Issues and questions to be addressed - Session IV

The way ahead

Additional research and policy advocacy is needed on the interlinkages between trade policy and gender.

Areas for further analysis include:

• The links between food security, trade and gender;
  
  
• Migration policies and temporary movement of services suppliers, and the boundaries between these two policies;
  
  
• The correlation between the gender gap, economic development and national competitiveness;
  
  
• The further development of methodologies for assessing the gender impacts of trade policy;
  
  
• The impact of trade preferences and rules of origin on specific sectors where women´s employment is particularly high;
  
  
• The impact of intellectual property rights rules on (a) access to medicines and reproductive technologies; and (b) indigenous knowledge, crafts and cultural modes; and
  
  
• The possible use of government procurement for national development priorities such as support for women-owned businesses.

The research agenda could be conducted usefully through collaborative efforts. On such crucial issues, policy consensus should be pursued. The Inter-Agency Task Force on Gender and Trade provides a suitable mechanism for this purpose.

A link could be established between Millennium Development Goal 3 - Promote gender equality and empower women - and mainstreaming gender in trade policy, under the assumption that trade policy can be used as an effective tool to empower women and diminish the level of inequality between men and women. This is another issue that the Inter-Agency Task Force on Gender and Trade may wish to consider for its work programme.