Gender, Trade, Export Promotion For South Asia

The event is being organised by the Gender Section of the Commonwealth Secretariat in partnership with the Government of India's Ministry of Commerce and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) South Asia Regional Office.

The workshop is funded by the UK Government's Department for International Development (DfID). The Gender Section and DfID recently signed a memorandum of understanding under which £550,000 will be allocated for capacity-building in gender and trade in Commonwealth countries.

The workshop -- to be inaugurated by India's Minister of State for Commerce, Jairam Ramesh -- will be attended by around 40 representatives of trade ministries, ministries of women's affairs, export promotion councils and civil society organisations from five Commonwealth countries, namely Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Representatives from regional and multilateral organisations such as the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation, UN Conference on Trade and Development and UN Development Programme will also attend the workshop.

"The relationship between gender and trade in the process of globalisation and trade liberalisation has been hugely neglected," said Dr Rawwida Baksh, Adviser and Head of the Gender Section.

"In fact, it is often assumed that trade is essentially 'gender neutral'. However, trade policy impacts differently on men and women. Hence, there is a need to take into account women not only as producers, but also as workers and consumers."

One of the key aims of the workshop is to "enhance capacities in public and private institutions to integrate gender analysis when dealing with trade-related issues and to make them more responsive to the impacts of trade policy on women's employment and entrepreneurship," said Sarojini Thakur, Adviser with the Gender Section.

"The workshop has a regional perspective and will also create networks within countries and across countries in the region."

During the workshop, a primer developed for UNIFEM by the Secretariat called 'WTO and Gender Concerns in South Asia' will be launched.

CNIS - Commonwealth News and Information Service Issue 299, 23 August 2006

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• Gender
• Economics and Trade

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