The 100th anniversary of international women's day 8 March 2011
In
1975, during International Women's Year, the United Nations began celebrating
8 March as International Women's Day. Two years later, in December 1977,
the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for
Women's Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by
Member States, in accordance with their historical and national traditions. For
the United Nations, International Women's Day has been observed on 8 March
since 1975.
ITC
Executive Director Patricia Francis speaks on International Women’s Day about
the progress that women have made and the ways to further the advancement of
women in trade.
Under the ITC Women and Trade Programme, the Women in
Coffee in Africa project establish women’s coffee associations. ITC works with
the International Women’s Coffee Alliances, IWCA, www.womenincoffee.org
in Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Other countries are
likely to be included soon. ‘Women in Trade: Tasting Competitiveness in Global
Markets’ is the theme of our International Women’s Day celebration. On this
occasion of International Women’s Day, we invite you to share in some of our
recent success stories of the Women in Coffee project. The videos below
highlight the progress that is being made in significant ways.
ITC is focusing on the economic
empowerment of women through trade, in our work, including under the Women and
Trade Programme. The aim of this programme 2010 – 2012 is to help women derive
greater economic benefit from their participation in export-oriented value
chains and improve the export competitiveness of goods and services supplied by
women entrepreneurs.
To link
buyers and sellers a Platform for Action on Sourcing from Women vendors has
been established bringing together corporate, government and institutional
leaders committed to increasing women’s share of procurement. Approximately 95%
of Fortune 500 companies have supplier diversity programmes under which they actively
seek to source from women. ITC is working with partners under the Platform to
facilitate linkages and has several projects supporting product and enterprise
development. These include those under the ACCESS! and Ethical Fashion
Programmes
Coffee is
produced in more than 60 countries. An ITC survey (2008) revealed that women
typically do 70% of the field and harvest work in the coffee sector but only
around 10% of in-country trading and of export. Women own only around 15% of
land used for coffee production, 15% of the coffee (the traded product) and 15%
of the companies processing and exporting the coffee.
Please see below some useful links: