Accra, March 10, GNA – The Ministry of Trade and Industry in commemorating this year’s International Women’s Day has organised a workshop to train 60 women to actively participate in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The workshop was to also increase their awareness on the Rules of Origin [the criteria needed to determine the national source of a product], and served as an engagement platform to improve the responsiveness in gender-sensitive trade policies.
The participants were drawn from the Ghana Association of Women Entrepreneurs (GAWE), Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) Ghana Freight Forwarders, and Women in Shipping and Transport International (WISTA), Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (including Customs Ladies).
Others were from the Ministry of Children, Gender and Social Protection, Ghana Police Service (Women and Border officers), National Trade Facilitation Committee (NTFC) Working Group, Ghana Link Network Services Limited, Ministry of Trade and Industry and GIZ.
They were taken through the processes to trade under AfCFTA, as well as the creation of an enabling environment to specially cater for women and youth under the free trade.
Speaking at the event, Nana Ama Dokua Asiamah-Adjei, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry said, the Government had put in place measures to support women in cross-border trade.
She indicated that as part of Government’s international trade commitments under the World Trade Organization Trade Facilitation Agreement, the Ministry had established the NTFC to coordinate and implement trade facilitation reforms in Ghana to support businesses in the country, particularly women entrepreneurs.
She observed that in recent times, Ghana’s commitments under AfCFTA, ECOWAS Protocols, Ghana-EU interim Economic Partnership Agreement (iEPA) and the Ghana-UK Trade Partnership Agreement (TPA), had expanded the scope of the NTFC to include trade facilitation commitments.
The Deputy Minister spoke to a study by the World Bank Trade Facilitation West Africa Programme (TFWA), which showed that women constituted a major part of small-scale informal cross-border traders, but were faced with major obstacles in moving their goods across the borders.
The obstacles included lack of knowledge of border procedures, cumbersome border procedures though they trade in low value goods, sexual harassment, lack of access to finance, among others.
The findings, she noted, led to the inauguration of a Sub-Committee on trade and gender under the NTFC to address the gender imbalances in making and implementing trade facilitation policies.
She hoped that the outcome of the workshop would be a policy brief on the opportunities for women in cross-border trade under AfCFTA, which would serve as a guide to Ghana’s Negotiating Team on Phase three negotiations of the AfCFTA on Gender, Youth and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).
The Cluster Coordinator for Inclusive Economic Development at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH in Ghana, Mr. Gerald Guskowski, in his remarks noted that the workshop was timely.
He said GIZ Ghana had supported the training of about 500 officials of the Ghana Revenue Authority (Customs Division) on the AfCFTA Rules of Origin, of which 30 per cent were women.
He pledged that GIZ would continue to support the Ministry in its quest to position women entrepreneurs in the country to take advantage of the opportunities presented by AfCFTA and other cross-border trade.
GNA