From Caribbean Development Bank

Regional trade policymakers are calling for further sensitisation and education on gender mainstreaming in their respective territories as they came to the end of Day two of Caribbean Development Bank’s (CDB) seminar on Gender Mainstreaming in Caribbean Trade Policies and Programmes, now on in Barbados.

This, as delegates from across the region, looked at recent statistics, challenges and best practices relating to gender equality and mainstreaming in trade and commerce. The day’s presentations allowed the trade experts to assess where their territories are currently positioned as it relates to gender mainstreaming and to identify possible needs and next steps in the way forward.

Lead facilitator, Meg Jones, Senior Officer, Millennium Development Goals at the International Trade Centre (ITC), charged the participants to use the information they receive during the CDB seminar, to guide their work and decisions going forward in the area of trade in their respective countries.

The ITC representative shared on the importance of implementing Gender-Sensitive Value Chain Analyses as one way of ensuring gender mainstreaming in trade policy development. This method includes an examination of gender roles at each step required to bring a product/service from conception to consumption. This approach is expected to effectively identify where there are gender inequalities and where investment in training is really needed in the given process.

Denise Noel-DeBique, Gender Equality Advisor at CDB said the region is on the cusp of change linked to global debates to inform a new sustainable development agenda. She told the delegates, “This workshop is a signal moment in advancing CDB’s work in building awareness and positioning policy makers for integrating gender in the context of trade. We look forward to continuing to build on this at the national level to further this transformative process.”

The workshop looked at research data provided by Professor Miguel Carillo of the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business in Trinidad and Tobago. Using the Global Enterpeneurship Monitor (GEM), Professor Carillo shared that the most recent international data confirms that there is still a gender gap worldwide in the area of trade and business.

He explained that women entrepreneurs struggle at the point of transforming their businesses from the early stages into established companies. Professor Carillo told the participants that while women are more inclined to start a business as a means of providing for their families, they showed less confidence than men in their capacity to succeed in business.

These statistics were followed by a call from the Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC) for greater input from a wide range of stakeholders in coming up with effective trade policy.

The CPDC’s representative, Shantal Munro-Knight said certain groups in society are still not given the space for effective participation in stakeholder engagement and as a result, the importance of the gender perspective is not always fully understood.

She told the seminar participants that there is lack of coherence between trade and economic policy and social development policy in the region. According to Munro-Knight, “Trade policy cannot be simply (decided and) announced by governments. Policy must be a clear and thought-out process.”

Using the Ugandan model, the ITC’s Jeanette Sutherland then shared on critical factors needed to ensure a gender-sensitive export strategy.

The four-day seminar, co-hosted by CDB and ITC, runs from June 16th to June 19th at the CDB Headquarters. The overall objective is to increase awareness of the value of mainstreaming gender into the Caribbean’s trade and economic development agenda, and to improve participants’ gender mainstreaming skills. The event targets senior policy makers from the Ministry of Trade and operational staff from other trade support institutions and agencies within CARIFORUM Member States.

IMAGE: www.dresden.de

Related story:

5 Times the Internet demanded gender equality

By Yohana Desta From Mashable

The Internet likes to take matters into its own hands.

At least, that’s the case when it comes to issues surrounding gender equality. Many people use blog posts, tweets and status updates to highlight instances of discrimination against women, and spread awareness on the serious problem.

One recent example is the New York Times scandal starring Jill Abramson, the paper’s first female executive editor. She was promptly fired in May, after less than three years on the job. Rumors quickly swirled that Abramson had been fired because of complaints about unequal pay — though, the Times denies that claim.

Time will tell how the Abramson case plays out, but there have been plenty of instances in which Internet users successfully stepped in to promote gender equality.

From #YesAllWomen to gender stereotypes at Lego, here are five times the Internet promoted gender equality.

1. The Adria Richards debacle

It was the tweet heard ’round the tech world. In 2013, developer evangelist Adria Richards attended Pycon, an annual conference for users of open-source programming language Python.

However, while attending a session, Richards noticed that two men behind her were making sexual jokes, riffing off tech terms like “forking” and “dongles.” Disturbed, Richards tweeted about it.

Richards launched a few more tweets and contacted PyCon employees about the mens’ conduct. PyCon immediately removed the men from the event. Richards later wrote a lengthy post about the experience on her blog, But You’re a Girl, saying it was a typical example of how women are made to feel uncomfortable at tech conferences.

The controversy was widely covered by media and the techie blogosphere. One of the men was eventually fired from his job.

However, Richards’ small triumph for gender equality came with a consequence. Her own employer, SendGrid, fired her, saying her decision to “tweet the comments and photographs of the people who made the comments crossed the line.”

2. Lego stereotypes little girls

Since 1949, Lego has been producing popular brick toys for children. However, the company caught flak in 2012 for releasing a line geared toward young girls that featured slim figures and pink play sets with pet salons, juice bars and bakeries.

People denounced the line, asking Lego to release something smarter for young girls. A Change.org petition was started. The pressure mounted higher and higher, until the company finally took a positive step forward.

Dr. Ellen Kooijman submitted a project to Lego Ideas, the company’s competition proposal site where fans can share ideas for Lego sets, in the hopes they’ll actually be produced. She proposed a science-themed set for girls, with an astronomer, paleontologist and chemist.

More than 10,000 users voted for Kooijman’s project, showcasing the fervent desire for smart, female-themed sets. Lego immediately snatched up the project, announcing in June that it will launch Kooijman’s set.

Video: YouTube, LEGO – to view go to link at end of article

3. Twitter hires first female board member

In 2013, Twitter released its IPO paperwork. While that was news on its own, The New York Times focused on a different element of the story — the fact that Twitter had no female board members.

Since 2006, the social network’s board has solely comprised white men, and there was only one woman among the company’s top officials. It was once again a shining example of the tech world’s lack of diversity, especially when it came to including women.

The story caused a maelstrom online. Twitter’s CEO, Dick Costolo, even got into an tweet-fight with Vivek Wadhwa, the author of an upcoming book on women in tech, who was quoted in the Times piece as saying, “This is the elite arrogance of the Silicon Valley mafia, the Twitter mafia.”

However, Twitter heard the grumblings of the Internet. Two months later, it quietly appointed Marjorie M. Scardino, the former chief executive officer of Pearson, as their first female board member.

4. Jenna Talackova’s pageant dream

Growing up, Jenna Talackova always wanted to be a pageant queen. In 2012, she got closer to her dream after entering the Miss Universe Canada pageant. However, she was disqualified from the competition because she is transgender.

The 23-year-old had undergone sex reassignment surgery at 19, and officials said she “did not meet the requirements” of the pageant rules.

The disqualification sparked up heated debate online, with tweets pouring in about whether or not Talackova could enter. A Change.org petition was started to get her reinstated, gathering more than 21,800 signatures.

Eventually, the pressure became so great that Talackova was reinstated, and Donald Trump, who oversees the Miss Universe pageant, announced that the ban on trans women competing in the pageant would be lifted.

5. #YesAllWomen

In May, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger went on a killing spree at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He killed six people, injured 13 others and immediately committed suicide.

The data he left behind (video blogs, Internet comments, a manifesto) revealed him to be a misogynist who was inspired to kill women because they weren’t sexually interested in him.

His extreme case of male sexual entitlement alarmed women everywhere. Thus, the hashtag campaign #YesAllWomen arose, with women using it on social media to share their stories and experiences with harassment from men.

It was a powerful way of sharing the female experience, and how all women have had to deal with male entitlement. The hashtag spread around the world, and has since been tweeted more than 1.2 million times.

Images:

Flickr, Krista Kennedy A 1981 Lego ad encouraged girls to play with the toys.

Flickr, Chuck Olsen

Wikipedia

Flickr, Annie Jackson

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