Thousands of civil society groups from around the world, including the International Gender and Trade Network, campaign against the inequities of the WTO system, the untransparent, undemocratic negotiation process, and the neoliberal economic rationale driving its regulatory agenda. The goals of civil society include transforming the WTO, correcting the imbalances and inequities of WTO trade policies, and restoring to governments the right to define their own paths to development that will protect and improve people's livelihoods. 

While all WTO issues are critical for women and men’s employment, livelihood, entitlements and rights, IGTN identifies four WTO issues that are of particular importance to the work of social reproduction: agriculture, services, intellectual property and investment. IGTN has developed a series of medium and long-range advocacy positions for effecting change within the WTO.

 IGTN Long-range Advocacy

• To reassert the sovereign right and responsibility of nation states to determine their own development agenda, to regulate their economies, and to protect their communities’ biological and agricultural resources;
• To affirm the primacy of social reproduction and social development over a market-driven economy;
• To support systems of governance, at the global, regional and national levels, that are democratic, transparent, accountable and respectful of human rights;
• To remove all structural and cultural barriers to women’s full political participation and leadership in governmental and non-governmental spheres;
• To advocate for gender and social impact assessments of existing trade policies with a view to their adjustment and the development of gender disaggregated data for analysis in the trade arena;
• To reduce the scope of the WTO and all trade agreements to specific trade issues only;
• To oppose regional and bilateral trade agreements that weaken the human, social, political, and economic rights and development of women and men.