Focus on Gender and Trade

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We are happy to present the third newsletter of the EUROMED Programme "Role of Women in Economic Life" in its new html format. We hope that you will find this new edition easier to navigate with useful information and resources for civil society actors, development practioners, students and others interested in gender equality in the region, and women’s economic empowerment in particular. Read more >>

Gender, Trade and Access to Markets in the MENA region – Lina Abou Habib, CRTDA, Lebanon

One of the many debates surrounding globalization and trade liberalization concerns these forces' impact on gender. Groups such as WIDE and IGTN argue that trade, like other economic and political issues, is not gender neutral and that current liberalization policies negatively impact women in gender-specific ways. The preponderance of unskilled female workers in low-wage manufacturing jobs—the “feminization” of export industries—is but one example of how globalization policies simultaneously offer low-income women new opportunities while putting them at risk of exploitation. This is particularly critical in the case of the MENA region where women workers tend to concentrate in low-skilled poorly protected jobs essentially in the informal sector. Read more >>

Programme Projects: Enabling women’s access to markets

As discussed extensively in the previous article on gender and trade in the MEDA region, women face a number of critical gender based obstacles hindering their access to markets. These range from isolation from mainstream, largely male and patriarchal trade sector and from policy making circles, poor knowledge and familiarity with market forces and the ways in which these operate, multiple roles and responsibilities associated with the household and extended family structures, and limited physical mobility among others. Read more >>

Euro-Med Women’s Rights Resources on Gender and Trade

Online Reports

• Global Monitoring Report 2007: confronting the challenges of gender equality and fragile states

• Gender and Trade: Overview Report

• Gender Equality and Trade-Related Capacity Building: A Resource
Tool for Practitioners

• Trade and Gender: Opportunities and Challenges for Developing Countries

• WIDE Briefing Paper: 'Gender Indicators for monitoring Trade Agreements'

Useful Websites

• Network Women in Development Europe (WIDE)
WIDE is a European network of development NGOs, gender specialists and human rights activists.

• International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN)
The IGTN website provides an extensive collection of documents on all aspects of gender and trade.

 • Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID)
AWID is an international membership organization committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development and women's human rights.

 • Eldis
Eldis is a database and email service of information sources on international development.

 • Siyanda
Siyanda is an on-line database of gender and development materials from around the world.

Programme Events: 2nd Partners’ Meeting: Sharing good practice – Challenges and Opportunities

The second partners’ meeting came at a stage where the programme has been in action for almost a year and half and can be considered the first technical meeting based on the outcomes of the first meeting that took place in Cairo in June 2006, where a common understanding of the aim and objectives of the programme was established. All seven project consortia were represented at the meeting which took place from 5-8 March 2007 in Casablanca, Morocco, often with more that one representative per organisation. Read more >>

Announcements

Seminar on National Women’s Machineries - 13-14 June 2007, Cairo Read more >>

WIDE's Annual Conference 2007 ‘New aid, old trade: What do women have to say?’ - 14-17 June 2007   Read more >>

International Conference on “Mediterranean Women and the Challenges of Human Development” – University of Fes, Morocco 28-30 June 2007  Read more >>

Round-Table on Women & Public Life: Empowerment & Participation in Social Studies & Research – July 2007 Read more >>

Seminar: Muslim Women in the Media: Between myth and reality Read more >>

Contacts and subscription

To subscribe to our newsletter or to receive more information on the programme please contact:

Alaa GHONEIM
Administrative Officer
EC Project Role of Women in Economic Life
192 El Nil Street,
Agouza, Cairo
Egypt
T: +20 (0) 3001 609
F: +20 (0) 344 3076
Alaa.ghoneim@britishcouncil.org.eg

If you would like to contribute to our next issue please contact:

Susana Pavlou – Editor
Programme Coordinator
Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS)
46 Makedonitissas Ave.,
1700 Nicosia, Cyprus
T: + 357 22 351 276
F: + 357 22 353 682
susana@medinstgenderstudies.org

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