A high-level event on women and trade will be held on the margins of the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference in Yaoundé, Cameroon, on 25 March to bring together women entrepreneurs, development partners and WTO members. Registration for the event - which will feature the work of the WTO Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender, the International Trade Centre (ITC) SheTrades Initiative and the Women Exporters in the Digital Economy (WEIDE) Fund - is open until 22 February.
WTO members of the Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender (IWG) will take stock of the Group's efforts on gender-responsive trade policy and launch a new compendium compiling its technical work since 2020. The session will also kick off a second joint initiative with the WTO Informal Working Group on Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises for a new compendium entitled "Empowering Women to Trade through Digitalisation: Policy Insights." Moreover, the IWG co-chairs will release a joint statement that reaffirms the direction of the group's work on promoting inclusive trade and further collaboration on gender issues with other WTO bodies, including informal ones.
The WEIDE Fund will showcase perspectives of its women beneficiaries in an interactive session titled "100 WEIDE Women Said." The session will present insights from a survey of WEIDE beneficiaries and highlight key opportunities and barriers affecting women's participation in digital trade. It will also identify priority areas where partnerships and targeted support can help accelerate progress. The session will feature a friendly competition of country teams in a quiz show about women's participation in digital trade. The winning team will receive a selection of products from WEIDE-supported businesses. The Fund, launched by the WTO Secretariat and ITC in 2024, is made possible through the support of the United Arab Emirates, the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022T Legacy Fund, and the Kingdom of Bahrain.
Marking the culmination of ITC SheTrades' 10-year anniversary in 2025 and looking ahead to its next decade, ITC will spotlight its flagship women and trade initiative at MC14 through two sessions. "Champions of ITC SheTrades" will feature remarks from donors and partners, reflecting on milestones achieved and the partnerships needed to expand women's participation in trade. This will be followed by the "ITC SheTrades Innovation Festival - Made by African Women, Ready for the World", where selected young African women innovators will pitch solutions that are grounded, tested and designed for real needs, with the potential to scale. The Innovation Festival winner will be announced during the networking reception.
The networking reception will also spotlight the work of the Agency for Robusta Coffee of Africa and Madagascar (ACRAM), including its roadmap to expand women's opportunities in the coffee value chain and a pilot on women's access to finance. It is made possible through the EU-funded African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Business-Friendly Programme, implemented by ITC.
The deadline for applications to participate in the high-level event is 22 February. The registration application form and more information on the high-level event can be accessed here.
