UNCTAD experts: Effect gender-equal responses

Economic experts at United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) have called on Covid-19 affected countries to effect gender-equal interventions to save economies.

Isabelle Durant, Deputy Secretary-General and Pamela Coke-Hamilton, Director of Division on International Trade and Commodities say the pandemic presents an opportunity for effecting systemic changes, protecting women from “bearing the heaviest brunt of shocks like these in the future.”

Small businesses

“Government bailouts and support measures should not only prop up large and medium-sized enterprises,” they note on their co-authored article published on UNCTAD’s website.

“But also micro and small businesses where women entrepreneurs are relatively more represented,” they add. 

In Kenya, for instance, women run more than 60 per cent of informal businesses according to the 2016 survey on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) by Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).

In order for women and men to recover from the Covid-19’s economic shocks, the experts urge lenders to equally offer them financial support and credit.

They are concerned that majority of women would suffer even more due to lack of safety nets.

This is because most women are in informal employment where such benefits are excluded.

“Women tend to work without clear terms of employment, they often are not entitled to reliable social protection such as health insurance, paid sick and maternity leave, pensions and unemployment benefits,” they observe.

In this regard, they call for gender-responsive trade policies creating new opportunities for women as employees and entrepreneurs.

Precarious job

To enable women shift from precarious jobs to more stable and better-protected employment, they propose improved education and training opportunities for them

For governments, simplifying procurement process and being more transparent on the procedures would facilitate women in business to benefit from public tenders, they note.

“Broader provision of social services would lift women's care burden and give them more time for paid jobs and leisure,” they say.

They add that: “Flexible work arrangements currently in place in response to the pandemic, should continue beyond it and provide a new model of shared responsibilities within households.”

In Kenya, women spend 11.1 hours on unpaid labour compared to 2.9 hours for men; a time constraint turning into a productivity restraint pushing women into a constant poverty zone.