Issue I : June-July 2007

The agenda of mainstreaming gender into trade policies and practices at the bilateral, regional and multilateral levels is yet to receive adequate attention at the hands of academics, policy makers, civil society and the media alike. This has been despite the fact that a number of credible researches have highlighted both the impact of gender blind trade policies on gender outcomes and the way forward for mitigating them.

There is a need to engage with this issue at several levels with all the concerned stakeholders and sensitise them to the different dimensions of the issue at hand. The newsletter marks a modest step in that direction. It is an attempt to generate new information and analysis for raising awareness for action amongst the concerned stakeholders and towards furthering the overall objective of gender mainstreaming in trade.

We are happy to present before you the inaugural issue of the bimonthly newsletter on Gender and Trade. Together with the web based e-resource also titled “Gender and Trade”, we hope these initiatives would serve a valuable purpose in bridging the distance between advocacy groups and policy makers as well as deepen dialogue on a subject which deserves our collective attention.