Women entrepreneurs who export or want to export face significant barriers as a result of the structural knots of gender inequality. Among these barriers are the lack of access to financing, technology and information networks, the underrepresentation of women in business meetings and trade missions, and the overload of unpaid and care work.
This was one of the reflections shared by Nicole Bidegain Ponte, Social Affairs Officer of ECLAC’s Gender Affairs Division, in her presentation at the panel discussion Tools to integrate gender parity in the value chain. The event, organized by the Business Alliance for Development (AED) of Costa Rica, was a space for feedback and exchange of good practices between companies to promote their management in gender equality. Representatives of the Inter-American Development Bank, Banco Pichincha of Ecuador, and some enterprises led by women also participated.
Bidegain Ponte stressed that in Costa Rica the employment content associated with exports is more concentrated in the services and agriculture, livestock and agro-industry sectors. However, the chemical and pharmaceutical sector, essential for a transformative recovery, is not very employment-intensive. In addition, he highlighted that the business services and chemical and pharmaceutical sectors have more people employed in highly-skilled occupations, more people affiliated or contributing to the social security system and fewer working in companies of less than 5 people than the agriculture sector.
The Social Affairs Officer of ECLAC’s Gender Affairs Division pointed out that international trade is more than an end, it is a means for sustainable development with gender equality. However, for trade to contribute to the economic autonomy of women and the sustainability of life, it is necessary to diversify the productive and commercial structure, strengthen regional integration, invest in the driving sectors of the economy and advance in scaling strategies in the regional and global value chains with the full participation of women.
This approach, as mentioned by Nicole Bidegain Ponte, are aspects to be analyzed within the framework of the care society, the theme of the XV Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will take place from the 7th to the 11th of November 2022, in Buenos Aires.
rmation:
See the recording of the III session of the Business Roundtable for Gender Equality: Tools to integrate gender parity in the value chain.
See presentation “Challenges and opportunities for the economic autonomy of women in value chains”.
