Trade and gender in Malawi

A lot has been said about women involvement in trade activities in Malawi and beyond.

Statistics show that women play a vital role in the economy of any country, but their opportunities are limited by a wide range of barriers.

The 2016 Africa Human Development Report from UNDP highlights that economic and social discrimination against women is costing Africa $105 billion a year or six of the continents gross domestic product (GDP).

According to FAO,  women produce about 50 percent of global food products and they constitute 43 percent of the agricultural labor force in developing countries.

When it comes to wages, women earn an average of 60 to 75 percent of their male counterpart’s wages.

A 2017  report from the ITC shows that only 15percent of exporting firms are led by women and that close to 43 percent of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) worldwide are women-owned.

It is against this backdrop that the country needs to remove the barriers that limit women opportunities when it comes to trading their goods and services.

Gender inequality in education has a negative impact on economic growth.

World Bank Gender and Development Group estimates that if African countries had closed the gender gap in schooling between 1960-1992 as quickly as East Asia did, this would have almost doubled per capita income growth in the region.

One may ask: is trade an effective instrument to narrow existing gender gaps in Malawi?

Yes, but more action is needed to help women integrate into the international trading system.

As earlier noted, all the evidence suggests that giving an equal economic chance to women not only is economically important but also results in beneficial outcomes for the society.

As noted by World Trade Organisation (WTO) director general R Azevedo, investing in women and empowering women to invest in themselves is a risk-free venture.

“What society gives them, they give back ten times,” he says.

This is why there is need from both the public and private sectors in the country to increase the procurement of goods and services from women entrepreneurs.

Access to productive inputs such as credit, land, technology and information is key.

Also, there is need to help women entrepreneurs in collaborating with trade support institutions to improve their products and services to be competitive and enable them to tap into market opportunities.

In as much as I am a firm supporter of trade liberalisation. But when it comes to women opportunities, trade liberalisation does not provide increased employment opportunities for them.

It should be noted that women entrepreneurs tend to be more affected by the negative side-effects of trade liberalisation.

Women entrepreneurs face more challenges when it comes to taking advantage of the opportunities trade offers.

Gender biases in education and training, gender inequalities in the distribution of income and command over resources are some of the challenges they face.

As such, there is need to design trade policies thatconsider the gender-specific outcomes in Malawi. Trade has many positive aspects, including for development.

Women entrepreneurs can reach much larger markets because of trade, can also increase efficiency of their domestic production and tap into the technology transfer through learning by doing-exporting.  n