An eight-week online course for 104 participants from 51 countries will begin on 19 January, with discussions focusing on the conceptual, theoretical and empirical links between trade and gender.
The online course on trade and gender was developed with the aim of enhancing teaching and research capacities on the topic at academic institutions in developing countries, providing tools to government stakeholders to mainstream gender concerns into trade policy and training civil society representatives who work in the field.
Trade and trade liberalization policies tend to impact men and women differently. They yield important redistributive effects within the economy, which can either magnify or reduce existing disparities among and within groups.
It is therefore imperative for policymakers and researchers to anticipate how trade policies will redistribute income and employment within the economy and take corrective actions to ensure equitable development. Academic institutions can play an important role in generating the analysis critical to inform such policymaking.
The online course on trade and gender was developed by UNCTAD's Virtual Institute and Trade, Gender and Development Section. Participants will include: academia, government, civil society and the private sector.
The objective of the course is to provide participants with the knowledge needed to analyse the two-way relationship between trade and gender, and ultimately to produce gender-aware policy recommendations.
To this end, the course combines theory on the interaction between trade and gender with empirical evidence.
At the end of the course, the participants will be able to:
Look at the economy from a gender perspective.
Identify the channels through which trade impacts women's economic empowerment and well - being and the channels through which gender inequality impacts trade performance and competitiveness.
Use the knowledge acquired to produce policy - oriented research (that could be used by national policymakers) and academic papers investigating the interplay between trade and gender.
Contribute to mainstreaming gender in trade and other policies.
Multimedia presentations and accompanying reading materials for the course will be available to course participants on DVD.
