Gender equality and aid for trade - A primer and guide for practitioners

Introduction
PART ONE: Promoting Gender Equality Through Aid for Trade
PART TWO: Integrating Gender into Aid for Trade Proposals: A "How-to" Guide for Development Partners
Examples
Resources
Glossary
Notes

Introduction

The global community has made commitments in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce poverty (MDG 1) and to promote gender equality and women's empowerment (MDG 3). Goals for reducing poverty through trade are reflected in MDG 8 (global partnership for development), in which developed countries have made commitments to improve market access for developing countries.

Economists generally agree that open economies achieve, overall, stronger economic growth than do closed ones, but there is less consensus on the link between trade liberalization and poverty reduction. Footnote 1 There is growing recognition that along with economic growth that comes from global trade, income gaps are widening between rich and poor countries and among groups of people within countries. In some cases, those people who are the most marginalized may be further marginalized as a result of the economic reforms that accompany trade liberalization. Women, who as a group are the poorest and most marginalized in most countries, may or may not benefit from trade. A growing body of literature on the gender-specific impacts of trade liberalization elaborates on how changes in consumption patterns (related to changes in prices of goods and services), wages, and government revenues can affect women and men differently, with implications for economic growth and poverty reduction. Footnote 2

Policies that extend opportunities to both women and men living in poverty to access the benefits of trade, and that include mitigating measures to offset the costs of adjustment, will improve the poverty-reduction potential of Aid for Trade (AfT) initiatives. Footnote 3

CIDA's Thematic Priorities

In May 2009, the Government of Canada set three new priority themes to guide the work of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA): increasing food security, securing the future of children and youth, and stimulating sustainable economic growth. In 2010, CIDA launched its Sustainable Economic Growth Strategy (SEG).

As a crosscutting issue, gender equality is emphasized in all of CIDA's thematic priorities, including the SEG. The SEG provides the policy framework that guides the agency's AfT-related programming and specifically targets gender equality and women's economic empowerment as a central element in each of its three paths to growth: building economic foundations, growing businesses, and investing in people.

CIDA's SEG programming aims to explicitly integrate gender equality by focusing on 1) increasing women's participation in decision-making processes at all levels, including the household, local, subnational, national, and international levels; 2) strengthening support for the development and growth of private sector microbusinesses, and small and medium-sized businesses with a special emphasis on female entrepreneurs; and 3) increasing access for women to essential, demand-driven skills training and knowledge needed for formal labour-market participation, including literacy and numeracy.

The SEG approach to the integration of gender-equality considerations corresponds directly to the three objectives of CIDA's Policy on Gender Equality (1999). This policy aims to reduce gender inequalities in access to and control over the resources and benefits of development, advance women's equal participation with men as decision makers in shaping the sustainable development of their societies, and support women and girls in the realization of their full human rights. Based on the requirements of CIDA's Policy on Gender Equality, expected gender-equality results are to be integrated into all CIDA-funded programming. Footnote 4

Linking Gender Equality and Aid for Trade at CIDA

Development agencies have provided support for trade-related technical assistance in developing countries for several decades. The current AfT initiative dates from the Sixth World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference, held in Hong Kong in 2005. At the conference, trade negotiators made renewed commitments for trade-related technical assistance and capacity building to help developing countries, in particular, less-developed countries, use trade more effectively to promote growth, development, and poverty reduction. Footnote 5

Most donor agencies and multilateral institutions have adopted gender-equality policies that apply to AfT. Those policies aim to give effect to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which has been ratified by nearly all governments in the world. CIDA is committed to promoting gender equality as both a necessary goal in its own right, and as a means to achieve sustainable development and poverty reduction.

CIDA has extensive experience working with multilateral, regional, and bilateral partners to promote gender equality in trade through policy discussions at the World Trade Organization and regional trade organizations such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. CIDA provides support for gender-sensitive trade projects and for tool development in integrating gender equality into trade-related capacity-building initiatives. Footnote 6

In 2010, as part of its comprehensive Sustainable Economic Growth Strategy, CIDA announced a five-year, $40-million program to support AfT initiatives at the multilateral level, the primary aim of which is poverty reduction. Under this program, one quarter of each grant to regional development banks is dedicated to specifically address gender-equality issues. This publication, is intended as a practical resource and guide for trade and development practitioners and for CIDA partners working in this area.

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PART ONE - Promoting Gender Equality Through Aid for Trade

What is Aid for Trade?

Launched in 2005 by members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Aid for Trade (AfT) initiative helps developing countries to participate on a more equal footing in international trade by building their capacity to export, integrate into the multilateral and regional trading systems, and benefit from liberalized trade and increased market access.

The AfT Task Force met in 2006 to consider how to structure the initiative so it could best contribute to the development dimensions of the Doha Round of trade talks. The meeting report recommended that AfT "take full account of the gender perspective," among other issues. In 2010, the WTO's Committee on Trade and Development, which promotes and monitors AfT, for the first time, examined the implications of trade-related development assistance for women. Footnote 7

One criterion for initiatives to be considered "Aid for Trade" is that they be identified as trade-related development priorities in the least developed countries' Diagnostic Trade Integration Strategies (DTIS), or, for non-LDCs, in needs assessments conducted by the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and others. Developing countries can also identify projects as AfT.

Many organizations whose mandates include trade promotion and AfT draw from national trade and development strategies to identify needs and entry points. Understanding gender dimensions of trade policy and trade capacity building at the outset is key if gender concerns are to be picked up by donors and partners further along in decision-making processes.

AfT provides assistance for three categories of activities Footnote 8:

• trade-related technical assistance and capacity building (focusing on trade policy and regulations, and on trade development)
• addressing supply-side constraints, including trade-related infrastructure (for example, transportation and storage, communications, and energy)
• building productive capacity (for example, banking and financial services, business and other services, agriculture and forestry, industry and mining, and tourism)

A fourth area of assistance is for adjustment costs associated with trade reforms. Footnote 9 While AfT support for trade adjustment has received comparatively little attention, it could present an entry point for mitigation initiatives for poor women and men whose livelihoods may have been jeopardized by trade reforms.

Donors are channelling a considerable proportion of their ODA to AfT: AfT commitments for 2009 reached US$40.1 billion, while disbursements reached US$29.1 billion. Footnote 10 While the critical role women play in the economy is well recognized, just 3 percent of spending on AfT had a gender marker. Of that, almost all (93 percent) was allocated for productive capacity building. Footnote 11

Integrating Gender Equality in Aid for Trade

Donor agencies are increasingly examining how AfT programming at the multilateral, regional, and bilateral levels can promote gender equality and reduce poverty.

For example, some donors are cooperating with other development agencies to use multilateral trust funds to pay attention to gender dimensions of trade policy and regulations, support for trade and gender-impact assessments, and internal capacity building on gender and trade.

Studies, as outlined below, show that promoting gender equality and women's empowerment in projects and programming can multiply development results and help sustain results in the long term. Trade promotion and trade-policy initiatives are more effective when they address the needs of both women and men.

Though capacity building for women traders is important, gaps remain in identifying and addressing gender-related issues in other areas of the AfT agenda-particularly in trade policy, where decisions are made on priority sectors for liberalization and on the pace and sequencing of trade reforms. In most countries, women and men tend to work in different industrial sectors (for example, women predominate in labour-intensive sectors such as textiles and apparel and in lower-skill jobs that may be vulnerable to trade reforms) and in different agricultural sectors (men tend to be more engaged in production of cash crops, while women are more involved in subsistence farming). One policy consideration is whether those whose livelihoods may be jeopardized by trade reforms will be able to shift to sectors that are expected to grow.

In most LDCs, employment and trade are overwhelmingly informal. AfT initiatives to facilitate trade across borders currently focus on facilities and services for formal traders. However, informal cross-border trade, in which women are heavily engaged, represents a substantial proportion of trade in many developing countries. There is scope for AfT to include improvements in border and customs procedures that accommodate the needs of women informal traders, such as access to storage facilities at major border points and women-friendly customs clearance and border-police procedures. AfT initiatives could also include ways to address the widely documented sexual harassment and gender-based violence that women informal traders experience at borders. Footnote 12

The effectiveness of trade reforms to promote economic growth and reduce poverty at the national level depends to a major extent on effective functioning of related domestic institutions and infrastructure. These include gender-related barriers to credit and small-business registration. Footnote 13 Attention to gender-related barriers to access to transportation, agricultural extension services, skills training, and information and communications technologies can be an important dimension of AfT capacity-building initiatives.

Trade policy also intersects with other multilateral agreements to which most WTO members are party. These include CEDAW, under which parties have obligations to respect, protect, and promote women's rights. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has also raised concerns about links between trade and human rights that have implications for poverty reduction. Footnote 14 Trade negotiators need to make sure that their governments' trade commitments are consistent with other international and domestic obligations.

Entry Points for Gender Equality in Aid for Trade Initiatives

AfT activities mainly emphasize technical assistance to help countries:

• develop trade strategies, negotiate more effectively, and implement outcomes ("trade policy and regulations")
• develop economic infrastructure
• build productive capacity, including trade development

All these areas offer opportunities to address gender-equality concerns.

Trade Policy and Regulations

This category includes trade policy and administrative management, trade facilitation (simplification and harmonization of import and export procedures, support for customs departments, support for tariff reform), regional trade agreements, multilateral trade negotiations, and trade education/training.

Examples include supporting trade diagnostics (DTIS and needs assessments); training on trade policy formulation and implementation; support for negotiating and implementing bilateral, regional, and multilateral trade agreements; and trade mainstreaming.

Gender equality entry points

Activities under this category that aim at identifying the links between national trade strategy and broader national development strategies must include gender analysis, since women play key-but often different-roles in the economy.

Donors have supported a number of ex ante (based on expected results) and ex post (based on actual results) gender analyses of trade policies or regional/bilateral trade agreements that can help identify both defensive and offensive trade concerns for negotiators.

Gender analyses of trade arrangements, such as economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the EU and Jamaica, Mozambique, and Tanzania, for example, examined their likely effects on employment, entrepreneurship, government revenues, and time use. Overall, the analyses found minimal employment impacts for women in the three countries and they saw few benefits arising from lower costs of imports. The analyses also raised concerns about the potential effects on development caused by loss of government revenues from tariffs. Footnote 15

A project funded by the UK's Department for International Development that involved the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and India's Commerce Ministry drew from both trade and labour-force data to identify gender-sensitive export-oriented sectors and gender-sensitive products for policy makers. It estimated the impact of trade on gender using both econometric studies and sectoral surveys and undertook selective policy advocacy. Footnote 16 More recently, UNCTAD conducted a quantitative assessment of the gendered impacts of trade liberalization in Bhutan. Footnote 17

Uganda's 2009 Gender Dimensions of the National Export Strategy examined gender-related barriers to women's participation in the cocoa sector, identifying new opportunities to promote trade. Footnote 18 Some trade diagnostics have begun to reflect the 2009 revisions to the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) template to include gender equality considerations. For instance, Rwanda's 2010 update includes a discussion on trade and gender concerns and identifies potential AfT products to promote women farmers and entrepreneurs. Donors such as the Geneva-based International Trade Centre (ITC) work with developing-country governments and trade-support institutions on projects targeting both women entrepreneurs and women working in export-oriented value chains. Footnote 19

Other entry points include:

• training for trade negotiators on gender dimensions of trade rules, including issues of concern for informal cross-border traders
• support for policy research and capacity building on gender and trade. For instance, the African Trade Policy Centre at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa has adopted a three-pronged strategy to integrate gender in its research and outreach activities, and it is promoting indicators for gender and trade areas at policy and training workshops Footnote 20
• capacity building for women's business associations, including associations and cooperatives representing female informal cross-border traders, to articulate interests and needs
• capacity building for local research institutions and women's non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on trade issues so they can participate effectively in trade consultations
• training on trade rules and trade dispute resolution. For example, the Advisory Centre on WTO Law could provide seminars on the intersection of trade rules with other multilateral/regional/domestic regimes that have implications for trade policy, such as gender-equality rights, rights to food and water, and health
• support for gender mainstreaming in the Enhanced Integrated Framework Diagnostic Trade Integration Strategies Footnote 21

Economic Infrastructure

Interventions here include strengthening economic infrastructure for trade and productive capacity: roads, ports, telecommunications networks, energy, storage for agricultural products, and other goods.

There are gender considerations in these areas. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, surveys suggest that informal trade represents a significant proportion of regional cross-border trade. Women play a key role: 70 percent of informal cross-border trade in southern Africa is by women. Footnote 22

Gender equality entry points

• Extend trade-related infrastructure (transportation, processing, and storage) to meet the needs of informal cross-border traders and address gender-specific constraints. A World Bank study found that high levels of harassment and physical violence at the border and the prevalence of unofficial payments and bribes have had major impacts on the livelihoods and activities of women informal traders engaged in trade between the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda. Footnote 23 The findings of the study have informed a new project that targets violence against women cross-border traders. In another example, a public-private partnership involving UN Women, the Ministry of Gender and Development of the Republic of Liberia, and the Sirleaf Market Women's Fund plans to build and turn over two warehouses to the management of Liberia's Association of Women in Cross-Border Trade. Footnote 24
• Monitor and evaluate use of AfT infrastructure at one-, three-, and five-year intervals. Include this in project design and budget allocations for sex-disaggregated data collection, gender analysis, and monitoring for gender equality outcomes.
• Integrate gender-specific health and safety concerns as part of project design. For example the reduced transmission of HIV/ AIDs associated with improvements in transport infrastructure, including HIV/ AIDs prevention. Partners could include associations of women informal cross-border traders and UN Women.
• Support capacity building for marginalized exporters, including women informal cross-border traders, on trade rules (the existence of multiple regional trade agreements makes it difficult for small traders to know the rules), tariff regimes, standards (for example, consideration of group certification as a way to reduce high costs to smaller producers), and information and communication technologies (gender considerations in access to training, computers, and the Internet.)
• Engage associations of women informal cross-border traders in information campaigns. For example, Liberia's Bureau of Customs and Excise is producing a simplified chart of customs rates that the Association of Women in Cross-Border Trade will distribute to inform its members about official customs duties.
• Support Regional Economic Commissions and national government agencies to collect sex-disaggregated trade data, including informal cross-border trade. Currently, data-related challenges compound the inadequate reflection of women's trading activities in national accounting systems and statistical databases, making it difficult to capture and understand the different dynamics at play to inform trade policies and processes. Footnote 25

Building Productive Capacity, Including Trade Development

This category includes creating an enabling environment for export-oriented companies (streamlining customs procedures, improving trade information services, strengthening trade-related institutions or companies to help small businesses participate in export trade); improving market access; developing trade legislation; developing the commercial potential for potential export sectors (such as agriculture and tourism); and extending the reach of value chain analyses and support to include smaller producers, including women. Uganda's 2009 National Export Strategy is one example. Another is the gender analyses of home textile and honey value chains in Ethiopia that identified interventions that both promote trade and empower women. Footnote 26

Gender equality entry points

• Include the needs of women informal producers and women informal cross-border traders in AfT needs assessments of marketing services, access to trade finance, and simplification of multiple border agency requirements. Footnote 27
• Link export promotion with broader poverty-reduction objectives, including improving agricultural productivity, building partnerships, and promoting gender equality. A CIDA-supported project targeting indigenous and rural populations in Guatemala included efforts to engage women in all levels of the production cycle and decision making. The project involved a partnership of a Guatemalan producer organization with the Quebec-based Société de coopération pour le développement international. It identified cardmom as an export crop for rural cooperatives and benefited about 12,400 households. Footnote 28
• Support initiatives to improve access by women (and associations that work with small producers) to information about the rights and duties of exporters and importers, customs procedures, valuation processes for duty purposes, the limits of authority of customs officers, and appeals processes. Footnote 29
• Support information campaigns to help entrepreneurs, including informal traders, understand the importance of intellectual property protection and the application procedures.
• Conduct ex ante and ex post impact assessments of developing commercial potential for export sectors where women are employed or have the potential to expand export markets. Uganda's National Export Strategy includes a gender strategy that includes capacity building in export management and related skills for women entrepreneurs, business counselling for women, training in financial management, and business mentoring and training. Footnote 30
• In AfT assessments of potential export sectors such as tourism, include not only potential for linkages to women's businesses (handicrafts, for example), but also concerns about low-quality and dangerous employment for women in the sector, including trafficking.
• Conduct a gender analysis of the financial sector, including access to finance and other assistance. In one example, women are among the most important beneficiaries from a World Bank export competitiveness project in Mali, since they constitute the main employees of exporters and are the main owners of enterprises dealing with processing. Footnote 31

Gender Equality and Poverty―Reduction Indicators for Aid for Trade

The anticipated outcomes of AfT initiatives are, in the short term, enhanced trade competitiveness. In the medium term, they are improved trade performance by developing countries. In the longer-term, they are poverty reduction.

Official development assistance objectives, however, prioritize poverty reduction and gender-equality objectives, including women's empowerment. Gender-sensitive indicators can guide design, implementation, and evaluation of AfT initiatives against gender equality objectives.

The WTO AfT indicators do not clarify the poverty reduction or gender-equality results from AfT interventions-they measure trade outcomes. Footnote 32 The only "gender" indicator is "women employed in the non-agricultural sector." This indicator is limited in that it does not show employment gains for women from increased trade in non-traditional agricultural exports (such as organic foods and horticulture), nor does it provide information on the quality of that employment (that is, whether it actually reduces poverty). More gender-sensitive indicators to track export performance could compare variables such as change in volume or value of sales and change in number/diversity of markets, taking into account the sectors in which women and men operate and the size of the establishment.

Suggestions

To better capture changes in employment and wages linked to trade, gender-sensitive indicators for AfT at the multilateral level could include the MDG 1b indicators (achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women). These are:

• growth rate of labour productivity (GDP per person employed)
• employment-to-population ratio
• proportion of employed people living below the poverty line
• proportion of own-account and contributing family members in total employment-the "vulnerable employment rate" of the International Labour Organization (ILO) (vulnerable employment is characterized by inadequate earnings, low productivity, and difficult conditions of work that undermine workers' fundamental rights.) Footnote 33

Employment data may not always be available for all countries, particularly data on informal economic activities. Activities to address this data gap could be included as a component in the project identification and design phase of an AfT initiative to provide baseline data against which short, medium, and longer-term results can be compared.

At the national or project level, gender-sensitive indicators make visible the added value of a project for women and men. Quantitative data allows trends to be monitored over time; qualitative data captures beneficiaries' perceptions. Including qualitative data is empowering, because it indicates that beneficiaries' views count. Footnote 34 Gender-sensitive indicators for projects should be developed in consultation with relevant stakeholders.

Indicators at the country level could include: sex-disaggregated data on output, employment, and quality of employment (Decent Work indicators); Footnote 35 exports by sector, showing change in employment for women and men; change in export performance by women-owned and men-owned businesses; change in laws or regulations that discriminate against women and informal enterprises; percentage of women-owned/managed businesses using AfT-supported infrastructure; sex-disaggregated data showing women's participation in trade-related training (compared with men's participation); and qualitative assessments of the usefulness of trade-related technical assistance. Indicators adopted by some development agencies for trade-promotion activities include percentage of participating trade support institutions (TSIs) that demonstrate support to women-owned businesses, and the percentage of women (associations or entrepreneurs) reporting an increase in sales.

Trade-policy initiatives could track participation by and results of women's trade associations and NGOs in national consultations on trade policy (for example, whether protection or support for sectors where women are substantially employed is reflected in negotiating positions, and whether gender-impact assessments of trade rules are conducted or included in AfT proposals).

Indicators at the enterprise level could include sex-disaggregated data on profits/dividends for the owner (earnings for owner and employees); indirect economic benefits (premiums from fair trade sales, augmented earnings through organic certification); qualitative indicators (such as perceptions of the intervention's usefulness); and non-economic benefits, such as confidence-building, self-reliance, economic independence, and increased stature in the community.

Indicators at the producer/worker level could include change in incomes/earnings and assets and women's increased control over these; change in women's participation in businesses and business associations; and change in food security and nutrition at the household level, particularly for women and girls. Footnote 36

AfT matters for gender equality, and gender equality matters for AfT activities that can achieve goals for both sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. CIDA's Framework for Assessing Gender Equality Results can assist in identifying and using gender-sensitive indicators to measure gender-equality results from AfT projects. Footnote 37 Part Two of this tool suggests how practitioners can integrate gender-equality objectives in AfT projects and programming and for measuring gender-equality results.

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PART TWO - Integrating Gender into Aid for Trade: A "How-To" Guide for Practitioners

Introduction

This section will assist practitioners to promote gender equality and women's empowerment in AfT projects and programming. Like most guidance notes, it is limited by the need to be somewhat generic, while at the same time recognizing that AfT initiatives-project identification, design, implementation, and outcome indicators-vary considerably, depending on the context and who is consulted.

Promoting Gender Equality Through Aid for Trade Programming Footnote 38

The following section outlines three steps to identify entry points for achieving gender-equality results through AfT initiatives.

This section also supports a results focus by explaining in a practical way how to link gender-equality objectives to AfT programming initiatives. This guide identifies three concrete steps to take as part of project or program design:

1. Collect and use sex-disaggregated baseline data.
2. Undertake a gender-based analysis.
3. AAsk questions as a means to identify or plan for gender-equality results in AfT initiatives.

A grid at the end of this section outlines strategies that can increase the integration of gender into project design and implementation of AfT initiatives. It offers examples of gender-sensitive indicators for specific AfT programming to help measure whether a project is achieving gender-equality results.

STEP ONE: Collect and analyze sex-disaggregated data to identify differences between women and men for the interven­tion under consideration

The collection, use and analysis of relevant sex-disaggregated data as part of the project-identification phase establishes baseline information against which outputs and outcomes can be compared as a project unrolls. In some cases, sex-disaggregated data―for example, on employment and entrepreneurship―may not always be available. It may be necessary to seek information in the form of case studies, good practices or administrative data, or through consultation with―and the participation of―the community and women's organizations.

These are some key sources of sex-disaggregated data:

• GenderStats (World Bank): a continuously updated electronic database of gender statistics and indicators, including "summary gender profiles" for regions and countries; and "thematic data" for education, health and nutrition, empowerment, political participation, employment, and socioeconomic status.
  
  
• Statistics and Indicators on Women and Men (UN Statistics Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs): statistics and indicators on population households and families; health; education and training; work; violence against women; and poverty, decision making, and human rights.
  
  
• LABORSTA (ILO): source for statistics on total and economically active population, employment, unemployment, hours of work, wages, labour cost, etc.
  
  
• Informal economy: Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO)
  
  
• Women in agriculture: FAO, IFAD, ILO (2010). Gender dimensions of agricultural and rural employment: Differentiated pathways out of poverty; status, trends, and gaps. This publication includes facts and figures on gendered patterns of work in agriculture.
  
  
• Women's entrepreneurship: data on entrepreneurship usually comes from labour-force surveys, enterprise surveys, and business registers. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2010 Global Report) includes gender data. Other sources include IFC's Gender Dimensions of Investment Climate Reform: A Guide for Policy Makers and Development Practitioners and IFC's "Voices of Women Entrepreneurs" series (Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania).

STEP TWO: Undertake a gender analysis

A gender analysis of a policy or project is the second step in identifying gender issues and potential entry points to promote gender equality through an AfT initiative. Collecting and utilizing qualitative and quantitative data is key to gender analysis. A gender analysis reveals the relevance of the data to the policy or project, how the project might affect gender roles and relations, or-conversely-how gender roles and relations could affect the success of the project.

Gender analysis provides information to support trade mainstreaming and effectiveness, and can help guide project choices. For example, where gender analysis suggests that women or men may be disproportionately affected as a result of an AfT intervention, the information could inform a proposal for mitigating activities through AfT trade adjustment. An example is One World Action, Gender Justice in Trade Policy: The Gender Effects of Economic Partnership Agreements.

Gender analysis:

• is a methodology to assess how existing or proposed policies, programs, activities, and projects affect women and men
• is a tool that leads to better results in policy and program planning, design, and evaluation
• compares how and why women and men are affected by policies, programs, and processes
• respects diversity in that it highlights the circumstances, perspectives, and concerns of all women and men, be they from minority or disadvantaged groups or from other groups

Some questions to ask when undertaking a gender analysis: Footnote 39

• In which sectors do women and men work? In many developing countries, most employment, in particular, women's employment, is informal. It is often linked to formal activity in export sectors (such as home-based workshops and service businesses, and informal or unpaid family workers in agricultural sectors). (Example: Gender-Informed Baseline for Diagnostic, Solution Design, Implementation, and Monitoring and Evaluation, IFC, Gender Dimensions of Investment Climate Reform: A Guide for Policy Makers and Development Practitioners.)
  
  
• How do we capture gender dimensions of an intervention? A trade promotion or trade policy project could include a component to assess the employment chain in an export sector, including links to the informal economy. This could identify interventions that would include more women and men than do projects that target only formal enterprises and formal employment. Baseline sexdisaggregated employment data for export sectors will make it possible to measure longer-term employment effects of AfT interventions. (Examples: Analysis of Gender Profile in Export Oriented Industries in India. Gender and Women's Rights Analysis of Economic Partnership Agreements: The Implementation of Trade Liberalization, Tanzania, Who is Benefiting From Trade Liberalization in Bhutan? Footnote 40) Employment data may be difficult to obtain in some countries: an AfT project, including a diagnostic trade integration study, could include a component to develop employment data. Possible partners could include ILO Decent Work Country Programmes, as well as Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing (WEIGO), which is expanding statistics on informality. Footnote 41
  
  
• What are the working conditions, earnings, and labour market mobility for women and men? Employment is a key pathway out of poverty, but not all forms of employment reduce poverty. The ILO's Decent Work Agenda and Decent Work Country Programmes provide guidelines and tools that could add value to Aid for Trade programming. (Examples: Decent Work Indicators for Lesotho, ILO Decent Work Country Programme, 2006-2009 IFC Gender Dimensions of Investment Climate Reform (see also footnote 5, module 7).)
  
  
• How is unpaid work distributed in the household? Do women have time to take advantage of new trade opportunities and engage in training or policy consultations? Are activities scheduled so that women with heavy household or care-giving responsibilities can participate? (Example: Gender Inequalities in the Value Chain of Export Crop Production in Uganda: A Case Study of Cocoa Farmers in Bundibugyo District.)

STEP THREE: Identify results: Linking gender equality and Aid For Trade

As outlined above, once a baseline has been determined and a solid gender analysis conducted, the next step involves identifying gender equality results. Three objectives that should be considered in AfT programming initiatives include reducing inequalities between women and men in access to and control over development resources and benefits, promoting more equal participation of women and men as decision makers, and reinforcing equality in access to rights. Footnote 42

OBJECTIVE ONE: Reducing inequalities between women and men in access to and control over development resources and benefits

Some questions to ask:

• 
• Which businesses have access to government export promotion initiatives and/or to adjustment programs?
  • Do microbusinesses and small businesses know about and have access to government programs? That is, do size or other criteria exclude very small businesses?
  • Do adjustment programs include informal enterprises? Projects that target small businesses could monitor who uses them and compare the results against statistics on women- and men-owned businesses (disaggregated as well by size, sector, and employment characteristics) to look for gaps in service provision.
  • Initiatives that engage associations or cooperatives of women informal cross-border traders to deliver information and services to informal traders can both extend the reach of these programs and strengthen the value added of these associations for their members.
  
  
• What are the effects of trade measures on goods and services consumed by men and women?
  • Gender-related expectations about women's roles as caretakers, for example, mean that women will be more severely affected by government cutbacks in health and social services spending if tariff cuts affect public provision of these services. Women may also have less time to take advantage of training for new employment or entrepreneurship opportunities related to trade. (Example: Impact of Trade in Services on Gender Employment in India.)
  
  
• What are the specific gender-related constraints to access to and control of productive resources?
  • Do legal, regulatory, customary, or other barriers affect women and men's equal access to economic infrastructure, such as access by women agricultural producers to storage facilities, and access by women informal cross-border traders to information about customs procedures, tariff schedules, etc.? (Example: Gender and Economic Growth in Tanzania, The World Bank, 2007.)

OBJECTIVE TWO: Promote more equal participation of women and men as decision makers

An important step in thinking about women's participation with men as decision-makers involves consulting with gender equality experts, including those in bilateral (donor), international, regional, and national organizations involved in trade or AfT programming. Multilateral organizations with expertise in gender equality and trade issues include the ITC, UNDP, UNIFEM, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the International Labour Organization, and UNCTAD.

Sectoral interventions, such as in agriculture, could engage with gender analysts at the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the UN's World Food and Agriculture Organization. Regional development banks, such as the Inter-American Development Bank, have developed resources on gender and trade.

Research capacity on gender and trade is growing in many regions, such as at the African Trade Policy Centre (Case Story on Gender Dimension of Aid for Trade: African Trade Policy Centre as Aid for Trade.)

Networking and coordinating with organizations that promote gender equality and women's empowerment is another dimension of "participation." The Zimbabwe Cross Border Traders Association provides a range of services for its 10,000 members, 70 percent of whom are female. It has also represented informal cross-border traders' interests in trade policy discussions and negotiations. Footnote 43 Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia have also established associations for informal cross-border traders. An example is Informal Cross-Border Trade in SADC.

Integrating gender in AfT goes beyond including more women in projects and activities; MDG 3 (promote gender equality and empower women) reminds practitioners that AfT activities can empower women.

Studies have shown that in almost all countries, labour markets are highly segmented, with women concentrated in lower-paid and more vulnerable jobs, occupying positions with less decision-making authority. AfT initiatives can be designed to promote trade in ways that empower both women and men (CIDA Aid for Trade Case Study: Guatemala Cardamom Cooperative. Mayoux and Mackie, ILO, Making the Strongest Links: A Practical Guide To Mainstreaming Gender Analysis in Value Chains.)

AfT indicators must go beyond counting the numbers of women and men receiving training or using infrastructure. They need to indicate qualitative changes, such as those in decision-making, leadership, and quality of employment.

OBJECTIVE THREE: Reinforce equality in access to rights

Another important objective to consider is the promotion of girls' and women's human rights. Attention to gender analysis, collection and use of sex-disaggregated data, and participation of both women and men are ways to promote women's equal access to resources. Addressing discriminatory laws, regulations, and other practices that present barriers to women's equal access to trade-related infrastructure, investments in trade facilitation, trade promotion services, etc., can promote women's economic and other rights. Addressing possible tensions between trade rules and provisions in other multilateral regimes on rights to livelihoods, food, health, water, etc. can promote coherence between governments' trade commitments and their human rights obligations.

Examples relevant to AfT initiatives-training for trade negotiators, for example-could include discussion of the interface between trade rules and women's rights established by CEDAW (Example: Statement by Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to the WTO Public Policy Forum, "Doing it Differently: Reshaping the Global Economy".)

Training in trade-dispute resolution could consider how governments' obligations under other multilateral, regional, and national governance regimes affect trade commitments.

Trade diagnostics and trade policy impact assessments could be informed by governments' CEDAW obligations and other human rights considerations. Projects to build trade capacity could include training for recipients on ways to promote women workers to better jobs; improve working conditions, occupational health and safety, and worker representation; and, where relevant, prevent HIV/AIDs.

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Examples

Trade Policy and Regulations

The following examples illustrate possible gender-equality issues and constraints related to AfT and trade policy and regulations, economic infrastructure, and building productive capacity, including trade development.

The examples do not include trade adjustment. This category, however, could represent a mechanism for AfT initiatives to mitigate anticipated negative impacts of trade liberalization identified through a gender-impact assessment of a trade policy (for example, loss of employment in vulnerable sectors such as textiles and garments).

The grid below outlines strategies that could be integrated into the project design and implementation of AfT initiatives. It offers examples of gender-sensitive indicators for AfT programming and projects that can help identify whether a project is achieving gender-equality results.

Gender-Equality Issues	Project Design and Implementation	Gender-Sensitive Indicators
Trade reforms affect individuals through changes in employment and wages, government revenues, and prices of goods and services. These processes have gender-related dimensions that affect poverty reduction and sustainable growth.	Introductory training modules include material on poverty reduction and gender impacts of trade liberalization; modules use country-relevant examples and research; modules are presented by individuals with knowledge of both gender equality and trade issues.	Gender and trade modules are developed and used in mainstream training; modules use examples drawn from the trainees' country/region; gender experts are involved in producing training modules and as trainers/resource persons; trainee evaluations are disaggregated by sex.
Trade policies and regulations mostly target the formal sector, but in many developing countries, businesses and trade- particularly women's-is largely informal or semi-formal.	Training modules discuss linkages between formal and informal sectors in export value chains and include issues of concern to informal cross-border traders.	Training materials include the informal sector; participants are more aware of linkages between formal and informal sectors; issues of concern to informal cross-border traders are raised in national and regional trade policy forums and negotiations.
Women and women's organiza- tions (business associations, networks, research institutions, civil society organizations) tend to be marginalized from main- stream business associations that are consulted on trade policy.	Training modules recognize that women's associations and networks are important stakeholders in trade policy consultations. The modules include examples relevant to trainees' country/region.	Training modules suggest country/ region-specific women's associations/ research networks to be consulted on trade policy; trainees are able to identify gender experts and other resource people/organizations in their countries; gender equality and trade experts and/or organizations are included in domestic/regional trade policy consultations.
Trade officials do not have information on gender dimensions of key trade policy areas (examples: agriculture, bilateral investment treaties, intellectual property rights, services).	Training modules for key trade policy areas draw from existing case studies or develop examples that demonstrate gender differ- ences in trade policy choices and outcomes; they encourage trainees to identify country-specific policy options that include poverty reduction and gender-equality objectives, including gender- equality rights.	Training modules include gender analysis of trade policies; trainees are able to suggest trade-negotiating strategies that align with national poverty-reduction and gender- equality objectives.
There is a lack of sex- disaggregated data to inform trade policy (employment, entrepreneurship, linkages between formal and informal economy in export sectors).	Training modules include relevant sex-disaggregated data and case studies.	Sex-disaggregated data is used; case studies include gender-equality concerns.
Questions to ask: What is women's contribution to the sector (compared  with men's)? What is the gender-based division oflabour? What are the gender-specific effects of liberalization  in the sector (cost-benefit of policy options)? What opportunities exist to promote both women's and men's enterprises and employment  through  trade reforms; What opportunities exist to protect sensitive areas?	Training modules include relevant sex-disaggregated data and case studies; they involve gender equality and trade experts as speakers/trainers.	Sex-disaggregated data and gender- sensitive case studies are used; gender- equality experts are involved as speakers/trainers; trainees are able to identify policy options that include gender-equality and poverty concerns; trainees identify knowledge gaps and options to address those gaps; trainees evaluate training modules.
Gender dimensions of specific trade policy issues are not mainstreamed in training, and policy alternatives are not developed (TRIPs, agriculture, investment agreements, and services such as labour mobility, health, water, education, and tourism).	Training modules include existing case studies on gender dimensions of specific trade policy issues or developing new case studies that are relevant to trainees' country/ region; training sessions include experts who can address gender equality and poverty dimensions of specific policy areas.	Trainees are familiar with gender dimensions of trade alternatives; trainees conduct evaluations; requests are made for follow-up material or activities by trainees that could be delivered in AfT initiatives.

Economic Infrastructure Footnote 44

Assistance to establish trade-related telecoms, transport, ports, airports, power, water, and industrial zones

Gender-Equality Issues	Project Design and Implementation	Gender-Sensitive Indicators
Are there differences for women and men in time and distance travelled for work or household responsibilities? Do women and men use water, telecoms, and power in different ways? What are the characteristics of employment in industrial zones (number employed, skill level of jobs, wages, working conditions)?	Analyze mens and women's roles and distances travelled to services, jobs, and markets. Integrate findings from the gender analysis in project design and implementation. Include training so women and men have equal access to higher- skill, higher paying, better- quality jobs in industrial zones.	Sex-disaggregated data on hours spent collecting water, accessing telecom services, getting goods to markets; change in time use during and after completion of the project. Sex-disaggregated data on number and quality of jobs for women and men in industrial zones showing reduced gender gaps in wages, hiring and promotions.
What are the main economic, time, and cultural constraints to women's access to transport, water, energy, and telecoms?	Gender-based analysis of economic, time, and cultural constraints on women's travel. Include upgrading of non- motorized transport tracks, often used by women, in transport projects. Include village-level initiatives in water and energy projects rather than only large-scale initiatives. Consider policy space in trade and investment rules that will allow for measures to increase access for the poor by charging lower rates for initial energy and water use.	Number of women who report increased mobility after project launched. Number of users of water and energy, disaggregated by sex.
Are women and men (and organizations that work with informal and small producers) involved in selecting and designing water, energy, and telecom projects?	Use participatory methods to interview men and women together and separately during the design phase of the project. Develop community councils to be involved in the project-could have separate  women's and mens councils or a set percentage of seats on the council for men and women.	Number and percentage of local women and men involved in decision making during project design, disaggregated by income and age. Number oflocal men and women involved in project-related councils, disaggregated by income and age.
Do men and women differ in their willingness to pay for water, energy, and telecoms? How does this affect their availability?	Implement policies to defray the usage costs for low-income residents through cost reallocation, tax incentives, etc.	Number of gender-sensitive  policy measures implemented or passed that reduce costs for low-income residents.
Are men and women employed in construction and implementation of infrastructure projects?	Train and hire male and female workers for the project. Create women-only sections or work crews if male-female inter- action is culturally inappropriate.	Number of workers trained and hired, disaggregated by sex and job category.

Building Productive Capacity, Including Trade Development

Support for trade-related aspects of the agriculture and agribusiness sectors

Gender-Equality Issues	Project Design and Implementation	Gender-Sensitive Indicators
Will the project reach poor women as well as poor men?	Target sectors and crops with a high concentration oflow- income women as farmers, paid, and unpaid labourers.	Percentage of farmers and labourers in the selected sector who are women.
Is the overall strategy aligned with low-income women's income-generating and asset- development goals?	Analyze target population's livelihood strategies and identify effective livelihood strategies of women. Target markets and related productivity enhancements toward low-income women's goals (examples: risk diversification, higher returns per hour oflabour rather than labour and resource intensification).	Targets established according to identified strategies. Indicators considered such as improved labour productivity (not just increased output).
Have the roles and responsibilities  of women and men in the agricultural sector been identified?	Conduct a value-chain analysis in agricultural export projects to determine where women and men are located throughout the production, processing, and sale of the commodity. Include informal and unpaid family workers in the value chain. Include activities to increase women's participation  at higher levels of the value chain.	Map of male and female roles in the agricultural sector. Number of project activities directed at moving women up the value chain (training, increased access to credit, etc.); qualitative data to assess women and men's perceptions of these activities. Number of women who move into a higher level of the value chain.
	Consider incentives for contracting with women-owned small businesses and training women for non-traditional work within the sector. Consider costs and benefits of Agricultural Export Zones, which may provide incentives to private sector companies that enter into contract-farming arrangements with producers.	Reductions in gender gaps in wages, hiring, and promotions.
Are women active in producing subsistence and/or cash crops?	Develop cash crops for cultivation that would be considered appropriate for women to cultivate and that would enable them to balance household and production responsibilities.	Number and percentage of participants cultivating cash crops, disaggregated by sex. Change in income for producers of new crops, disaggregated by sex. Change in household nutritional status. Change in women's or household's income and consumption.
Do extension strategies take into account women's time and mobility constraints?	Include activities women can carry out near their homes. Train extension agents on gender concerns in agriculture. Hire women to be extension agents.	Number of economic activities developed that are home-based. Number of women who become engaged in home-based economic activities. Change in women's or household's income. Number and percentage of new extension agents hired, disaggregated by sex.
Will the project increase the time women or men spend in agriculture-related activities? How will participation in the food and cash crop production affect women's and men's other responsibilities (food and cash crop production, family health and nutrition, etc.)?	Carry out time-use surveys of women and men prior to and after agricultural project initiatives. Carry out focus group or other participatory methods to engage women on how participation will affect their other responsibilities.	Analysis of time use by rural producers, disaggregated by sex.

Resources

Atthill, Catherine, Sarojini Ganju Thakur, Marilyn Carr, and Mariama Williams (2007). Gender and Trade Action Guide: A Training Resource. London: Commonwealth Secretariat.

Fontana, Marzia (2009). "The Gender Effects of Trade Liberalization in Developing Countries: A Review of the Literature;' in Bussolo, M. and R. De Hoyos, (eds.), Gender Aspects of the Trade and Poverty Nexus: A Micro-Macro Approach. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

---. Gender Justice in Trade Policy: 7he Gender Effects ofEconomic Partnership Agreements, synthesis report. London: One World Action and Commonwealth Secretariat.

Garcia, Zoraida (2006). Agriculture, Trade Negotiations and Gender. Rome: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Goetz, Anne-Marie (2009). Progress of the World's Women 2008-2009: Who Answers to Women? Gender and Accountability. New York: UNIFEM.

ODI (2010). Integrating Poverty and Social Analysis Into Aid for Trade Programmes:An Overview; Tips and Tools for Aid for Trade, Inclusive Growth and Poverty Reduction (PDF, 820 KB, 8 pages).

OECD DAC Network on Gender Equality (2011). Good Practice Note: Women's Economic Empower­ ment, February 14.

Simavi, Sevi, Clare Manuel, and Mark C. Blackden (2009). Gender Dimensions of Investment Climate Reform: A Guide for Policy Makers and Development Practitioners. IFC/World Bank.

Status of Women Canada (2007). An Integrated Approach to Gender-based Analysis.

Tran-Nguyen, Anh-Nga, and Americo Beviglia Zampetti, eds. (2004). Trade and Gender: Opportunities and Challenges for Developing Countries. UNCTAD.

Williams, Mariama, and Marilyn Carr (2009). Trading Stories: Experiences with Gender and Trade. Commonwealth Secretariat.

UN Women (2010). Strengthening Accountability, Sustaining Trade: Who Responds to Women Informal Cross Border Traders?

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Glossary

Gender analysis refers to the variety of methods used to understand the relationships between men and women, their access to resources, their activities, and the constraints they face relative to each other. Gender analysis provides information that recognizes that gender, along with its relationship with race, ethnicity, culture, class, age, disability, and/or other status, is important in understanding the various patterns of involvement, behavior, and activities that women and men have in economic, social, and legal structures. Footnote 45

Gender equity means being fair to women and men. To ensure fairness, measures are often needed to compensate for historical and social disadvantages that prevent women and men from otherwise operating as equals. Equity leads to equality. Footnote 46

Gender equality means that women and men enjoy the same status and have equal opportunity to realize their full human rights and potential to contribute to national, political, economic, social, and cultural development, as well as to benefit from the results. Footnote 47

Gender equality results refer to results that reduce inequality between women and men. Footnote 48

Gender mainstreaming of a gender perspective is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies, or programs, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women's as well as men's concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of policies and programs in all political, economic, and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and so that inequality is not perpetuated. The goal is to achieve gender equality. Footnote 49

Gender-sensitive indicators point out gender-related changes in society over time. They point to changes in the status and roles of women and men over time, and thus help measure whether gender equity is being achieved. Footnote 50

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Notes

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