are experts in trade and trade policy, former New Zealand trade negotiator Stephanie Honey noted that GTAGA “builds on what has gone before in terms of best-endeavours approaches to knowledge-sharing,” highlighting the arrangement’s working group as an example of how GTAGA also “adds new elements and a more solid platform for cooperation.”

A unique and potentially significant feature of GTAGA is its provision that participants will share experiences relating to policies and programs that encourage women’s participation in the economy through their reports to the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Trade Policy Review (TPR) mechanism.

TPRs are monitoring exercises that every WTO member undergoes periodically. The WTO secretariat and the member under review each prepare a report on the country’s trading policies and macroeconomic environment. These inform the TPR meeting, during which the reviewed member undergoes a discussion with fellow WTO members, who can submit questions both in advance and during the meeting itself.

What has happened so far?

Trade Policy Reviews

Mexico and New Zealand have come before the WTO’s TPR Mechanism since joining GTAGA. New Zealand’s 2022 TPR report pays considerable attention to women’s economic participation and women’s rights, referring to developments in international trade forums and domestically. The domestic developments described include New Zealand’s world-leading equal pay legislation: the 2020 Equal Pay Amendment Act. Canada, Chinese Taipei, and Iceland picked up on the topic in the discussion during New Zealand’s TPR meeting in June, and no members stated that it was inappropriate to do so. The UK delegate commented that “we should all be thankful to New Zealand for highlighting the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women and girls,” adding that “it is right and proper to draw attention to these important areas.”

Mexico’s TPR report devotes an entire section to policies and actions the country is implementing to improve the integration of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and women into the economy. At the meeting for Mexico’s TPR in November 2022, several WTO members, including Costa Rica, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, commended Mexico for promoting women’s empowerment. Argentina and Chile welcomed Mexico’s TPR reference to measures in favour of women. The Nigerian delegate referred to “the steps taken by Mexico on the inclusion and participation of women and SMEs in Mexico’s economy and international trade.” Sri Lanka, for its part, noted that Mexico promotes women’s empowerment and the development of transport and logistics infrastructure as part of its trade strategy, but cited data indicating “that the use of trade as a tool to reduce poverty and socio-economic inequalities has not achieved the expected outcome in Mexico.”

TPR reporting on steps taken to favour women’s participation in trade is not, however, a new phenomenon. A 2019 WTO working paper found that over 75 WTO members had reported at least one trade policy targeting women’s economic empowerment in their TPRs between 2014 and 2018.

Seminars

GTAGA participants have organized three events since the Arrangement was signed. These include a 2021 session that Chile hosted on Unlocking Opportunities for Women Entrepreneurs. Last November, New Zealand hosted an event titled Women in STEM—Fixing the leaky pipeline. This brought together speakers and presenters from Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, New Zealand, and Peru with an audience of around 120 people from more than 20 countries. Events planned for 2023/24 include a panel discussion on making the shift to digital, as well as a webinar on how to ensure gender equality, diversity, and inclusion in the private sector as part of a Responsible Business Conduct strategy.

Participation in GTAGA

Growing country membership…

One of the objectives of current GTAGA participants is to draw in new participating countries, with Argentina and Ecuador already poised to join. As the Arrangement is not linked to a specific trade agreement, it is open to other interested economies, a point that current participants emphasize. In the words of former Minister Allamand of Chile, “We want to increase GTAGA’s influence and scope.” At the June ceremony that welcomed Colombia and Peru into the GTAGA fold, ITAG Ministers invited fellow WTO members to “demonstrate their commitment to advancing inclusive trade” by joining GTAGA. New Zealand Minister for Trade and Export Growth Damian O’Connor has stated his country’s commitment “to assist anyone who wants to come on board.”

Officials of participating countries say that consultations within their countries on GTAGA’s content and on whether they should join were broad. Peru, for instance, consulted internally with different parts of its Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism, as well as with the ministry responsible for gender issues, the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations (MIMP), a Peruvian official told IISD.

…but mostly private sector participation

Yet emphasis in the consultations appears to have been on private sector participation, with businesses involved in designing the content of the arrangement. Vicky Saunders, a Canadian entrepreneur, has described how in Canada, GTAGA built on broad consultations and an ecosystem-based approach to supporting women and non-binary people.

Rooted more in trade than gender equality

The Arrangement is rooted more in the trade than in the gender equality field. This, along with GTAGA’s currently small number of participants and that it does not seek to secure access to other countries’ markets, appear to confine knowledge of it to true “trade and gender” aficionados. IISD reached out to a wide range of women’s groups and networks, as well as others working for gender equality and women’s rights, and was unable to locate much knowledge of GTAGA among them or women’s affairs ministries, other than women’s business associations.

“I work on gender issues in Chile and have not heard of the GTAGA,” said a gender economist based there. A quest for information about GTAGA’s impacts among feminist groups in participating countries elicited many similar responses. “I was an advisor in the women’s ministry of at the time of the country’s signing it but didn’t know about the Arrangement,” one Peruvian official told IISD.

Trade and gender experts note that this lack of awareness may also be due to the limited interactions between different policy communities, as well as the result of scarce resources. “Ministries charged with women’s affairs may have limited interest in trade but also they usually are faced with pressing issues that attract their priority attention, such as violence against women and reproductive health, and are often less well-resourced than trade ministries,” explained Frohmann. “It is hard to get them to engage on trade issues, partly because the trade community and the gender equality communities don’t talk to each other much.”

Dr. Suzy Morrissey, a gender practitioner from New Zealand, suggested that this situation also stems from questions in the gender equality community about the pertinence of trade-based initiatives claiming to promote gender equality. “To the extent that I am connected (reasonably well I would say), I am not aware that the GTAGA is a subject about which feminists/the gender equality community are enthused. I would posit that is because it is not an inequality-reducing agenda.” Indeed, many women’s rights advocates consider that to focus on women entrepreneurs capable of entering export markets is to prioritize a small minority of already privileged women.

Assessment

It is too early to measure the impact of the Arrangement, but based on its current trajectory, GTAGA’s effects may be limited. The work undertaken under the Arrangement’s cooperation provisions so far confirms that it is mainly oriented toward those women who wish to engage in international trade.

Work under GTAGA has the potential to go further, as the Arrangement itself indicates. Its text states that cooperation can extend to key areas for gender equality, such as valuing care work or women’s skills enhancement, which research consistently finds are essential for women’s empowerment. But these words have not been followed up by action. To effect real change, countries participating in the Arrangement must pursue these objectives with as much vigour as they dedicate to supporting women entrepreneurs. Inserting women-friendly references or measures into trade agreements can only do so much if they are unaccompanied by measures to address the range of domains in which gender inequalities play out.

Furthermore, no one appears to be paying heed to a logical end result of facilitating the access of more women-run or women-led companies from different countries around the world to international markets. Fernanda Vicente is based in Chile and is Chief Executive of Mujeres del Pacífico, Latin America’s largest community of women entrepreneurs. She has described GTAGA as a “silk thread that joins women businesses from its different member countries together.” But ultimately, these businesses will be competing against each other for foreign markets in the same way as other companies do. Ultimately, then, the perception that the Arrangement promotes a “more equitable system” and a “values-driven way of doing business” may be short-lived.

More broadly, to ensure that trade and trade rules enhance and do not undermine gender equality and women’s rights, participating countries must consider the impacts of trade on all women, including those who may be indirectly affected by trade rules. Participants have so far hardly considered this aspect. With rare exceptions, there is little indication that participating countries are considering how future trade agreements need to adapt if they are to contribute to broader gender-responsive and inclusivity objectives and support domestic efforts in favour of equality.

These criticisms aside, GTAGA does embody an interesting approach to cooperation on trade and gender. Being purely cooperative and unattached to a specific trade agreement insulates GTAGA from the horse-trading, each-for-its own nature of trade deals. The forum it provides for cooperation, mutual assistance, and experience-sharing may offer a way to ask the harder questions about the relationship between trade and gender, including the objectives and impacts of gender-responsive trade policies.

Describing GTAGA as ground-breaking and comprehensive may be overstating its case. But its existence has the merit of signalling the importance its participants attach to the matters at stake, and it could still be a positive vehicle for more significant engagement with the issues that sit at the nexus of trade and gender equality.

Caroline Dommen is a Senior Associate with the Economic Law and Policy Program, focusing on research and outreach related to trade and gender.

To read the full article, please click here. 

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1. On the occasion of the 2022 OECD Ministerial Council Meeting, we1 have assembled on 9-10 June 2022 under the leadership of Italy as MCM Chair, and with Mexico and Norway as Vice Chairs, under the theme of “The Future We Want: Better Policies for the Next Generation and a Sustainable Transition”.

2. Russia’s unjustifiable, unprovoked and illegal war of aggression against Ukraine is a flagrant violation of international law that shakes the very foundation of the international order. Any unilateral attempts to change it and redraw internationally recognised borders by force or by other means is unacceptable. Against this tense backdrop, we believe that the OECD has a greater role to play as an international organisation that can unite under our shared values. We are firmly determined to rise resolutely to various geopolitical challenges ahead to preserve and promote our shared values. We condemn Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in the strongest possible terms. We have suspended Russia’s and Belarus’ participation in OECD bodies. We call on Russia to immediately cease all hostile and provocative actions against Ukraine, withdraw all military and proxy forces from the country, and turn to good-faith diplomacy and dialogue in order to bring a peaceful end to its ongoing war as soon as possible. We call on all partners to refrain from taking export restrictions measures for agricultural products in the context of the rising food insecurity crisis, in coordination with other international partners. We stand in solidarity with Ukraine. Our priority is to help the Ukrainian people, support their democratically elected government, and protect refugees throughout this crisis. We encourage the OECD’s continuing analyses of the economic, environmental and social repercussions of the war, including the needs of women and children, and OECD proposals in support of Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction, together with relevant international partners. In this regard, we welcome the establishment of the OECD Kyiv Office.

3. In this context, we will work toward consolidating the economic and social foundations of democracy, through realising a sustainable and inclusive growth as well as addressing disparities and inequalities. We will also step up efforts to maintain and strengthen the rules-based international economic order, while preserving our economic security and countering economic coercion. Furthermore, we will bolster our external engagement to promote adherence to OECD standards and to achieve sustainable development all over the world.

4. We want the next generation to inherit a peaceful, prosperous, sustainable and inclusive future. The OECD’s shared values, as reflected in its 60th Anniversary Vision Statement, are the basis for our like-minded action in support of a rule based international order and in pursuit of sustainable growth, while protecting our planet and reducing inequalities. We believe democracy and the rule of law, the promotion of human rights, equality, diversity and inclusion, gender equality, the market-based economic principles, an open, free and fair, and rules-based multilateral trading system, transparency and accountability of governments, and the promotion of environmental sustainability will help improve the lives and prospects of everyone – inside and outside the OECD’s membership, now and in the future. We intend to continue our successful collaboration with non-member countries. We commit to preserving the like-minded nature of the OECD in its enlargement process, and welcome the adoption of Accession Roadmaps for Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Peru and Romania. We reaffirm the openness of the Organisation, the continued importance of all of our regional programmes and the strategic priority of South East Asia as identified in our Global Relations Strategy, and our commitment to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Solid multilateral co-operation and institutions have never been more important. Recognising the challenges to the OECD’s standards and norms by emerging donors, we will reinforce our global engagement through consolidating OECD’s role as a platform for the exchange of experiences and best practices, as well as advancing its standards globally, through membership and partnerships and a sound approach to development. The war in Ukraine, the scarring effects of the pandemic and the climate emergency have critical consequences particularly for developing countries. Extreme poverty, severe food insecurity and forced displacement are intensifying. We recognise the importance of an urgent and coordinated response and of international cooperation to help developing countries manage these shocks. We are committed to supporting developing countries to achieve their development goals through policy dialogue, expert analysis, demand-driven policy support, domestic resource mobilisation and international finance – including Official Development Assistance and other official and private flows – to meet both urgent needs and longer term sustainable development priorities. We will take a positive role in measuring these international financial flows to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs.

To read the full report from the OECD Council, please click here.

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The gender gap discussed in this Policy Brief measures the difference between the share of women employed or actively looking for paid work, relative to the share of men. To gauge its evolution over time, and especially during the pandemic, we have compiled a new database across 43 countries (36 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] and 7 emerging-market economies) representing 60 percent of global GDP (in current US dollars as of 2019).3 These data track trends over 30 years, providing many valuable insights into the evolving and varied nature of male and female workplace presence. The data will also be updated quarterly and made publicly available. Forthcoming research will examine trends over the three decades of the database, with a focus on demographic factors, differences among sectors of the economy, and what can be learned from the experience of varied government policies. Some preliminary analysis of the trends in 2020, a time of enormous disruption because of the pandemic, suggests that: 

• Out of the 43 countries in this study, two Latin American countries—Chile (+2.3 percentage points) and Colombia (+1.3)—and Finland (+1.1) experienced the largest gender gap expansion in monthly labor force participation from early 2020; Colombia and Cyprus experienced the largest expansion in quarterly labor force participation gap by more than 2 percentage points.

• The gender gap widened in the United States, driving 2.5 million women from their jobs in what Vice President Kamala Harris called a “national emergency” for women.

• The quarterly gender gap narrowed the most in three small European economies (Luxembourg, Lithuania, and Malta) by 2.9, 2.1, and 1.5 percentage points, respectively. Nine other countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Romania, Russia, the Slovak Republic, Turkey, and the United Kingdom) have also experienced a shrinking of the gender gap in 2020 (see appendix table).

• Female labor force participation fell the most in countries where women are more likely to be employed in the services and retail sales sectors, which were disproportionately affected by the lockdown measures adopted to curb the spread of the virus.

• Employees on temporary contracts were more likely to have lost their jobs during the pandemic. In countries with a lower share of female workers on such contracts relative to men, women were less likely to drop out of the labor force relative to men. Generally speaking, women in temporary employment are at the lower end of the income scale and do not include professional women with credentials who seek career opportunities in their jobs, a sector that has opened up for women in many advanced economies in recent years.

• Not surprisingly, countries with stronger laws against gender discrimination, as measured by the overall World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law index score, experienced fewer disparities between men and women in keeping jobs during the pandemic.

• Greater government expenditure on childcare in the pre-COVID-19 era does not appear to have insulated female workers from the labor-market impacts of the pandemic.

To read the full policy brief by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, please click here. 

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This Article explores the rationale behind the inclusion of labor and environmental standards in U.S. trade law and its implication for the future inclusion of additional rights. It makes two central claims—one pragmatic and the other normative. My pragmatic claim is that policymakers intend for trade agreements and their provisions to regulate trade competition; trade-plus provisions are no exception. Rights will be incorporated into trade law only if they prove germane to achieving fair trade conditions. My normative claim, which is more likely to draw the ire of my fellow rights advocates, is that the above criterion is necessary to maintain the integrity of the trade and international rights regimes, even if it excludes some rights while favoring others. 

To read the full report by Fordham Law Review, please click here. 

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The ILO has also provided a variety of tools for support to its constituents (see ILO, 2020o for more details). The ILO–International Finance Corporation Better Work programme is monitoring the situation in its participating countries, and provides support to workers, factories and brands in addressing the crisis and protecting workers. The ILO has also convened forums for industry dialogue, discussion and exchange, as well as publishing a series of practical factory guides aimed at supporting business resilience through improved cash flow management, income and market diversification, workplace communication, and safety and efficiency in production (ILO, 2020p).

The ILO facilitated and supports the Call to Action, an international multi-stakeholder initiative which aims to spur industry-wide action to protect workers’ incomes, health and employment and support employers to survive during the COVID-19 crisis, and to work together to establish sustainable systems of social protection for a more just and resilient garment industry. The Call to Action is a positive example of global industry-wide collaboration, but it will need ongoing commitment and coordinated stakeholder action to be effective in achieving its intended objectives.

The decline in consumer demand for garments as well as the requirement to close workplaces to curb the spread of the virus, which resulted in a sharp decrease in garment production and employment, have charted a downward trajectory steeper than the one seen during the 2008-09 financial crisis. The depth of those declines and the speed and shape of the eventual recovery in the sector will likely not be (fully) visible until 2021 or 2022. Researchers will also require more time and data to measure whether government and industry interventions have been effective and sufficient to alleviate the crises.

Given the scale of the pandemic and impact to date, the global garment industry may in the coming years face a structural realignment, shaped in part by trends that were already disrupting the sector prior to 2020. Public calls for a rethink of garment supply chains, towards greater equality, inclusivity and sustainability, are becoming louder, while technological innovation is reshaping the possibilities for how and where production takes place, and the role the factory workforce plays in this process. This reconfiguration of the industry should also take into account long-standing challenges and address the need for investment in transportation and communication infrastructure, reliable power generation, education and skills development, all of which restrict the move of the industry into higher value-added products and services. More research is needed to fully understand the potential scenarios emerging as a result of the continued disruptions brought about by the pandemic.

It remains to be seen as to whether the post-pandemic global garment industry will undergo a fundamental restructuring to forge a new – and possibly more sustainable and resilient path – or whether it will revert back to a largely ‘business as usual’ scenario. Whichever trajectory the industry now takes, workers and enterprises will be on the frontline of its impact.

It is ultimately upon national governments, workers and employers to work together with other industry powerbrokers to find collective solutions for a human-centred future of the industry – a future that can deliver on its promise to be a transformative force for social and economic good across Asia and the Pacific.

To download the full report, please click here.

© International Labour Organization 2020

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“The report comes out at an opportune time. The COVID-19 pandemic has provoked the deepest economic recession of our lifetimes. Recent WTO analysis shows that women risk losing some really hard-won progress towards greater gender equality because of this crisis. Looking forward, I have no doubt we need to lay the foundations for a strong, sustainable, and inclusive economic recovery. To build back better, we need to ensure that women are able to benefit from trade,” DG Azevêdo said at the launch.

“Although this research was done before the global pandemic, its conclusions are more relevant than ever. Gaining a better understanding of how women are affected by trade will be essential as countries develop and the global economy recovers from the pandemic. I hope the discussion today can help policy makers identify the potential opportunities that trade can provide for women and businesses and buttress support for a more inclusive rules-based trading system,” Ms Pangetsu said.

The publication features new data and analysis on how women benefit from trade in different ways to men in terms of wages, welfare gains and the quality and quantity of jobs available to them. It draws from a new dataset which, for the first time, provides labour data broken down by gender at the industry level for 72 countries. It also draws from the first database on explicit gender-related provisions in regional trade agreements.

The report finds that firms engaged in international trade employ a higher percentage of women than non-exporting firms (33% on average compared to 24% per cent for non-exporting firms). It also features findings on how trade increases wages, improves working conditions and is linked to higher levels of gender equality.

The report identifies trends pointing to opportunities for the further empowerment of women, namely the rise in services, the expansion of global value chains and the growing digital economy. It highlights trade policies countries could introduce to harness these opportunities, such as lowering tariff and non-tariff barriers on goods produced and consumed largely by women, further opening trade in services, and helping women traders and small enterprises benefit from market opportunities through trade facilitation measures and greater availability of trade finance.

The WTO has a key role to play, the report stresses. Ongoing talks related to services, agriculture (which employs a large number of women in developing countries), electronic commerce and micro, small and medium sized enterprises are key to identifying and eliminating barriers to women’s participation in trade. The WTO also provides a forum where members discuss tariff and non-tariff barriers across a range of sectors and members’ trade policies. Improving transparency on gender-related policies can help establish good practices and draw attention to the challenges that women face in participating in world trade.

The report highlights the need for complementary policies aimed at increasing opportunities for women in education, increasing access to finance, and enhancing information technology skills to maximize the gains from trade for women. In addition, collective efforts are required from governments, international organizations and the private sector to promote the role of trade in improving gender equality.

To read the full report, click here.

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Reforms to remove obstacles to women’s economic inclusion have been slow in many regions and uneven within them, according to Women, Business and the Law 2021. On average, women have just three-quarters of the legal rights afforded to men.  Women were already at a disadvantage before the pandemic, and government initiatives to buffer some of its effects, while innovative, have been limited in many countries, the report says.

“Women need to be fully included in economies in order to achieve better development outcomes,” said David Malpass, World Bank Group President. “Despite progress in many countries, there have been troubling reversals in a few, including restricting women’s travel without the permission of a male guardian. This pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities that disadvantage girls and women, including barriers to attend school and maintain jobs. Women are also facing a rise in domestic violence and health and safety challenges. Women should have the same access to finance and the same rights to inheritance as men and must be at the center of our efforts toward an inclusive and resilient recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Women, Business and the Law 2021 measures the laws and regulations across 8 areas that affect women’s economic opportunities in 190 countries, covering the period from September 2019-October 2020. From the basics of movement in the community to the challenges of working, parenting, and retiring, the data offers objective and measurable benchmarks for global progress toward gender equality. Following the outbreak of the pandemic, this report also looks at government responses to the COVID-19 crisis and how the pandemic has impacted women at work and at home, focusing on childcare, access to justice, and health and safety.

Overall, the report finds that many governments have put in place measures to address some of the impacts of the pandemic on working women. For example, less than a quarter of all economies surveyed in the report legally guaranteed employed parents any time off for childcare before the pandemic. Since then, in light of school closures, nearly an additional 40 economies around the world have introduced leave or benefit policies to help parents with childcare. Even so, these measures are likely insufficient to address the challenges many working mothers already face, or the childcare crisis.

The pandemic has also contributed to a rise in both the severity and frequency of gender-based violence. Preliminary research shows that since early 2020, governments introduced about 120 new measures including hotlines, psychological assistance, and shelters to protect women from violence. Some governments also took steps to provide access to justice in several ways, including declaring family cases urgent during lockdown and allowing remote court proceedings for family matters. However, governments still have room to enact measures and policies aimed at addressing the root causes of this violence.

“While it is encouraging that many countries have proactively taken steps to help women navigate the pandemic, it’s clear that more work is needed, especially in improving parental leave and equalizing pay,” said Mari Pangestu, Managing Director of Development Policy and Partnerships, The World Bank.“Countries need to create a legal environment that enhances women’s economic inclusion, so that they can make the best choices for themselves and their families.”

Despite the pandemic, 27 economies in all regions and income groups enacted reforms across all areas and increased good practices in legislation in 45 cases during the year covered, the report found. The greatest number of reforms introduced or amended laws affecting pay and parenthood.

However, parenthood is also the area that leaves the most room for improvement globally. This includes  paid parental leave, whether benefits are administered by the government, and whether the dismissal of pregnant women is prohibited. Reforms are also needed to address the restrictions women face in the type of jobs, tasks, and hours they can work, segregating them into lower paid jobs. And in 100 economies, laws do not mandate that men and women be paid the same for equally valued jobs.

Achieving legal gender equality requires a concerted effort by governments, civil society, and international organizations, among others. But legal and regulatory reforms can serve as an important catalyst to improve the lives of women as well as their families and communities. Better performance in the areas measured by Women, Business and the Law is associated with narrowing the gender gap in development outcomes, higher female labor force participation, lower vulnerable employment, and greater representation of women in national parliaments.

To read the full report from The World Bank Group, please click here

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CIGI’s essay series Reshaping Trade through Women’s Economic Empowerment has given leaders and experts in trade, investment, development, human rights and women’s rights a voice to comment on the declaration and to guide others in implementing it. Contributors examine the declaration’s strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and challenges to including women equally in domestic and international trade. Now nations, including Canada, are using trade negotiations to advance women’s economic empowerment.

To read the original report, click here.

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