This document aims to help development professionals design trade capacity-building programs that respond to the clear-cut case for equalizing economic conditions for men and women. A growing body of evidence shows that improving opportunities for women to become wage-earners, entrepreneurs, traders, professionals, and leaders improves not only their individual livelihoods, but also the prosperity and well-being of societies. As the largest single-country provider of trade capacity-building assistance in the world, the United States has long supported efforts across the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia to access the global trading system and embrace trade as an engine of growth and development. At the same time, the United States is deeply committed to inclusive systems for economic growth that enable men and women alike to seize the opportunities inherent in an open, dynamic, and market-based economy.

This publication examines the Swedish development cooperation with the Middle East and North Africa which will contribute to strengthened democracy, increased respect for human rights and sustainable development that improve the prospects for peace, stability and freedom in the region. The target areas and initiatives the Government has chosen to focus on aim to counteract the fundamental causes of conflict and contribute to favourable developments in the region. The strategy will apply to the period 2016–2020.

Oxfam-Québec’s Program ACCESS Innovation is aimed at meeting these challenges and supporting the endeavours of the Canadian government and DFATD. The program will help strengthen food security through improvements in agricultural productivity and the resilience of production systems to climate change, while also supporting improvements in the structure and profitability of value chains in rural-urban trade. Interventions will target promising sectors offering high nutritional value and will support transformation and marketing processes that contribute directly to rural development by generating income and jobs, particularly for women and youth. The initiative will also foster sustainable economic growth by boosting women’s and young people’s employability, assisting school-to-work transition, and supporting the development of small and medium-sized businesses.

The ultimate objective of Gender Budgeting Guidelines is to enhance SADC Member States efforts in realising gender responsive budgeting. The Guidelines endorse the need for regional guidance to fortify on going gender responsive budgeting initiatives in many SADC Member States. These initiatives are rooted in the realisation that the quest to improve national economies is intimately linked to the concrete attainment of gender equality through the allocation of adequate budgetary resources. These Guidelines are meant to systematically direct Member States’ efforts to develop national frameworks suitable to their specific country contexts. Although most Gender Budgeting initiatives are still in early stages, they have scored important successes, ranging from actual expenditure re-allocations to opening up of traditionally secretive budget processes, thus allowing greater transparency and accountability.

The European Commission services are currently reflecting on the follow-up to the Strategy for equality between women and men 2010-2015 (COM (2010) 491 final). The current strategy barely integrates gender equality into trade policy, thus providing an opportunity for the INTA committee to consider whether and how gender issues should be dealt with in the context of the EU's trade policies. This paper begins with a short overview of the current understanding of the gender and trade policies nexus, describes how gender aspects are treated by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), then assesses how the Commission handles gender in regard to trade policy and concludes with some possible policy options.