Launched at an event on 25 February, the Compendium of Financial Inclusion Initiatives for Women-led Small Businesses  will help policymakers design gender-responsive trade policies to enhance women  entrepreneurs' financial inclusion.

At a second event on 25 February, the  Working Groups and the Trade and Environmental Sustainability Structured Discussions (TESSD) presented their work and their plans for strengthening inclusive trade and making trade work for women, MSMEs and the protection of the environment.

The Co-Chairs of the WTO Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender (Ambassador Claire Delgado of Cabo Verde, Ambassador Patricia Benedetti of El Salvador and Ambassador Simon Manley of the United Kingdom) launched their Joint Statement on “Promoting Inclusive and Sustainable Trade through Gender Equality and Building a Gender-Responsive WTO” (WT/MIN(24)/6). It contains important commitments that will help members take the work on gender equality to the next level and achieve concrete outcomes in mainstreaming gender in the WTO. 

 In particular, the IWG Gender Co-Chairs engaged with their respective governments to include trade policies supporting women's economic empowerment in their future Trade Policy Review reports. They committed to foster the creation of specific initiatives and tools that members could utilise in adopting and strengthening gender-responsive policies, review, develop and improve gender-disaggregated data collection, work with civil society on gender equality and promote the inclusion of gender provisions or chapters in free trade agreements.

The Co-Chairs also presented the activities and initiatives the Group has undertaken since 2022, stressing that mainstreaming gender in the WTO is at the core of their work. In particular, the IWG's technical work focussed on understanding gender-disaggregated data collection methodologies as well as data sources, the impact of regional trade agreements on women, and the gender dimensions in development programming, with a special focus on Aid for Trade.

Presenting the work conducted by the MSME Informal Working Group, Barbados Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Hon. Kerrie Symmonds highlighted the key points from the Coordinator's Report (WT/MIN(24)/9), including the new compendium of measures aimed at supporting small business access to the Authorized Economic Operators Programs (INF/MSME/47/Rev.1), the revamped Trade4MSMEs platform, and The Trade Game, underscoring the concrete nature of these outputs and their importance in helping small businesses trade internationally.

Looking ahead, Barbados Ambassador Matthew Wilson noted the MSME Group will continue the important joint work with the Trade and Gender Group and TESSD, such as the joint compendium of financial inclusion initiatives for women-led small businesses, as well as explore new topics raised within the MSME Group ranging from trade digitalization to voluntary sustainability standards.  The Group will also continue dialogue with the private sector through annual meetings, the MSME Newsletter and regular interventions at MSME group meetings by small businesses.

The Co-convenors of TESSD, Costa Rica and Canada, underlined the inclusiveness dimension of the initiative. Adriana Castro, Director General of Foreign Trade of Costa Rica, said that TESSD was committed to working towards inclusive approaches and policy solutions that can support the meaningful participation of MSMEs and women in environmentally sustainable trade. Looking ahead, Canada's Ambassador, Nadia Theodore, highlighted the Co-convenors' intention to double down on their efforts to add more co-sponsors from developing countries to TESSD as it is vital that their perspectives are included.

At a press conference on 27 February, Canada and Costa Rica launched the TESSD package for MC13, which includes the Co-convenors' Statement, an updated Work Plan and outcome documents of the four Informal Working Groups, which identify opportunities for promoting trade in renewable goods and services and provide guidance for policymaking.