Aid for Trade

I would like to begin by thanking the WTO and Director General Robert Azevedo for inviting me to this session on women entrepreneurs: Making the Buenos Aires declaration happen. It’s a great honor to be here!

 I have been asked to begin with a few words on the Swedish feministic government, so I’ll start there. In the case of Sweden, women’s economic empowerment and participation in the labour force were made possible mainly through three important reforms in the 70’ies:

1. the abolition of the joint taxation system,
2. the expansion of publicly-funded affordable child and elderly care, and
3. the reform of the parental insurance that allows mothers and fathers to take parental leave on equal terms.

This was a good start, but not enough, as inequalities still exist in our society. More had to be done. So, when we came into power in 2014, the first thing we did was to state that our Government is a feminist Government, and made a clear commitment to promoting gender equality in all policy making.
During the past years we have combatted inhibitive gender roles and structures and we have let gender equality have a formative impact on policy choices, priorities, and in allocation of resources.

The government pursues this agenda in all facets of its work – in Sweden, in the EU and globally. Gender equality permeates all areas of Sweden’s foreign policy – security, promotion, public diplomacy and, of course, development cooperation and international trade.

As trade minister I wish to see that trade contributes to growth and jobs for everyone, women and men. We have therefore worked hard for a gender perspective in the WTO, the EU free trade agreements and other relevant fora’s and platforms. To be here today – talking about trade and gender – tells me that some of our work has been successful.

But we still have a long way to go to have an equal society where the gains from international trade effects women and men equally. The National Board of Trade will publish a report on “Trade and gender gaps” after the summer break. The agency’s research will support us in taking further steps in our work with the feministic trade policy.

Already now, I would like to repeat my earlier call upon all organizations in the trade community, that haven’t already done so, to systematically collect gender disaggregated data and include gender in their analyses. We won’t be able to formulate gender equal measures and trade rules if we don’t have an accurate picture of the situation in different trade policy areas.

I would also like to say a few words on women as entrepreneurs. Every day, women are rising to leadership positions, breaking into male-dominated fields, and launching their own companies. Despite these achievements, we can see that significant disparities still exist. In the developing world, women are more likely to work in the informal economy. Whenever you see small holdings, small factories and shops, women are the managers; in many cases also the owners.

 In addition, women frequently face gender bias in the socio-economic environment when they want to establish and develop their own enterprises and access economic resources. This is not a challenge only in developing countries. We face these problems in Sweden as well. According to the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth, only about 27 per cent of all existing companies in Sweden are run by women and the remaining 73 per cent of men.

Small enterprises are the most common company size in Sweden and most of the women owned companies are so-called micro enterprises. Women and men tend to start businesses in the same sectors and occupations as they are employed. Thus, women mainly run their companies in the service sector and men's companies are mainly in the industrial sector.

These figures are in line with the report from our trade expert agency, that concludes that women generally work and start their businesses in sectors with weak connections to trade, predominantly in services, that faces inherently bigger challenges in relation to international trade. To meet these challenges, we – as policy makers and trade negotiators - would need to change our behavior.

The greatest impact would likely occur if we start treating gender as a market access issue. This means connecting gender to the conditions that the parties agree to, for goods or services to enter their specific markets. This requires improving and expanding the gender dimension in impact assessments of trade reforms. Using the information available from these assessments to identify sectors, products, and services that have positive implications for gender equality, and focusing market access on these sectors, ought to be a priority for us as trade negotiators.

The information from gender impact assessments can also inform policy makers on potential complementary reforms, which will in turn contribute to policy coherence and improved coordination of policy efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Lastly, around a third of the world’s SMEs are estimated to be women owned.
Increasing the participation of women owned businesses in public procurement has enormous potential for women’s economic equality and empowerment. These realizations have led to increased gender considerations in public procurement strategies. Strategies and policy measures that may contribute to a more gender-sensitive and preferential procurement process include measures such as certifications, quotas set aside for women-owned businesses, procurement targets, and bid adjustments. The problem is that we don’t have an international definition for women owned businesses. Therefore, I am glad to work together with the ITC and the Swedish Standards Institute (SIS) to develop such a standard.

Thank you very much!