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Women’s Rights and the Multilateral Trading System: The Politics of Gender Mainstreaming at the WTO1 Geneva, Switzerland March 12, 2004 Co-sponsored by the Heinrich Boell Foundation (HBF) and the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN) 1 1 Report compiled by Alexandra Spieldoch, Coordinator, IGTN Secretariat INTRODUCTION2 On March 12, 2004, the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN) and the Heinrich Boell Foundation (HBF) co-sponsored an event entitled “Women’s Rights and the Multilateral Trading System: the Politics of Gender Mainstreaming at the WTO.” This half day event was held at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales (HEI), located next to the WTO. The event was an introduction to the larger debate in the global women’s community with some of the international institutions as to how to effectively address the differential impacts that trade is having on women and men, including appropriate mechanisms for incorporating gender into trade policy. IGTN’s overall position is that traditional gender mainstreaming models are too narrow. Instead of ensuring that a gender analysis is at the core of trade policies, gender mainstreaming has too often marginalized women’s concerns from the larger political agenda out of which economic policies are being decided. The public event was organized in order to provide some background for discussion, to raise some questions around gender and trade, to present some of the approaches from the IGTN, and to hear from representatives from country missions, the UN, WTO, and the international NGO community. BACKGROUND Women’s Human Rights vs. Free Trade Annekathrin Linck, Director of Programs on Gender and Globalization at HBF expressed her concern that WTO member countries are signing trade rules without considering existing commitments they have already made at the UN relative to women’s human rights. She argued that trade policies should be written, assessed and implemented based on whether they comply with existing human rights laws and treaties that have been signed at the United Nations. Linck identified 1995 as an important year for both the global women’s movement and the WTO. This year marks not only marked the UN World Conference on Women which took place in Beijing, China but also the inception of the WTO (formerly the GATT). In 2005, the global women’s movement will contribute to follow-up and review of both. At the official level, there will be no celebration of the 10th anniversary of the UN World Conference on Women and its final declaration, the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA). However, review and follow-up processes are planned at the national and regional levels. Because the WTO did not exist prior to 1995, the Beijing Platform for Action does not say anything about the impact of the WTO on women’s lives. Since Beijing, however, women have lobbied for the inclusion of language in the Beijing Platform for Action’s implementation that would push governments to address the negative impacts of the WTO on women, families and their communities. On the 10th anniversary of both events, it is clear that trade and investment policies at the WTO are having negative gendered 2 See Agenda for External Event at end of document 2 impacts. In this sense, the free trade agenda needs to be analyzed as it correlates to the lack of political will of governments to implement the BPFA. The BPFA addresses 12 critical areas of concern that include a variety of government commitments which can be found on the UN website. To highlight a few, governments agreed that women are key contributors to the economy and to combating poverty through both remunerated and unremunerated work at home, in the community and in the workplace. They agreed that equality between men and women is a human right and a condition for social justice. Governments also agreed to promote women’s rights and to mainstreaming gender into all of their programs and decision-making processes. After 1995, many in the global women’s movement have supported gender mainstreaming initiatives in order to assess and integrate gender concerns into legislation, policies and programs at all levels. It is now the predominant approach used by women in development groups and women’s programs and has been the major indicator to push governments to implement the BPFA. But, is it working? Many gender activists would acknowledge that gender mainstreaming has not achieved the expected results. However, groups disagree on whether this approach should continue to be the main advocacy strategy. Women and the WTO Women have been monitoring the WTO negotiations since the first Ministerial meeting in Singapore that took place in early 1996. The European based Informal Working Group on Gender and Trade advocated mainstreaming gender into the Trade Policy Review Mechanism at the WTO as one possible mechanism to hold WTO members accountable to women’s human rights. Although this advocacy position has not been pursued by WTO negotiators, it is still considered to be a viable approach to ensuring that gender concerns are included in the country trade impact reviews by some activists in the global women’s movement. Women were present and active in submitting background papers not only for the Ministerial in Singapore, but later for the Geneva Ministerial in 1998. One year later, women organized a full day on gender and trade and participated in the accredited space at the Seattle Ministerial before it collapsed in 1999. By the Doha Ministerial in 2001, IGTN was launched and had formulated clear critiques of the WTO as part of an advocacy document which was distributed widely. Rather than pushing for a gender mechanism within the WTO, however, IGTN has been calling for the reduction of the scope of the WTO by removing key areas such as agriculture, investment, and TRIPS from negotiations and by advocating that the WTO handle only trade-related issues. IGTN also developed an advocacy position for the most recent Ministerial in Cancun, Mexico in September, 2003 which outlines the Network’s long-term goals as well as its short-term objectives relative to the specific negotiations (i.e. to support special products and food security mechanisms within the agricultural negotiations). In Cancun, IGTN organized daily strategy sessions within the accredited space which attracted members of the global women’s community as well as other global networks. The IGTN supported the political positions of the G20 and celebrated the collapse of the trade talks due to the 3 fact that the needs of developing countries were not being addressed in the negotiating process. Therefore, it was better to have no agreement than another flawed one that could further exacerbate situations of poverty in many WTO member countries. In Cancun, some gender activists were advocating the introduction of a gender mechanism at the WTO. For the IGTN, incorporating gender into a flawed institution is problematic without first addressing the abuse of power and undemocratic measures that characterize the current operating model. The IGTN/HBF event in Geneva was meant to continue the discussion which took place in Cancun on this issue by discussing what is generally meant by gender mainstreaming, what mechanisms are being proposed, how the mainstreaming agenda reflects a larger political critique of the terms of trade among countries at the WTO and how it will be linked with the social movements that are advocating a more radical shift in the multilateral trading system. IGTN on Gender Mainstreaming at the WTO Maria Riley from the IGTN Secretariat, currently based in Washington, DC, gave a brief overview of the Network which was founded in 1999 and is now represented in seven regions: Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, North America, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Central Asia is the newest sub-region in the Network. The Network acknowledges that trade is not gender neutral but also that the playing field is not level among the member countries. For the IGTN, equity refers to equity among peoples and nation states. IGTN supports trade policies that respect women’s rights, sustainable development and anti-poverty schemes. As such, it is important to look at what is being negotiated in the actual negotiations processes and to develop specific positions that reflect the discussions taking place. Within this context, the IGTN understands that democracy doesn’t currently exist but is desperately needed in the WTO. The network’s long-range advocacy positions include reducing the scope of the WTO to trade-related issues and removing all cultural and social barriers to women’s participation in policymaking circles at all levels. IGTN’s short-term goals have been developed based on the trade agreements themselves: the AoA, the GATS, TRIPS and TRIMS (now more specifically focusing on the Singapore Issues). DIALOGUE AND DEBATE Expert Panel to Discuss Ways to Incorporate Gender into Trade Policymaking Daniela Perez Gavidia, the IGTN Geneva office representative, invited Mrs. Adair Heuchan, the Consular from the Permanent Mission of Canada, Ms. Anh-Nga Tran-Nguyen from the UNCTAD Secretariat and Chair of the UN Inter-agency Working Group on Gender and Trade, and Gigi Francisco, the Coordinator for Asia region of the IGTN, to share their thoughts on gender mainstreaming. 4 A.) Ms. Heuchan presented an overview of what she feels have been successes in the area of gender mainstreaming and noted some continuing challenges. She stated that, at the national level, there an increasing awareness and support on the part of Canada to understand gender and trade issues and to use mainstreaming as viable model. She shared Canada’s commitment to gender equality in its support of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and through the work of CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency. According to Ms. Heuchan, national support among member countries to address the theme of gender and trade is an important prerequisite for mainstreaming gender into the WTO processes. She cited the WTO Symposium on Gender and Trade which took place in Geneva in June 2003, at which WTO Director General Supachai; the former president of Geneva Women in Trade Network (GWIT), Cherise Valles; Mariama Williams from the IGTN; Adair Heuchan and others contributed to the debate on why trade is not gender neutral and how this could be addressed from a variety of levels. According to Ms. Heuchan, the symposium represented the first time the WTO had addressed this issue which can be viewed as a small but important achievement that indicates increasing dialogue between civil society and the WTO on this theme. She reminded the audience that the fact that different foundations and NGOs organized events on gender and trade at the Cancun Ministerial is a stepping stone for increasing the dialogue within the women’s movement. The fact that gender and trade is now being reviewed through an inter-agency task force chaired by UNCTAD also shows that the international institutions are beginning to think substantively about what the implications are around this theme. Finally, Ms. Heuchen shared the experience of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which began implementing its “Framework on the Integration of Women in APEC” in 1999. The Framework, developed by the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Gender Integration in APEC or AGGI, has three elements: gender analysis, collection and use of sex-disaggregated data, and the involvement of women in APEC. According to Ms. Huechan, the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Gender within the official APEC process emerged from strong country and academic and NGO support in the early formation of APEC. It included women’s lobbies, ministries, politicians, NGOs, indigenous groups, feminist economists (including an economist from IGTN -Philippines), and other academics. Ms. Heuchen described how gender mainstreaming can work as a result of different entities working together to ensure that it is instituted in the official process. According to her, even though the amount of money to support gender mainstreaming was relatively small, it was the fact that different entities were working together that contributed to its success. Parallel to the official process in APEC is the Women’s Leadership Network which has been meeting on an annual basis. This group is meant to bring together a diverse mix of women from civil society to network and offer critical analysis from a gender perspective. According to Ms. Heuchan, APEC provides an interesting model that the global women’s movement could explore more closely. 5 Heuchan’s advice to address specific challenges to women and men working on gender and trade issues was to keep jargon to a minimum and work to develop arguments that will be useful to politicians. For example, she stated that using an argument that spells out the economic benefits of incorporating gender into trade policy will make more sense to country negotiators than general arguments that come from the human rights framework of analysis. B.) Ms. Tran-Nguyen from UNCTAD followed Ms. Heuchen’s presentation with an overview of what this agency is trying to achieve in its discussions around gender and trade. She reaffirmed UNCTAD’s commitment to the UN Millennium Summit that took place in 2000 out of which the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were drafted. The MDGs identified targets to combat hunger, illiteracy, discrimination against women, the eradication of disease and poverty, and the commitment to further sustainable development to name a few. Ms. Tran-Nguyen reiterated UNCTAD’s support for the gender mainstreaming component of the Monterrey Consensus which was agreed upon at the Financing for Development Conference in 2002. She gave this reference as a UN specific example of how the importance of gender mainstreaming is not simply being promoted in the UN Women’s Conferences but in other fora as well. Since 2000, UNCTAD has been committed to looking at the question of gender and trade in its meetings. More recently, UNCTAD is chairing a task force on this theme that includes all UN agencies as well as the World Bank, the WTO, the OECD, and the Commonwealth to name a few. This task force is preparing a publication on gender and trade which will be published and disseminated at the UNCTAD XI meeting which is scheduled to take place in Sao Paolo, Brazil in June, 2004. At the internal level, members of the task force are working to clarify their understanding of gender and trade in order to be able to provide a timely, substantive background paper that can be disseminated widely. UNCTAD is organizing a round table discussion on gender and trade which will take place during the official events of the UNCTAD XI meeting in Brazil at which this paper will also be circulated and discussed. It was unclear from Ms. Tran-Nguyen’s presentation but certainly hoped by IGTN that the UNCTAD round table will lead to a commitment by the UN and other key bodies to assess trade from a gender perspective as part of an ongoing process. C.) Gigi Francisco, Coordinator of the IGTN Asia region, followed Ms. Tran-Nguyen. She welcomed the UNCTAD initiative and thanked Ms. Heuchen and Ms. Tran-Nguyen for their overview of some of the successes that were presented relative to gender mainstreaming. However, Ms. Francisco was more critical of the gender mainstreaming agenda. Her first observation was that while gender mechanisms may be helpful tools for monitoring the work of the international institutions and their agreements, they are neither enough nor should they be the starting point. She stated that, for example, the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM) could be an important tool within the WTO to encourage governments to undertake social impact assessments of trade. It could, however, have the adverse effect of marginalizing women within the WTO. She further explained that gender mechanisms (i.e. TPRM; external 6 committee; gender desk, etc) that do not lead to women being engaged in the heart of the political and economic processes will distract women from having any real impact. Ms. Francisco spoke about the fact that the Global Women’s Movement has already experienced gender mainstreaming via the World Bank and its ‘Engendering Development’ project. Although some support the outcome of this project, many are critical that it supports the neo-liberal economic model instead of critiquing its negative impact on women, their families, and their communities. She also expressed her concern that mainstreaming gender into WB/IMF Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers has meant adding new conditionalities to the existing list which have not served developing countries. At the regional level, Ms. Francisco challenged the success of gender mainstreaming through APEC both in the official process and through the Women’s Leaders Network. At the official level, her interpretation is that senior officials have not fully welcomed a gender integration mechanism. The Ad Hoc Working Group has completed some initial studies and agreed to collect sex-disaggregated data as a first step. However, to date there are no policies that put the lessons and recommendations from these studies into practice. Interestingly, one of the studies coming out of the Philippines is that women’s employment through foreign direct investment correlates with a decrease in wages and an increase in income disparity. According to Ms. Francisco, FDI is contributing to tenuous employment and a drop in labor and environmental standards in Southeast Asia. The Asian Financial Crisis contributed to the weakening of social protection policies over time. Since women are those primarily responsible for social reproduction, they experienced an overwhelming burden particularly at the time of the crisis. Although studies like the one Ms. Francisco referenced have been written, they have not led to changes in the overall approach of APEC. According to Ms. Francisco, the gender mainstreaming process has led to a combination of weak mechanisms which hinder the gender equity policy goals from advancing in any substantive fashion. As for the Women’s Leaders Network, Ms. Francisco stated that, although in its early days it represented a diverse network of women from civil society, today it is largely comprised of business women who meet annually to discuss potential business ventures. The women’s social movements are no longer present. Therefore, its original purpose has shifted from the monitoring, more substantive role that it might have played within APEC to advance women’s human rights, to a space for business networking. Of course, gender mainstreaming through APEC has not worked in the long-term because APEC itself is floundering as an engine for regional economic cooperation. Still, she indicated the process has been problematic over time. Ms. Francisco discussed social clauses as another popular gender mechanism that some women activists have offered to hold governments accountable to women’s rights. These gender clauses would be binding legal language that would be included in trade agreements. Environmental and labor groups have pushed this mechanism as a viable way to incorporate their specific concerns. More recently, some women’s groups are supporting gender clauses as a viable mechanism. IGTN finds this approach problematic 7 for two major reasons: 1) it adds more responsibility to the WTO instead of reducing its scope, and 2) it becomes a way for women to advocate ‘getting a bigger piece of the pie’ without developing a larger political critique of the undemocratic nature and the flawed economic model of the negotiations. Ms. Francisco stated that social clauses punish violating countries without acknowledging the fact that there is not a level playing field among countries at the WTO. Sanctioning poor countries without critiquing the driving causes of poverty would serve to worsen situations for countries and their populations and environment. Ms. Francisco concluded by stating that supporting mechanisms for gender mainstreaming should not be the starting point. Since trade is having an impact on key areas such as banking and finance as well as national law, it is important to develop a broader critique of the shifts that are occurring and to look at the larger multilateral system in order to find the appropriate entry points to incorporate gender into trade policy. Exchange between the Audience and the Panelists 1. Nelcia Robinson from the Caribbean Gender and Trade Network (CGTN) talked about challenges for the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Caribbean. One challenge is to understand what people mean by the term ‘gender.’ Once there is better understanding of this, it will be possible to discuss what is meant by ‘gender equality.’ Ms. Robinson stated that these are important starting points that must precede any campaign on gender mainstreaming. Having said this, CGTN supports women’s participation in the official processes because, as she put it, “It will not be given to women. We have to take it.” So, training needs to happen at the regional level to help women prepare themselves to participate in political processes and in the building of economic alternatives. As a result, CGTN is heavily focused on economic literacy among countries in the region. Another major challenge that the Caribbean faces is the withdrawal of financial resources due to the fact that this region is considered to be ‘developed’ more than some of the other small economies. The withdrawal of funds for infrastructure and social development not only hinders the region’s ability to compete, but negatively impacts national and regional development, and has a negative impact on women and their families. Ms. Robinson did acknowledge that the small size of the Caribbean countries has meant that they have had more access to national politicians and to official negotiations in their regional context. CGTN considers this as an opportunity to advance its advocacy agenda. 2. Ms. Heuchan stated that while she has had difficulty finding positive examples of the way trade has impacted women, she believes that promoting rules on trade facilitation, one of the Singapore Issues, could help small business women. 8 The IGTN rejected the negotiation of the Singapore Issues during the Cancun Ministerial, including trade facilitation, because these issues were not clearly defined. Although the Singapore Issues were pushed primarily by Northern countries, they were never part of an agreed upon agenda for the Cancun Ministerial. Since WTO member countries cannot deal with the current issues on their agenda, IGTN’s position is that adding trade facilitation only complicates the current negotiating process. 3. One NGO colleague asked about the possibility of looking more closely at Paragraph 51 (which addresses sustainable development) from the Doha Development Agenda. One approach to mainstreaming gender could be to push this issue via the Committee on Trade and the Environment (CTE) or the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD). Maria Riley from the IGTN Secretariat responded that these are good ideas which the IGTN hasn’t really explored. One observation she made, however, is that due to the fact that that the CTD is currently deadlocked, it is questionable as to whether adding gender to the mix is strategic at this time. The IGTN hasn’t looked at the Committee on Trade and the Environment, and more research would need to be done in order to assess whether there is strategic value in approaching this committee. 4. Mr. Faizel Ismail from the South African Mission (and Chair of the Special Session of the Committee on Trade and Development-tasked to deal with Special and Differential Treatment at the WTO) talked about the need for better analysis of gender. He identified the struggle with ‘gender’ as a theme because it essentially can be included in all issue areas. He underlined the need to further advocacy on gender at the national level and talked about successful fora in South Africa where this has taken place. He supported, at least in theory, the idea of mainstreaming gender into the Trade Policy Review Mechanism as a good tool to assess the gender dimension of trade within the WTO. In a more general but relevant commentary, Mr. Ismail spoke about his task as Chair of the Special Session on Trade and Development to unblock the current deadlock around Special and Differential Treatment for developing countries. In order to do this, it is necessary to identify the underlying development issues. Because of the strong views of WTO member countries this will be a real challenge. Maria Riley argued that some groups are critical that Special and Differential Treatment may be another way to marginalize developing countries in the trade negotiations. Mr. Ismail acknowledged this critique and conceded that if there were balanced rules in the WTO, the need for country flexibility would, in fact, be moot. He also underscored the importance of better coordination among the international entities that are dealing with trade. For example, he advocates better coordination of the World Bank, IMF and WTO in dealing with some of the infrastructure and/or social challenges that the WTO is not equipped to deal with as a trade institution. He further clarified that other entities are already working at the national and global levels and that there needs to be a better balance among projects. 9 Savitri Bisnath from the South Centre stated that developing countries have little influence over WB/IMF mandates. Therefore, coherence with the IFIs may not represent developing country needs as has already been criticized in the case of loan conditionalities that have been poorly designed and implemented. IGTN is critical of coherence as it relates to furthering the trade liberalization agenda. Rather, it supports coherence among the international institutions that will assess the social and environmental impacts of trade and investment liberalization. Such coherence should strive to implement the UN Human Rights Framework at all levels. 5. Patrick Rata, Counsellor from the WTO External Relations Office, offered these reflections on behalf of the WTO Secretariat: Firstly, the dialogue on incorporating gender and trade has to take place among WTO members. The WTO secretariat has no power to push this agenda nor is it equipped to do so. He recognized that, to date, WTO members have had little interest in this theme within the negotiations process. Secondly, without compelling economic arguments, little progress is likely to be made in the area of incorporating gender into trade policy at the WTO. Mr. Rata stressed that the Doha Development Agenda is an agreement to negotiate towards an end goal and not an outcome within itself. His critique was that NGOs have tended to use this as an advocacy tool without recognizing that the negotiations to this end represent a work in progress. He argued that the fact that the WTO negotiations are stalled means that the status quo for trading practices that are hurting developing countries are still in place. Only through negotiations can the interests of developing countries be fleshed out for improved policies. Finally, Mr. Rata acknowledged that more work needs to be done to ensure a greater presence of women directors in the WTO Secretariat. In response, Ms. Francisco argued that nobody wants the trade negotiations to remain stalled. However, countries need to reach a consensus and a real understanding of the issues being negotiated before decisions are made that will have long-term binding impacts on countries and regions. She argued that the TPRM mechanism won’t work for women because it isn’t the main focus within the negotiations process. Women need to position ourselves where the political debates are taking place and not in secondary spaces. For example, women need to develop our positions relative to the negotiations because we are not simply concerned with the process of incorporating gender but with taking positions on key issues that are relevant to our concerns as gender activists. 10 Ms. Francisco disagreed with the WTO representative and stated that women activists have high expectations for the Doha Development Agenda. They understand that the declaration is imperfect but see it as a tool to push the boundary with negotiators. Ms. Link from HBF also pointed out that while it is true that activists should be focused on their governments, there is a lack of transparency around key negotiations as well as a lack of access to information on the implications of negotiations such as the GATS. Steve Porter from the Center for International Environmental Law, Geneva Office, thanked the IGTN and HBF for sponsoring the event because it involved people in the equation and moved away from the narrow focus in the way trade policy is viewed. According to Mr. Porter, it is a positive thing for people to break open the social analysis to become more holistic in our vision of just trade. ONGOING ADVOCACY, RESEARCH AND LITERACY IGTN Regional Approaches to Incorporate Gender into Trade Policymaking EUROPE Maria Karadenizli presented the agenda of WIDE (Women in Development Europe), a member of Europe-IGTN. She spoke about WIDE’s three-pronged approach to gender and trade: research, advocacy and trade literacy as. Much of WIDE’s current program is focused on economic literacy with women’s trainers around the world. They are in the process of developing materials that will have the long-term effect of promoting advocacy and mobilization of women at the local level. Their research is focused on looking at the impacts of trade on women’s access to essential services, food production, reproductive rights, and labor. Their advocacy is largely within the European Union context. As such, they participate in the Director General of Trade within the European Commission. They monitor the EU Central Bank, the Parliament as well as national governments throughout the region. Their specific trade agenda is to look at the trade agreements regionally between the EU and the ACP and Mercosur as well as multilaterally at the WTO. WIDE is concerned with the way the trade negotiations will impact the EU Commission’s commitment to sustainable development. Regarding the EU’s commitment to gender mainstreaming, they are highly critical of this process as it has not led to significant policy changes. Their challenge post-Cancun is that while the negotiations have collapsed at the multilateral level and the EU did not achieve its goals in the areas of services, investment and agriculture, it is now negotiating bilaterally with the ACP countries and also with Mercosur. As a result, WIDE’s current challenge is to monitor the variety of negotiations that are currently underway. Capacity to do this work remains a challenge. Some other challenges include limited knowledge of gender and trade in the EU and, therefore, limited commitment from member governments to incorporate a gender perspective into trade policymaking. One could even take it a step further by saying that there is a 11 political resistance to shifting from the current trade formulation to adequately address social costs and alternative models of trade policymaking. PACIFIC Margaret Mahlua spoke on behalf the Pacific Gender and Trade Network (PGTN). Due to the challenges of organizing the small and remote islands into a regional entity, PGTN as an organized structure is relatively new. In 2003, PGTN held a workshop on Gender and Trade in Fiji to discuss the role of the regional Network. Eight national focal points were set up in eight Pacific Island countries: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu. The islands are focused mainly on regional trade agreements among the islands as well as trade agreements between the islands and Australia and/or New Zealand. They are also focused on the Cotonou Agreement. Women in this region are in the process of assessing how they are being impacted by these negotiations. They are also pushing for greater representation in the negotiations themselves. PGTN participates, for example, in the Pacific Islands’ trade advisory group for negotiations with the EU. A real challenge for the region is that there is no gender disaggregated data and little knowledge of the WTO. Therefore, PGTN’s strategy is to help bridge the information gap by providing strategic information to women in the region as a first step to achieving just trade policies. LATIN AMERICA The Latin America Gender and Trade Network (LAGTN) currently has focal points in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina. Graciela Rodriguez, Coordinator of LAGTN based in Brazil, explained that the network has largely been focused on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) but is increasingly involved in the critical analysis of the WTO and in making the necessary links between the regional and multilateral dynamics. For example, the Group of 20 which has been pivotal in blocking the WTO negotiations on agriculture at the WTO has been led by Brazil. Many of the groups that withdrew from the G20 post-Cancun were Latin American countries that have since begun negotiating bilaterally with the U.S. The region has a strong critique of gender mainstreaming and points to the negative impacts that unjust policies have created. Specifically, Ms. Rodriguez talked about the extraction of natural resources from the region as well as the abuse of cheap women’s labor via inappropriate investment rules for corporations. LAGTN is working in civil society coalitions nationally and regionally to block the FTAA. Where possible, the Network participates in official trade delegations as civil society representatives who seek to have an impact at the official level. For example, Ms. Rodriguez was part of the official Brazilian negotiating team at the Cancun Ministerial. She was able to lobby the IGTN position as well as play the important insider role of sharing information with outside groups so that they could respond to the developing issues. In terms of information-building, LAGTN has completed research which identifies some of the challenges women are facing as a result of trade liberalization in Latin America. LAGTN is also working on case studies that are important tools to share with national officials, trade negotiators and broader civil society 12 to help them understand the real impacts in communities which are inextricably linked to the trade and investment negotiations. CONCLUSION The IGTN has committed itself to further dialogues and debates on the issue of gender mainstreaming as it relates to the 10th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the inception of the WTO. The different regions of the Network plan to contribute to the debate through regional dialogues, the outcomes of which will be compiled into a global document “Beijing + 10 Meets WTO + 10” that will help to identify approaches that will ensure women’s human rights instead of marginalizing them. This document will be disseminated widely and will serve as a tool for women’s engagement in critiquing trade and investment liberalization and in identifying alternatives. The IGTN will continue to monitor the negotiations process and offer our critical positions to negotiators and to our colleagues. We would like to thank for the Heinrich Boell Foundation for its support in organizing this event. 13 WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND THE MULTILATERAL TRADING SYSTEM: THE POLITICS OF GENDER MAINSTREAMING AT THE WTO Co-sponsored by the International Gender and Trade Network and the Heinrich Boell Foundation Geneva, Switzerland March 12, 2004 9.30 am. Welcoming remarks by representative of HBF to identify objectives of the meeting. 9.40 Introductory presentation from an IGTN representative who will present IGTN's perspective on women's rights and the multilateral trading system. Additionally, the speaker will outline the challenges we face as IGTN following the 5th WTO Ministerial. This includes a brief analysis of the state of play in the ongoing Geneva negotiations, the link between WTO dynamics and regional trade, as well as some overriding concerns we have relative to WTO reform and gender. 10.00 IGTN regional Initiatives and international advocacy on gender and trade (i.e. WTO, UN, the FTAA, Governments, Social movements, etc.) 10.20 II. Different experiences to incorporate Gender into Trade Policymaking a. The Canadian Experience: Mrs. Adair Heuchan, Mission of Canada b. The Work of the Task Force on Gender and Trade, Anh-Nga Tran-Nguyen, UNCTAD Secretariat c. IGTN representative 10.50 – 100 III. Open Debate and Dialogue between panelists and seminar participants 14