UNCTAD

The 10-11 March 2009 in Geneva, UNCTAD held an expert meeting on mainstreaming gender in trade policy . UNCTAD discussed together with invited experts on gender issues and different member states about trade policies from a gender perspective. Issues like using the term “gender-neutrality” when establishing new trade policies was addressed and it was acknowledged by the participants that this concept did not take into consideration how women and men are affected in different ways by globalization and trade liberalization.

The term “gender mainstreaming” was also discussed during the meeting and concluded not to be the best one. It is easy to state that we are gender mainstreaming but we have to ask ourselves how we really are doing this. Is it gender mainstreaming to write the word “women” into documents and then just count how many times women are mentioned and by that state that we are gender mainstreaming? The conclusion was that we have to have more in depth gender analysis to make sure that gender issues really are taken into consideration. It should be gender action plans in national action plans. National action plans are not only about trade but trade should also respond to concerned gender issues, and governments are accountable for that.

Furthermore, it was confirmed that more gender analysis are needed in the area of trade and especially in the light of the economical crisis the world currently is facing now. One example of the relevance of gender analysis is the fact that the economical crisis is spreading to the service sector where there are mostly women and it is also estimated that the majority of the world’s migrant workers are women. This in turn means that now because of the financial crisis many of them will have to return to their home countries and the countries have to be prepared for this to be able to absorb them back in the economical system.   
    
Strategies

The issues in what way trade are affecting women positively versus negatively and how to implement effectively polices to face this that came up during the 2 days meeting were the importance of bringing new gender awareness at all policy levels. To be able to do this the most discussed strategy was to establish a gender segregated database. The idea for doing this was to take all the “players” in trade into consideration, in other words also acknowledging women’s contribution to trade and to the countries GPD. By doing this new patterns in trade will be reviled and by that give the possibility for establishing better suited polices at the ground level.

There were also an urge to get more gender analysis in general like issues regarding countries infrastructure. For example when we are building a bridge we have to ask ourselves, who will use this bridge? Will women and men use it differently? At different times? For different purposes? If men are driving cars over the bridge and women are walking how much money and time would it cost for us to put up a railing and maybe some lighting? And how many lives would that save?

It also came up a request to offer more “gender education” to government staff and staff working in the field. If we are asking for an expert to explain gender it is relevant that this “expert” have had a sufficient gender education beforehand to understand for instance what gender gaps really are. We also have to take into consideration that many persons, how sadly it might be, don’t know what gender is.

So finally, the concrete proposal was to promote gender analysis and skip gender mainstreaming. It was suggested that women organizations can work as informed advocacies in this policy process. CEDAW was put forward as a leading example in the development of trade gender tools. Furthermore, more reliable data is needed and gender segregated statistics. This knowledge is fundamental before we can state that we know what we are talking about. There should also exist an intergenerational discussion in the exchange of ideas. We will have to wait and see if UNCTAD can rearrange some of their resources to put more time and effort into these gender issues and by that promote more productive results.  

Sofia Ek March 25 2009

UNCTAD www.unctad.org/
UNCTAD – (Expert meeting on mainstreaming gender in trade policy) http://www.unctad.org/Templates/Meeting.asp?intItemID=1942&lang=1&m=16435&year=2009&month=3