Gender, Trade Liberalisation and the Multilateral Trading
System: Towards an African Perspective
The gender
dimensions of trade policies and institutions have attracted increased
attention from different stakeholders, including activists and
researchers. Most of the attention has
focused on the impact of trade policies in terms of income and formal
employment, and most of the analyses have been done by researchers from the
North, on the basis of data that include a minority of African country case
studies, while African women remain largely absent from the debate over trade
policies and their gender dimensions.
This first
session therefore aims to respond to a central question : why is an African
perspective needed in the analysis of the gender dimensions of trade
liberalisation and the multilateral trading system (MTS)? The session is divided into four parts that
seek to respond to the different aspects of this question. The first part provides a retrospective on
the history of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) in order to identify some of the determining factors
of Africa’s position in the MTS. The
second parts examines the prevailing trade theory with its assumptions and
myths and their gender implications.
The third and fourth parts provide a critical overview of the main
issues raised by the existing literature on gender and trade, and by the
current approaches to gender mainstreaming in the WTO.
1.
The
‘Shadow’ History of the Multilateral Trading System
1.1. From
GATT to the WTO
An
important justification for an African perspective in the analysis of trade
liberalisation and the MTS derives from the history of GATT and the
establishment of the WTO. This history
– which is usually untold by the mainstream discourse on trade liberalisation - shows that African countries have been
integrated into the multilateral trading system without any kind of meaningful
participation, and under peculiar conditions that define their position in the
global trading arrangements.
The
fundamental principle of the MTS, the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) principle is a
European concept that was constructed in the mercantilist period of the 19th
century, namely with the Anglo-French trade treaty of 1860. As a leading industrial power together with
Britain during the post Second World War period, the US played a central role in
the conception and formulation of the MTS.
The origins of the GATT go back to the discussions and agreements
between the US and Britain about the post-war economic system (Dam 1970:12). This was mainly done based on their own
priorities, namely the need to ensure a ready supply of cheap raw materials and
expanding markets for manufactured goods.
Thus, “during and immediately after the war, the two governments
advocated the worldwide reduction of tariffs, the removal of trade barriers and
‘equal access to the markets and raw materials of the world’. Their discussions focused on the ‘removal’
of restrictions to trade by others, and there is very little reference in the
discussions to the problems that would be faced by the ‘underdeveloped’”(TWN,
2001: 24). From the establishment of
the GATT in 1947 up to now, the developing countries have confronted barriers
placed on the products of export interest to them by the developed countries. Despite the numerous attempts to address
their complaint, many of the trade barriers identified in the 1960s against
exports of the developing countries have remained in 2001 (Raghavan
2001g). The sectors of agriculture and
textiles, which are of particular interest for African countries, provide
typical examples of such barriers.
The history
of the MTS shows that trading rules actually work as a system for the
regulation of the exercise of power within which weaker countries have actually
served the interests of powerful trading nations. As a trading system is based on power by nature, these nations
have the power – i.e. the political clout, but also the market size and the
capacity to produce goods and services for trade – to define both the rules in
the trade agreements and the processes at the WTO. This is important for the appreciation of the power relations and
the domination of weaker nations and the weaker sections of their populations
within a system which proclaims to be rules-based.
The
decisive influence of the US and major trading nations, together with the
imbalances against and lack of participation of developing countries, are
entrenched features of the MTS. The
measures that have been taken to redress these imbalances are not legally
binding and supposed to be implemented as a ‘best-endeavour effort’, without
any contractual rights and obligations (Raghavan 2001g). While the major premise used to induce
developing countries to accept the establishment of the WTO following the
Uruguay Round of trade negotiations (URA) was that this would put an end to US
unilateralism by establishing a multilateral ‘rules-based’ system, past and
recent history of international trade demonstrates the continuation of US
unilateralism.
The US
unilateralism has been closely associated with the key role of transnational
corporations in shaping the trade agenda, agreements and rules. This influence of transnational corporations
is reflected in the evolution of the relationships between the developed and
developing countries within the trading system: after the Kennedy Round in
1964-67, “the developed countries became interested in breaking into the
markets of the developing world. This
objective became even more evident in the Uruguay Round, preparations for which
took place in the early 1980s” (TWN, 2001: 31). This development coincides with the decline in manufacturing
profits during the 60s in the North, which led to the switch of productive
reinvestment into financial assets by big companies and to the start of their
search for new markets, cheaper inputs and labour. The pressure on developing countries to liberalise not only trade
but also investment is linked to the influence of transnational companies in
the US and other industrial countries.
In
particular, the influence of the negotiation of the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) during the same period as the URA, together with continued
pressure by the US since 1982 (TWN, 2001: 31) resulted in the extension of the
GATT system to areas such as intellectual property, services and investment
measures after the conclusion of the URA and the establishment of the WTO in
1995. In this context, the WTO
represents the product of a political process which has involved “intense
lobbying by specific exporters groups in the United States and Europe or of
specific compromises between such groups and other domestic groups” (Rodrik
2001: 34). This implies that there is
very little space for development concerns and goals in the MTS which has
primarily been designed to enforce policies in the interest of major trading
nations at the global level.
1.2. The
Political Economy of Trade Liberalisation in Africa
The first
phase of the GERA programme (1996-1999) was aimed at studying the impact of
structural adjustment programs (SAPs) on women and gender relations in Africa. The findings of the research carried out by
GERA and other researchers largely confirm that economic reforms have been a
major cause of increased poverty and social inequality by region and along
class lines, and that SAPs worsened the situation of African women (GERA
Programme, 2000).
It is
important to see the continuity between SAPs and current trade and investment
policies. Indeed, trade liberalisation
is an essential component of SAPs.
During the last two decades, trade policy reform and foreign investment
have become key elements of the internal policy changes and strategies aimed at
consolidating the structural adjustment reforms in African countries. A further step in the pursuit of SAPs and
post-adjustment policies emerged with the contemporary global regime for the
regulation of international trade, especially as brought into being by the
URA. With the emergence of the WTO,
most regional and national trade regulations are now defined within an intergovernmental
framework. What before were simply
rules about the import and export of products of different national economies
have been transformed into instruments shaping national policy and domestic
economic structures.
Furthermore,
there is rising concern about their undermining effects on international
commitments and domestic laws and policies that have been adopted in order to
protect fundamental rights and freedoms (Olaka-Onyango and Udagama, 2001).
Both the US
Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Cotonou Agreement seek to
underpin relationships with Africa on a new agenda of trade and investment
liberalisation. The bilateral
arrangements established between African countries and their trading
« partners » of the North imply similar effects, especially since
these bilateral « partners » are mostly the former colonisers and
still have an important influence on the economies of their ex-colonies.
Of note is
the fact that most African countries have undertaken trade liberalisation under
structural adjustment, as part of the conditionalities under SAPs. This position is very different from that of
developed countries who initiated freely the process of trade liberalisation in
the context of regional trade agreements and the WTO. Combined with the lack of inclusiveness and transparency of the
WTO, this power differential enables developed countries to impose rules and
obligations on developing countries.
Moreover,
the convergence between the IMF, the WB and the WTO has created not only a
dominant discourse promoting the trade liberalisation agenda, but also related
cross conditionalities through mechanisms such as the IMF Poverty Reduction and
Growth Facility (PRGF) and the World Bank-led Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper
(PRSP) mechanism, both of which reproduce the conditionalities of SAPs. The Integrated Framework for Technical
Assistance which is meant to ensure the integration of trade and development
involves the combined efforts of the IMF, World Bank and WTO along with other
UN agencies.
Just like
SAPs, the implementation of the WTO agreements is “one of the key factors
exacerbating economic problems (especially in the agricultural sector) in many
places. Many developing countries, and
especially the small island developing states (SIDS) and LDCs, are in far worse
straits after implementing these agreements.” (Williams, 2001). Most
importantly, like SAPs, these agreements threaten the realisation of the right
to development of African nations, as well as the social rights of poor women
and men among their population.
Thus, the
gender dimensions of the analysis of
SAPs which focused on the relationships between globalisation,
macroeconomic policy, development and poverty
remain critical for an African perspective on gender and trade
liberalisation, particularly in relation to the interconnections between trade
and macroeconomic policies imposed by the IFIs. Such analysis should also consider the human rights implications
of trade agreements and rules.
Since trade
is about the exchange of goods and services, the ability of a country to
benefit from the trading system fundamentally depends on its productive
capacity and correlatively, on its resource endowments. In this regard, “one of the most important
sources of inequalities in resource endowments is the history of colonisation
that shaped and is shaping trade patterns and relations between developed and
developing nations. It cannot be denied
that developed countries have been able to grow fast using their higher
endowments of capital, technology and skills and this level of growth is built
on their past exploitation of their colonies.
The developing countries, on the other hand, have been convinced that
they should specialise in labour-intensive production (because that is where
their comparative advantage lies) without any concrete proposals on how to
increase capital, skills and technology, which is the basis for real and
continued growth.” (Durano, n.d.).
It is
important to recognise that “a major reason why the world trading system has
not been working beneficially for developing countries is because their main
way of participating in the system has been to export commodities, whose prices
have been declining, and thus their terms of trade have been deteriorating”
(TWN 2001: 51).
It is
equally important to recognise that there is a definite link between the
history of colonisation and racism, and global economic realities. Neoliberalism and current processes of
globalisation are built upon a history of discriminatory and exploitative
policies and practices, especially against women.
1.3. Overarching Issues from a Gender Perspective
Just like inequalities and power relations shape the
relationships between the participating nations within the MTS, gender
relations constitute a structuring factor of the relationship between trade
policies and their outcomes. Trade
policies affect men and women differently and generate different responses from
men and women due to pre-existing gender inequalities in access to and
ownership of resources such as land, capital, credit, education, health, time
and income, as well as in access to power and decision-making, alongside the
sexual division of labour which assigns the unpaid reproductive labour to
women. From a gender perspective, trade
liberalisation and the international trading system raise a number of
overarching issues at different levels.
In an environment characterised by the features that have
been described in previous sections, « the relevant comparative advantage
of developing countries would seem to lie in cheap labour. Increasingly, that cheap labour is female
labour, which is systematically underpaid.
Over-reliance on such a strategy in the medium to long run is likely to
trap both women workers, and the countries which depend on a low-wage growth
strategy, in a perpetual swirl of debt and dependency » (Williams, 2001).
Moreover, feminist economists draw attention to the fact
that gender inequalities in wages and working conditions have been found to
contribute positively to growth in semi-industrialised countries, which means
that export successes and growth in such countries come at the expense of
gender equality and women’s rights.
They underline that using gender inequality as an instrument of
international competition may result in long-term adverse effects on the terms
of trade of developing countries (Cagatay 2001).
Despite the fact that the export-led, market-based and
private sector-driven growth that multilateral trade arrangements seek to
promote depends to a large extent on women’s labour, in both the production and
reproduction spheres, women are excluded from macroeconomic policy making and
processes. Not only are they
under-represented in macro-level institutions such as the WTO, but multilateral
arrangements related to trade and investment have been devised with complete
disregard of gender considerations, based on the implicit assumption that such
considerations are not relevant at the macro level. Therefore, these arrangements tend to reinforce gender
inequalities, thereby affecting women’s ability to move between sectors even
when opportunities exist.
Gender inequalities also have an impact on trade
performance. This is the reason why
gender-blind trading arrangements that have been designed by governments in
order to promote growth by moving labour to tradable sectors, actually
aggravate the constraints that prevent women from moving into these
sectors. Empirical evidence from many
African countries shows that their exports are severely constrained by gender
inequalities in command and control over income and assets, including land and
credit.
Women and
small producers are subject to a constant insecurity due to continuous changes
in international market conditions. In
Africa, women and small producers are singularly vulnerable to such insecurity,
because of the absence of any form of compensatory social protection. In particular, with respect to the
subsistence agricultural subsector which has already been weakened by the
liberalisation of agricultural policy, due to increases in the price of imports
and withdrawal of subsidies, current trade policies raise the issue of food
security in general, and the issue of women’s unequal status as producers and
consumers in particular.
With
regards to the meso level – i.e. institutions and markets -, the new policy
orientation removed and delegitimised the public policy instruments that could
be used in addressing women’s economic subordination. Moreover, as most African countries lack national consensus
building institutions that can guarantee the convergence between the interests
of different social groups and actors, the interests canvassed in international
trade negotiations are often those selected by governments without the
participation of women, other vulnerable groups and the mass of the
population. This has major
implications:
-
the
first implication is related to the multiple disempowerment of African women in the context of international
trading and financial arrangements : an internal disempowerment due to
their overall economic subordination and lack of participation in
decision-making processes at the national level, and an external disempowerment
brought about by the biases against African countries in international trading
and financial arrangements.
-
The
second implication pertains to the dynamics of power relations, in particular
the interplay between internal and external relations of domination : indeed, the internal disempowerment of women
and other marginalised groups enables to a large extent the perpetuation of the
unequitable trading and financial arrangements, and subsequently, the
domination of powerful countries’ interests.
This also
raises the issue of the role of the state and national institutions in such
context.
Some political scientists call for attention to the combined
effects of trade arrangements and other economic reforms on the
re-conceptualisation of the notion of ‘governance’, including not only the
re-definition of the role of the State, but also the political processes and
spaces within African nations. These
analysts point to the far-reaching consequences of the institutional reforms
brought about current trade and economic policies, notably the increased
tightening of the political space for democratic participation. This is due to the imposition through the
proposed institutional reforms of the concept of ‘horizontal accountability’
promoting the balance between the different governmental institutions in order to
contribute to a ‘self-restraining state’, at the expense of a ‘vertical
accountability’ of policy-makers to citizens and their elected representatives
(Campbell 2002). Shrinking political
spaces have implications on women’s participation in governance which is
already very low, as well as for their organising and struggles.
In
addition, each type of trade arrangement comes with a specific set of
parameters that determine the impact of the related policies on different
social groups and genders, namely through their consequences on the legal and
regulatory institutions that have been established by the different
nations. Gender activists point to many
gender-biased provisions in the content of trade commitments themselves, and to
their possible interactions with formal and informal laws and norms that
determine women’s condition and position in a particular country or location,
as well as with institutional and practical factors that influence the
enforcement of laws.
Of
particular importance for women are the changes brought about by trading
arrangements in the definition of the so-called non-tariff barriers to trade
(NTBs), as in recent years, TNCs have begun to use regional trade agreements
and the WTO to expand the definition of NTBs to all national laws and measures
that they do not benefit from. For
example, special incentives such as low-cost loans, tax credits or training
provided to women under affirmative action laws could potentially be challenged
as an ‘unfair barrier to trade’ under the Subsidies and Countervailing Measures
(SCM) agreement.
The
consumption dynamic impulsed by trade liberalisation, notably through the
attempts of TNCs to expand and deepen markets, involves the manipulation of
sex, sexuality and gender identity, together with the reinforcement of gender
stereotypes by advertising and marketing campaigns. A very common example of this trade-based sexual exploitation of
women and girls is the selling of the ‘exotic’ image of beautiful and
hospitable local women to promote tourism in African countries. A more disturbing one is the expansion of
sex tourism in many African countries.
With
respect to employment, liberalisation policies have led to increased
unemployment and informalisation of work in most African countries (GERA
Programme, 2000). Together with the
changes in production relations, namely the growing number of home-based and
temporary workers – the majority of which are women – and the various forms of
increased pressure on workers within the workplace, this development raises
critical issues about the sustainability of women’s livelihoods and their
rights as workers, in a context where the reduced fiscal capacity of states
does not allow for effective safety nets or other forms of social protection.
At the
level of the households, national trade and investment policies have resulted
in additional constraints and burdens on women. In addition to the fact that they bear most of the costs of the
reduction of public spending in social services, including in terms of
increased reproductive work, price liberalisation has forced poor women to
reduce their food consumption and to increase their unpaid work – often on
family farms and family-owned businesses – in order to provide for their
families. Devaluation of the exchange
rate has had similar negative effect, especially on women involved in the
services sector. Because imported food
often outcompete domestic crops mainly produced and traded by women, the
liberalisation of imports has had an adverse impact both on women’s revenue and
on domestic food production.
These
realities have been masked by the new economic orthodoxy which justifies
post-adjustment policies and legitimises the subordination of women in several
ways :
-
by
overlooking the differences in both entitlements and constraints between men
and women ;
-
by
building on the assumption that women’s work is free and infinitely elastic,
and that they will therefore continue to supply their unpaid contribution to
the care and reproduction of society in the ‘global village’;
-
by
reinforcing the gender stereotypes that perpetuate women’s subordination;
-
by
providing the rationale for consolidating the economic reforms undertaken under
SAPs, regardless of their deleterious effects on women and gender
relations ;
-
by
imputing all the adverse effects of current trade and investment policies to
the African nation states themselves, not to these policies or to the
market ;
-
by
defining most social policies and regulations that are especially important for
women as « trade barriers » to be eliminated.
For African women, these issues suggest the urgent need to
transform the economic model underlying the international trade regime, because
of the structural and political biases that undermine gender equality and
disempower women in the economy.
2.
The
conventional theory and associated myths of “free trade”
2.1. The
assumptions of the conventional trade theory
The
principle of comparative advantage is one of the pillars of the conventional
trade theory. According to this
principle, countries should specialise in producing the goods they are
relatively more efficient at producing, and then trade with other countries
that are relatively more efficient at producing the other goods needed. Free trade without the interference of
governments benefits everyone because it allows countries to specialise in
producing what they are good at and then exchange it in the world market. Thus, in the theory of comparative
advantage, gains from trade result from the sum of specialisation and free
trade.
Free trade
theories make a number of explicit and implicit assumptions:
(1)
Full
employment,
obviously an unrealistic assumption for African economies.
(2)
Resources
are fixed, and are perfect substitutes, i.e. that everything used in one type of production can be
automatically re-deployed to another type of production, thereby ignoring the
costs of the re-training of workers and investment in different types of
technology, etc., which are most likely to reduce the gains from trade.
(3)
Producers
do not move between countries, in other words, that there is free movement of goods and
services, but no free movement of production.
This assumption is particularly unrealistic in the context of
globalisation, as evidenced in the current organisation of production at the
global level.
(4)
Factors
are mobile across sectors and there is perfect competition: such assumption ignores the
structural constraints that do not allow for the mobility of factors,
especially labour. In particular, it
ignores that a number of factors, including the gender division of labour, the
lack of economic and social infrastructure and access to information inhibit
women’s ability to respond to economic incentives and opportunities offered by
trade.
(5)
International
prices adjust automatically: there is ample evidence that rapid trade liberalisation led to trade
deficits in developing countries as exports stayed flat or did not keep pace
with rising imports (UNCTAD 1999).
Moreover, the practices of the major trading powers show that these
promoters of free trade themselves use non-market pricing systems.
Most
importantly, the theory of comparative advantage is silent on the distribution
of the gains from trade, thereby making the assumption that benefits from trade
will trickle down to everybody alike as a result of growth and increased total
income of participating countries: to business owners, as well as to workers
and consumers, both men and women. It
ignores the reality that this distribution is part of a political process
within which benefits from trade often accrue only to the business owners who
can make increased profits, while workers and communities become worse off.
The
assumption made by the conventional theory of the convergence of factor prices
that would lead to lower prices in domestic markets and subsequently, increase
consumers’ purchasing power has been invalidated by the research, namely by a
study commissioned by the WTO on the relation between trade and poverty
(Ben-David et al. 1999) which found that “there is no ‘tendency of catch up
convergence’ in respect to income; rather incomes tend to be diverging within
each segment of global income. Whenever
convergence tendency was observed, this was among lower income countries and
reflected the relatively better off among the poor countries slipping backwards
(downward convergence)” (Williams 2001: 4).
Feminist
economists[1]
(Cagatay 2001) have provided a critique of the mainstream trade theory (a.k.a
neo-classical, neo-liberal theory) in terms of distributive effects. According to this theory, if the two factors
of production are unskilled and skilled labour, in developing countries whose
comparative advantage is assumed to be in goods that make intensive use of
unskilled labour, the wage differentials between the two types of labour should
close with trade liberalisation. The
opposite should take place in developed countries.
If the two
factors of production are capital and labour, trade liberalisation should
reduce the return on capital while increasing it on labour in developing
countries. The opposite should occur in
developed countries. This implies that
trade liberalisation should be equity enhancing in developing countries while
being disequalising in developed countries.
However, studies have found that in many developing countries,
disparities between skilled and unskilled workers have increased.
Regarding the analysis of the
gendered impact of international trade, it is argued that the central
question should be whether trade
reform and emerging patterns of trade perpetuate, accentuate or erode existing
gender inequalities. A related question
is whether there is a change in gender-based power relations within households,
communities and the society at large.
The responses to these questions
should consider:
a)
changing
patterns and conditions of work, including paid and unpaid work
b)
changes
in gender gaps in wages, earnings, patterns of ownership and control over
assets
c)
changes
in consumption patterns by gender
d)
changes
in use of technology by men and women
e)
changes
in public provisioning of services and their gendered impacts
f)
gender-differentiated empowerment implications of trade flows.
With respect to the gender, trade and poverty nexus, it
is underscored that the assessment of trade policies should not focus on market-based
criteria such as income and consumption and « whether they maximise flows
of goods and services, but in terms of whether they further desired social
outcomes such as equity, social inclusion, freedom from poverty, development of
human capabilities, protection of human rights, democratic governance and
environmental sustainability. » (Cagatay 2001: 12). and « incorporate power and power
relations within and across nations . »
2.2. Gender,
Trade and Employment
Authors like Standing (1989,
1999) have argued that in the current context of intensified global
competition, supply-side macroeconomics and deregulation, employers have tried
to establish more « flexible » labour force by substituting women
workers, with lower reservation wages, for men. This argument is an important part of the debate over core labour
standards and workers’ rights. It
points to the general context of macroeconomic and labour market policies
within which the feminisation of employment takes place.
This context is characterised
by the increasing erosion of workers’ rights and the power of traditional trade
unions vis-à-vis capital, due to the triumph of neo-liberal policies. Market
liberalisation policies and the increased mobility of capital have contributed
to this erosion of workers’ rights, as labour market deregulation was justified
in the name of achieving international competitiveness.
In general, studies on
export-oriented countries show that although trade liberalisation seem to
advantage women in terms of employment, the « competitive advantage »
of women as workers lies in the inferiority of their conditions of employment
in terms of earnings as well as health and safety conditions. Indeed, much of women’s trade-related gains
in employment has taken place in EPZs and the informal sector where conditions
of work are very poor. In many
establishments, practices of sexual harassment and pregnancy tests have been
reported.
It is important to recognise
that there are also winners and losers
among women. The celebrated increase in women’s employment under trade
liberalisation policies is real in the aggregate, but at the same time, some
women have also lost their jobs because of import competition and the sectoral
reallocation of work. Such loss of
employment has mostly happened in informal work, small firms and among
low-skilled workers where poor women dominate.
Moreover, trade
liberalisation makes it difficult to achieve gender equity in wages at the
national level. At the heart of this
dilemma is the fact that women in different countries are segregated into a
relatively narrow range of occupations, and through trade they compete with
each other. Trade liberalisation
provides an incentive for the repression of wages.
Therefore, the claims about
women’s gains from trade in terms of employment call for closer examination in
the case of Africa. Such claims must be
assessed against the context and conditions within which women integrate the
formal labour market. Given the
expansion of the informal sector in most African countries, special attention
should also be paid to the impact of trade policies on this sector.
The
mainstream discourse on the benefits of trade openness in developing countries
has generated a significant number of myths that have informed the design of
trade policies at different levels.
Among these is the misconception that free trade is the major cause of
economic growth in today’s developed countries. The historical evidence shows that during their own development and industrialisation process, these
countries protected their domestic industries behind tariff walls. Tariff liberalisation took place only when
the home industries were sufficiently strong or efficient to stand up to
competition from imports. For instance,
the US who is the major promoter of free trade today, began its
industrialisation behind rising tariff barriers at the end of its Civil War
(Handlin 1947, cited in TWN 2001: 23).
This
evidence also contradicts the theory of comparative advantage, as it
demonstrates that what is presented as the ‘natural’ comparative advantage of
developed countries in terms of capital investment, technology, know-how, etc.,
is actually a constructed advantage that developing countries should
also be able to develop, at least in principle. Some analysts underline that the development of newly
industrialised countries such as Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore is the
outcome of a specific type of comparative advantage based on the government’s
protection of and support to domestic industries until they were able to
compete internationally (TWN 2001, Rodrik 2001).
The myth that gains from trade
accrue to nationals and that consumers determine the type of commodities that
are produced and traded is undermined by the overwhelming evidence that most of
the time, nationals do not have the ownership of resources and subsequently, of
the benefits from trade. The large
majority of the owners are foreigners, and nationals participate in trade
mainly as workers and consumers.
Advertising and marketing campaigns at the global scale have entailed
significant changes in the behaviour of consumers, including the creation of
certain needs within people’s psyches and a culture of gender stereotyping by
the advertising industry (Durano, ibid).
The
wide-spread myth that governments do not intervene in trade has occulted the
fact that the promotion of free trade has actually required a great deal of
governments’ intervention. The
deregulation of the labour market and financial sector, as well as the
promotion of export-led industrialisation which relies on women’s labour, are
examples of such intervention.
Last but
not least, it has been underlined that
“free trade theories have always been advanced by the major developed
countries to further their own interests” (TWN 2001: 23). It appears that the mainstream trade theory
and the ‘free trade’ rhetoric are used to legitimise the system of rules which
governs the WTO and reflects the balance of power among its member
countries. These rules do not reflect
free trade for all products, nor has ‘free trade’ been practiced by the major
trading parties in areas that are crucial for African countries.
3.
Critical
overview of the literature[2]
This brief review
of the literature on gender and trade starts from the position that for trade
to be meaningful, it has to deliver some growth not just to a country, but also
to all its citizens, especially the most disadvantaged. Trade policies should both protect and
strengthen the capacity of nations and their citizens to address issues of
poverty and social exclusion. Growth
should be socially equitable and environmentally sustainable.
3.1. Conceptual
issues identified in the literature
There is a
general agreement that trade liberalisation is experienced differently by
different social groups. However, in
terms of gender analysis, the neo-liberal analysis ignores the issues of other
social groups and focuses mainly on the gender dimensions. On the other side, those who adopt a
political economy approach tend to address the intersection between gender,
class, region, among others with a strong focus on gender. It is interesting that the majority of the
analysis is of the view that trade and investment liberalisation either
perpetuates or exacerbates, but does not address gender inequalities.
It has been
argued by a minority that trade liberalisation has been helpful to women
because of their increased labour force participation in certain parts of the world,
and this in turn has reduced the wage differentials between men and women. But this view has been strongly challenged
in the sense that it ignores the conditions under which they integrate the
labour force, and the fact that the reduction in the wage gap is more a result
of the downward trend of wages, rather than an increase in women’s wages.
Among the
arguments deployed in support of the dominant view that trade liberalisation
policies have been detrimental to women as a social group is the fact that
trade liberalisation in general and the WTO rules in particular, ignore the
gender inequalities that prevent women from benefiting from opportunities they
may represent. Another argument is that
trade liberalisation policies themselves perpetuate or exacerbate gender
inequalities and even create new ones.
For instance, those who think that the only problem with the rules is
that women are not able to participate in trade focus on expanding the ways in
which women can also take advantage of the situation. On the other hand, those who contend that the rules themselves
are problematic and exacerbate inequalities focus on reforming those rules and
challenging the fundamental structures and assumptions underlying the system of
rules. These different arguments have
different implications not only for the research, but also for the discussion
about the different attitudes that activists have taken towards the WTO.
Some of the
analyses have focused on the micro-level impacts, as social implications are easier
to track at the micro level. Feminist
economists have called attention to the
importance of three levels of analysis:
-
the
micro which focuses on the household and intra- household processes and
relations,
-
the
meso which focuses on formal and informal institutions such as the markets and
the State, the laws, norms and practices ; and
-
the
macro level, which focuses on the monetary, fiscal and exchange rate policies,
prices, etc.
The focus
on the interconnections between these different levels provides for a more
comprehensive analysis of the gender dimensions of trade policies. For instance, at the meso level, the
argument is made that some of the perceptions about women’s work, which persist
despite of international conventions such as the Convention for the Elimination
of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform
For Action, have been reinforced by trade policies. One of such perception is that women’s reproductive and domestic
responsibilities are seen as their primary function. In spite of more than 20 years of gender equality activism, their
productive activities are always discounted.
Their income is considered as secondary and supplementary to the income
of the male bread-winner. These
perceptions are reinforced by trade policies which build on the assumption that
women’s unpaid labour is in unlimited supply.
3.2. Central findings of the impact of trade
and investment liberalisation on women and gender equality
Some of the
studies of the impact of export-oriented industrialisation on the gender
composition of the labour force have found that women’s participation has risen
globally, but that differences exist not only between developed and developing
countries, but also between Africa and the rest of the world. Much of the gains made by women have taken
place in the EPZs, sub-contracting chains and the informal sector where working
conditions are characterised by long hours, instability and insecurity of
employment, unhealthy working conditions as well as low pay. Combined with the issue of
de-industrialisation and the growing informalisation of work, this situation
means that the gains women made have to be offset against more problematic
losses to them.
In the area
of agriculture, the gains have been much less beneficial to Africa and all its
small farmers, particularly women farmers.
One reason is the removal of subsidies for agricultural production,
which has posed major threats to food security and micro enterprises. For many African women whose labour has
increased in export agriculture, the benefits have not come directly to them,
mainly because they are not the owners of the cash crops. It has been argued that this preference of
cash crops over food crops is discriminatory against women who do not benefit
from government support for their food production. In addition, their work in the cash crop production has reduced
the time available for their food crops.
Regarding
the issue of import competition, it has been argued that large and middle scale
producers may benefit from trade and investment liberalisation. Since women tend to be small marginal
farmers, these benefits are not likely to affect them. Whilst trade reforms can create new markets
- for instance for the celebrated non traditional export crops discussed below
- it is important to remember that it also destroys some of the traditional
ones.
It is often
argued that non-traditional agricultural exports (NTAEs) generate significant
revenues, and therefore represent a potential area of comparative advantage for
African countries. It is also argued
that the promotion of this sector will allow for a more equitable internal
distribution of the total benefits from trade on gender lines, redressing the
bias against women elsewhere in agriculture.
However, there is little evidence of their gendered outcomes in the
context of the current provisions under the AoA. Already, one can tell that gender biases limit African women’s
access to productive resources and their rights in land, and thus the incentive
and capacity for devoting resources to the production of NTAEs.
One of the
indicators that has been used for the success of liberalisation has been the
increase in household incomes. Gender
analysts have pointed out that this does not necessarily improve the
nutritional status of women and children. In places where self-employment and
unpaid family labour are more prevalent, the lack of control over resources
such as land and capital is a critical issue for women.
The gender
impact of the collapse of commodity prices around Africa has to be
verified. This has notably affected
government revenue as well as household incomes. In particular, the reduction of government spending in social
services has increased women’s reproductive work and reduced their leisure, as
women have had to take up more responsibilities in the areas of health care and
education. Last but not least,
liberalisation and the reduction of State’s participation in productive work
have also meant that the State has not been in a position to implement some of
the promises that it has made to women in the Beijing PFA and other
international conventions.
This review
of the impacts of trade liberalisation as discussed in the literature, points
out that many claims in the gender and trade literature are very preliminary
and need further work. It also points
to the overwhelming focus of this literature on the impact of trade policies on
incomes and formal employment, which tends to overlook other elements that are
important for gender equity and sustainable human development in the African
setting. These elements can be best
identified through contextualised and country-specific studies.
3.3. Trade policy making institutions and processes
The focus
on trade policy making institutions and processes is a very large issue in the
current debate about trade and investment policy because it goes to the heart
of the rights of citizens to participate in decisions which affect their lives
in very profound ways. Trade policy is
made at three levels: national, regional and international levels. Therefore, any analysis of trade and
investment policy making institutions and processes needs to look at all three
levels and how they are inter-connected.
National
trade policy is the remit of the executive arm of governments. It is the executive which makes most of the
important policies in trade.
Legislators play a less fundamental role, such as ratification. This means that there is bureaucratic
control of trade policy decision-making.
It is interesting that this has been rationalised as an attempt to
depoliticise trade and investment policy making so that national as opposed to
partisan interests can be served. The
assumption that the executive and the bureaucrats will serve the national
interests - or that there is one agreed-upon national interest - is hotly
contested, but also largely undermined by the vehemence of free trade
protestors around the world.
This mode
of decision-making raises fundamental questions about the transparency and
inclusiveness of the processes: who can participate and how. For example, the private sector, in spite of
all its complaints, does better than many citizens groups in the participation
in trade and investment policy decision-making. In this regard, it is important to acknowledge that the large
number of women who work in informal sector trade are not considered part of
the private sector. The GERA study in
Uganda showed very clearly that the stratum of people who are considered to be
part of the private sector are the medium and large scale operators who tend to
group in elite institutions such as the Private Enterprise Foundation funded by
the World Bank and the like (GERA Programme, 2000).
The
sections of the population where many women traders are involved in trade and
investment work are not part of the groups which participate in trade and
investment policy decision-making.
Civil society activists do not have a place at the table as such, and
whatever is done with them is seen as consultation, and always comes at a much
later stage in decision-making. Even
with the regional trade institutions such as ECOWAS, COMESA, and SADC, the
distance between citizens and decision-making bodies has been heavily
criticised. In order to bridge this
gap, it is important to analyse the decision-making mechanisms within those
institutions in the same way as national trade policies: who is participating
and how, who are outside the processes and how they are excluded.
4. The
major approaches for addressing gender issues in the WTO
This
section aims to provide insights into the existing landscape and options put
forward by gender activists and researchers for gender mainstreaming into the
WTO. The current status of the debate
on gender issues and the WTO among women’s organisations and networks, along
with their different approaches to mainstreaming gender into the WTO are
discussed with a view to identifying some possible options for the definition
of an African perspective.
4.1. The
status of the debate
It is
important to situate the debate in the context of the evolution within the
women’s movement, so as to identify the key players and the different interests
that are involved. The debate on how to address gender issues in the WTO was
institutionalised with the creation of a global Informal Working Group on
Gender and Trade which developed out of the Women’s Caucus at the first
ministerial conference on the WTO in Singapore in 1996. At that time, this group gathered a
majority of Northern women’s organisations and networks, and a few from the
South. African women were noticeably
under-represented. This group shares a
common concern about the impact of trade liberalisation on women and wish to
ensure that a gender analysis is built into trade policy-making and associated
decision-making, procedures and organisations
The main issue of the debate is not about the principle of the
integration of a gender perspective into the WTO work. It is rather about whether WTO policies
should encompass social issues such as labour and gender. The controversy within the women’s movement revolves around the
same issues as the general debate on the linkage between trade and labour
standards, and has produced a North/South divide among women’s organisations.
Broadly
speaking, the Northern groups support linkage, while Southern groups oppose
them. There is no consensus on the
institutional channels through which gender considerations should be integrated
into the WTO, and whether this is the best or effective way to promote gender
equality in trade and human rights of women as workers.
An
underlying issue is the interpretation of the concept of gender mainstreaming
by the various participants in the debate.
On one hand, many of these participants have adopted the technical and
result-oriented approach promoted by the World Bank and some donor agencies
which tends to overlook the underlying causes of gender inequalities, including
many assumptions of economic and development models. On the other hand, there are those who want to challenge the
structures and assumptions of the prevailing economic and development paradigm
that underpins the MTS and current trade policies, and perpetuates women’s
subordination.
While the
debate continues, it is clear that the issues at stake are larger than the
integration of gender into the WTO agreements and processes, touching among
others, on the issue of national capacity and resources to effectively realise
women’s rights; the issue of continuing protectionism in industrialised country
markets which are critical to developing countries, and involve women’s labour;
as well as on the issue of subsidies to agriculture in developed countries,
which make it particularly difficult for African women producers to maintain their
livelihoods.
4.2. The
different approaches to gender mainstreaming into the WTO
a) The
adaptive approach