Quick win No. 5

Promote inclusivity when drafting trade policy proposals by including diverse voices and expertise from the initial phases of research to the development and implementation of trade policy.

Inclusivity in trade policy-making in essence aims to ensure that all individuals and groups can have input into the decision-making process. Where a decision may impact women directly, it is clear that women should be stakeholders in the process. Increasingly, economic research highlights that diversity in participation throughout the policy-making process improves economic outcomes. In trade, gender inclusivity may take different forms for the WTO. They include increasing the representation of women in trade negotiations; increasing the focus on trade-related gender issues; including specific gender chapters in trade policy documents and agreements and ensuring their implementation; establishing minimum standards for engaging women in core policy work across the WTO membership; and increasing the participation of women researchers and experts in the trade policy process.

Inclusivity is a cross cutting issue on the WTO agenda. Diverse voices should be included as part of the policy development process: women as business owners and small business owners; women as employees in the labor market; women as consumers and consumers of sustainable goods; women as part of global value chains for development; and women as researchers, academics and scientists. These roles mean that the inclusion of women should be addressed through parallel and complementary channels that target these different functions. The following are specific actions that the WTO and its members could take.

Engagement of ideas

The WTO Trade and Gender Working Group should engage with women academics and practitioners by inviting them to specific trade forums, soliciting their trade expertise and encouraging women to submit written or oral testimonies on a range of topics from negotiating modalities to implementation and evaluation. Giving a voice to women trade experts requires diverse regional and geographic representation, while ensuring that women’s expertise is not siloed nor limited to input on gender issues. Rather it should allow women to disseminate their knowledge and expertise into different stages of the decision-making process.

Expertise

The WTO should provide a forum for women who wish to network and participate in the WTO policy community. This could be done by drawing upon a database of women trade experts to increase opportunities and visibility for women who research and practice trade to present their work to WTO Ambassadors, working groups, and others. TradeExperettes is building one such database that includes many thematic areas of interest to the WTO, including trade and gender.

Inclusion

There should be a conscious effort at “gender mainstreaming” in trade policy training so that trade and gender is a key component of training for diplomats and government officials seconded to Geneva. “Trade and gender” should also be included in academic courses available to those working in international institutions. Onboarding for diplomats and career officials should include a trade and gender module so that the drafting of initial research strategies as well as policy development and implementation includes impact assessments of gender and trade effects.

Research and career promotion

The WTO should encourage more women to participate in information events targeted at choosing trade policy as a career. While there are often open houses at universities for careers in consulting, finance, and banking, there is less focus on “what to do in trade.” There need to be more concrete efforts to promote trade as a profession for women and marginalized groups. The WTO might consider year-long fellowships for young women professionals from developing countries to increase the recruitment pool. The WTO should also ensure that their reports cite women academics to level the playing field in promoting academic and trade policy research. Citations are a central form of power in academia, so it is crucial to include published work of women trade experts to enhance their visibility in trade circles.

Empowerment and advisory boards

The WTO should also encourage better representation of women on key trade and industrial advisory boards. The WTO should commission a report on the gender representation of trade advisory boards across their membership. If women do not participate in such key decision fora, then gender and trade will be marginalized in discussions.

Having more diverse trade voices will not only improve trade policy outcomes, but will also make trade inclusivity more sustainable in other ways. It will ensure that through including relevant expertise from academia and think-tanks, enhancing women’s representation on trade advisory boards, establishing a pipeline of future women’s trade expertise, and placing education about trade and gender issues as a critical component of WTO training modules, gender inclusivity throughout the trade policy process will be promoted and sustained.