Fourth Regional Capacity Building Workshop on Gender, Trade Policy and Export Promotion for Southern Africa

Teams were sent from seven Commonwealth countries in the region – Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Swaziland – and included participants from Ministries of Trade and Commerce, Gender, sectoral Ministries including Agriculture and Tourism.  Also in attendance were the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and representatives from civil society including national business organisations, women’s entrepreneurial organisations and regional representation from the international NGO, One World Action. 

Participants spent five days working closely from the Gender and Trade Action Guide, looking at key issues including regional and bilateral agreements – more specifically the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) that are ongoing within the region – agricultural trade liberalisation, non-agricultural market access (NAMA), and women producers joining the global economy.

In the final stages of the workshop participants were asked to prepare action plans in their country teams that identified a particular sector to take forward with the tools learned over the course of the workshop.  Proposed sectors for focus and development with a gender lens within the region included community-based tourism, cotton exports, ICTs, and handicraft production specifically for the tourism industry.

The workshop was facilitated by Sarojini Ganju Thakur, Head (Ag.) of the Gender Section at the Commonwealth Secretariat, Mariama Williams, independent consultant and author of the Commonwealth publication Gender Mainstreaming in the Multilateral Trading System, and Fatimah Kelleher, Programme Officer at the Commonwealth Secretariat.