women and trade

Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

The Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender brings together WTO members and observers seeking to intensify efforts to increase women's participation in global trade. It was established on 23 September 2020 as a follow-up to an initiative launched at the Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires in 2017, known as the Joint Declaration on Trade and Women's Economic Empowerment.

The Group aims to share best practice on removing barriers to women's participation in world trade, to exchange views on how to apply a “gender lens” to the work of the WTO, to review gender-related reports produced by the WTO Secretariat, and to discuss how women may benefit from the Aid for Trade initiative.

Participation in this Informal Working Group is open to all WTO members. The initiative is chaired by Botswana, Iceland and El Salvador.

News

Background

In the margins of the WTO's 11th Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires in 2017, 118 WTO members and observers endorsed the informal Buenos Aires Declaration on Trade and Women's Economic Empowerment. This initiative seeks to foster women’s economic empowerment through their participation in international trade, by focussing on experience and best practices sharing and workshop discussions. Since 2019, 120 WTO members and 7 observer governments support the Buenos Aires Declaration.

On 23 September 2020, the Buenos Aires participants created the Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender (WT/L/1095/Rev.1) in the WTO, the ultimate outcome of the Buenos Aires Declaration.

Work of the Informal Working Group

The Working Group’s Work Plan is based on four pillars:

  • sharing best practices and exchanging views on removing trade-related barriers to women's participation in trade
  • considering the scope for a “gender lens” to be applied to the work of the WTO
  • reviewing analytical work undertaken by the WTO Secretariat
  • contributing to the Aid for Trade work programme as a means of increasing women's participation in trade.

On 26 February 2021, the Working Group adopted a Work Plan to help advance its activities and to focus its work towards the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in June 2022, with the aim of developing a better understanding of the trade and gender nexus and how gender is integrated into members’ trade policies. A progress report on this work is available in INF/TGE/R/1.

At MC12, ministers recognized multilaterally the links between women's economic empowerment and economic growth, noting the work of the WTO on this issue. In addition, the three co-chairs of the Informal Working Group issued a statement highlighting the achievements of WTO members’ joint work and reaffirming its commitment to advancing gender equality in trade.

Members accelerated their work after MC12 with dedicated discussions, a workshop on gender equality and the private sector organized by the three co-chairs and a workshop on data collection broken down by gender organized by Canada.

In addition, the European Union and International Trade Centre organized four workshops on “developing a gender lens framework for the WTO,” focusing on government procurement, e-commerce, trade facilitation, and investment facilitation. The workshops were organized in collaboration with Ecuador, Chile and the United States. Through all of these activities, WTO members are actively exploring how to develop concrete initiatives on trade to support women.

Documents submitted by WTO members

Date

Member

Title

Document number

6 December 2021

The Russian Federation

Communication from the Russian Federation on joint ministerial declaration on the advancement of gender equality and women's economic empowerment within trade

22 October 2021

Mexico

Mexico's recent work on trade and gender

30 April 2021

Botswana, El Salvador, Iceland

Proposal for a framework to deliver an ambitious ministerial outcome on trade and gender for MC12 and beyond

29 March 2021

Canada

Final work plan for implementing activities under the Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

3 Feb 2021

Canada

Revision of Draft Work Plan for implementing activities under the Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

11 Jan 2021

Australia

Australia Experiences with Gender-Related Practices and Processes

21 Dec 2020

Canada

Draft work plan for implementing activities under the Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

Documents submitted by WTO Secretariat

Date

Member

Title

Document number

19 September 2022

WTO Secretariat

Trade and gender-related provisions in Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs)

Meetings of the Informal Working Group

Forthcoming meetings

Draft schedule of meetings 2023 (INF/TGE/W/5/Rev.1)

Schedule of meetings 2022 (INF/TGE/W/4/Rev.3 )

Schedule of meetings 2021 (INF/TGE/W/2/Rev.3)

/

Date

Topic

Organizer

Documents

21 April 2023

Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

Iceland, Botswana and El Salvador

14 February 2023

Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

Iceland, Botswana and El Salvador

12 December 2022

Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

Iceland, Botswana and El Salvador

22 September 2022

Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

Iceland, Botswana and El Salvador

2 June 2022

Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

Iceland, Botswana and El Salvador

22 February 2022

Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

Iceland, Botswana and El Salvador

28 October 2021

Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

Iceland, Botswana and El Salvador

23 September 2021

Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

Iceland, Botswana and El Salvador

16 July 2021

Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

Iceland, Botswana and El Salvador

23 June 2021

Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

Iceland, Botswana and El Salvador

28 Apr 2021

Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

Iceland, Botswana and El Salvador

26 Feb 2021

Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender

Iceland and Botswana

10 Dec 2020

Launch of the report: Delivering on the Buenos Aires Declaration on Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment.

Other items will be discussed during this meeting.

Iceland and Botswana

Meetings

2021

  • 23 September
  • 16 July
  • 23 June
  • 28 April
  • 26 February

2020

  • 10 December

Share


  

Problems viewing this page? If so, please contact [email protected] giving details of the operating system and web browser you are using.