IGTN: Trade Agreements




	World Trade Organization



	North American Free Trade Agreement



	Free Trade Area of the Americas



	Economic Partnership Agreements and the Cotonou Agreement



	Regional and Bilateral Trade Agreements

The International Gender and Trade Network defines itself as a technical resource and political catalyst to address trade issues that are of critical importance to the social and economic empowerment of women and men with special attention to the work of social reproduction for which women worldwide are primarily responsible.

Social reproduction encompasses all the invisible, unpaid and undervalued work required to sustain the human family and the human community. Social reproduction, or the care economy, is disregarded in trade policy and trade negotiations, but it is the foundation of all productive activity, or the cash economy.

Women, like men, contribute to the production of social capital and overall national and social output. But gender biases in society and the economy continue to hinder women’s access to productive resources as well as to mask the contribution of women to the economy. Trade liberalization and intensification do not have a neutral impact on these issues.

The International Gender and Trade Network uses research, advocacy and economic literacy in working towards more just trade policy. Each region of the Network focuses on specific regional trade issues - such as the Central America Free Trade Agreement or the African Growth and Opportunity Act - and global trade agreements and economic issues, in particular, the World Trade Organization.

The work of the IGTN is done under rubric of a set of advocacy objectives.

IGTN's Advocacy Objectives:

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.

Demonstration on Postan/Germany, during the G8 Meeting, 2007.