Promoting women’s economic empowerment in the East African community

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The East African Women Chamber of Commerce and other organizations including FOWODE, NAWOU, UWONET and UGANET met line ministries from Gender, Trade and Easter African to disseminate research findings on the economic governance and Trade Agreements. Conducted in Uganda, Egypt, Kenya, Rwanda and Zambia, the research revealed that Trade Agreements often affect women negatively both as consumers and producers.



During these meetings, the civil society organizations and the government ministries agreed on various strategies to mainstream gender in trade within Uganda.

Specifically, the Ministry of East African Community Affairs proposed to co-opt members of the civil society to the committee developing the regional monitoring and evaluation plan for the east African common markets so that they can review the indicators and ensure that they address the gender and trade issues.

It was planned to establish a gender and trade forum composed of civic society organizations, line ministries including Ministry of Trade and Industries, Ministry of East African Community Affairs, Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development and the Ministry of Agriculture, which would advocate for common gender and trade issues in the country. If established, this forum would be chaired by the Ministry of Trade.

Most Trade Secretariats in the 5 countries lacked clear communication mechanisms or help desk to provide information on international trade arrangements and none of the countries had translated the trade agreement. As a result the stakeholders lacked knowledge and had limited access to sufficient information on the Trade Agreements. To avert this situation in Uganda, Civil Society Organizations were urged to initiate and maintain joint efforts to upscale gender and trade advocacy and also support government to raise awareness of the common trader on trade agreements and the various trade policies and agreements and also build their capacities in financial literacy to the rural women on how to can assess loans and credits.

Given that none of the countries had gender disaggregated data on trade issues and analyzing the gender dimensions of trade arrangements in all countries was cited as a challenge, the Ministry of East African Community Affairs agreed to initiate discussions with the Uganda Bureau of Statistics to ensure that these parameters are captured in the upcoming 2012 national census.

The quality of Ugandan products was discussed and there was general consensus that most Ugandan products lack in quality compared to other east African products. It was proposed that the Uganda National Bureau of Standards reinforces its quality assurance mechanism through capacity development of the local producers so that Uganda products can compete favorably on the East African market.

According to Carol Idembe, the chief Executive Director of The East African Women Chamber of Commerce, the organization is going to follow up on the various recommendations made in these meeting and specifically work on establishing a working group so that issues of gender and trade can be prioritized for the benefit of the business men and women in Uganda.


By Carol Namagembe, FOWODE Program Officer -Communications

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 12, 2012 at 12:54 AM

    Happy New Year FOWODE!

    Thanks for the posting, we need to make follow up with the key ministries we engage with on issues of economic empowerment.

    Carol Idembe

    ReplyDelete

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