Trade liberalization or free trade may impact negatively on women's work. When multilateral companies (MNCs) operating in one country or region moves, and jobs disappear- and usually the unskilled men and women are hit hardest.
• Fiscal policy impact. Trade policies and trade liberalization can affect the ability of governments to finance social sector expenditures and thereby increase women's workload.
The revenue base of the community is eroded by such activities of MNCs. With lower tax revenues, state and local governments face budget shortfalls that force them to reduce or eliminate funding for important public services like healthcare, education, and social service programs. When services are cut, women must often increase their unpaid labor to cover for these services or make difficult services between which services they will do without.
o What is the impact of trade liberalization on government fiscal policy?
o How are women making up for any shortfalls in education, healthcare, water, and energy, particularly poor women?
o When services are cut, what impact does this have on women's ability to participate in the workforce? How do trade agreements currently impact people's access to services?
How could they in future?
o How could member States ensure that essential services are protected in future trade agreements?
• Impact on working conditions. There is already weak labor protection in Africa - at least for women. Proposed trade policies should include measures to deal with the problems resulting from weak labor protections such as discriminations in hiring practices, and sexual harassment.
• Technical and development assistance. Women who are adversely affected by trade policies need technical and development assistance that allow them to earn a living in alternative sectors. These women should be active participants in helping to shape trade and work place policies, for this will ensure that trade policies improve the lives of those
women.
• Impact on agriculture: Agriculture continues to be the major source of trade revenue for both men and women in Africa. Women comprise the majority of small-scale agricultural producers and sellers. In the big agribusinesses, women are often found in the lowest-paying and most exploitative jobs. They are also subjected to chronic exposure to poisonous insecticides - usually creating a variety of health problems for them.
• Women's rights. Women workers need trade policies that protect their rights as women and as workers and improve their living conditions.
• Impact on Services sector. The service industry plays such a central role in all human and community life and activities. The service industry covers such key sectors of public
life as telecommunications, water supply, energy, health, education, banking, retail sales and waste management. Many of these services have traditionally been publicly supplied since they are considered basic, essential services that people should have access to regardless of their ability to pay. But now, in the new trade agreements, even basic essential services are no longer viewed as social goods, they are commodities to be traded for profit. This will have a more far-reaching impact on the quality of people's lives, especially women who rely more heavily on these services.
• Trade agreements and gender interests. Trade agreements and trade policies impact all spheres of human activity, human development, economic growth, and gender
relations.
• Gender concerns regarding investment center on the following issues:
Investment has long been touted as the recipe for economic vitality. It is true that investment can enormously benefit a community by creating jobs and. More jobs mean more income and purchasing power and more revenues for funding public goods and services. Yet, investment does not always bring about these changes because it is disconnected from the majority of the population. It may also provide very low paying jobs.
While trade and investment seems to be neutral, meaning that it doesn't include language that appears to hurt women and benefit men (or vice versa), the reality is quite different. Women lack equal access to land, credit, and education. They are mainly engaged in social reproduction.
All these should be taken into account when conducting research or writing documents of trade and investment issues in Africa. It is the most effective way to mainstream gender into daily activities - even by non-gender specialists.
To get a full picture of how trade is affecting gender, any analysis or work on trade should look
for indicators such as:
• Does trade benefit men and women equally?
• What are the exact benefits from trade?
• Does trade positively affect people's access to water, health, education, and shelter? If not, how can trade policy work towards these goals?
• Is free trade or trade liberalization having a negative impact on the environment? If so, how can trade policy be reshaped to ensure environmental sustainable development?
• Is trade being shaped out of development priorities, which have been identified within the United Nations?
• Is trade impacting employment of workers? If so, how?
• Are women impacted differently than men? How can trade policy help to rectify the social inequities that exist in member States instead of reinforce them?
• Where are women and men located at the point of introduction of trade liberalization or change in trade policy?
• What mechanisms and measures are incorporated into the policy changes to account for these differences?
• What were the expected results of the changes in trade policy? Were these results generated?
• What mechanisms and measures are needed to promote a gender equality - sensitive
trajectory?
In this case, policy interventions and strategies should focus on:
• Identifying gender based constraints and considerations in specific areas such as land,
credit, and technical assistance.
• Identifying the specific directional shifts in trade policy and how trade liberalization is
occurring.
• Assessing the possible impacts of trade liberalization/export promotion on women and
men and on gender equality.
• Identifying the nature of change in a competitive environment. The casualization of work, more EPZs, and new sources of employment.
• Identifying the trends in terms of power and access to resources between men and women, employment, and the range of alternatives available to members of the households in response to trade liberalization.
• Identifying and monitoring changes in intra household power and income distribution.
(Williams, 2003)
ECA's work on Regional Integration should acknowledge and alert member States on the impact of regional integration on women. Statistics do exist to show that there are serious problems associated with privatization, deregulation, liberalization and free trade. ECA advocates policies and build capacity relating to trade and investment in Africa. Any policies meant to benefit people as a whole must incorporate gender analysis because women are integral to society (including the market) being able to function. This is not currently being done in ECA.
African women are very concerned about the increase in wars and militarization in the region, trade in basic services, and the shift from family farming to corporate farming and export led agriculture, the impact of fiscal policy adjustments caused by trade liberalization on the provision of basic social services and publics goods, the implications of global trade agreements on welfare. A growing number of African women are beginning to recognize the potential impacts of trade liberalization and regional integration on workers, the problems associated with unregulated investment and overall threat to democracy in their countries.
Possible Entry points and intervention are:
• Monitoring the gendered impact of trade liberalization policies through the development of baseline statistical data
• Monitor enforcement of pro-gender equality legislation
• Apply gender perspectives to technical assistance
• Encourage a gender perspective in foreign direct investment.
5.5 Gender Mainstreaming for Sustainable Development
"To consider developing and issuing by the year 2002 a strategy of changes necessary to eliminate constitutional, legal, administrative, cultural, behavioral, social and economic