SheTrades Hubs Annual Meeting underlines how interconnectedness better supports women to trade
Leveraging the SheTrades Hubs community of partners is key to establishing sustainability and scalability of ITC SheTrades Initiatives’ work supporting women to trade.
On 14-17 November, representatives from all 17 SheTrades Hub host institutions — and one upcoming Hub host institution — attended the SheTrades Hubs Annual Meeting in Geneva.
Currently, there are 15 in-country and two regional SheTrades hubs spanning Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East and North Africa regions, with a new SheTrades Hub set to launch in Ghana next March.
The annual meeting of SheTrades Hubs aimed to foster greater interconnectedness and collaboration across the SheTrades Hubs network and to equip Hub representatives with new knowledge to improve their service offerings to women.
Fostering peer learning and collaboration
The four-day event included sharing of lessons learned and experiences on supporting women entrepreneurs across various contexts.
The in-person discussions produced new ideas for cross-Hub collaboration, from organizing joint trade missions to developing gender-inclusive financial products.
'The annual meeting was a fantastic opportunity to meet the representatives from other Hubs across the globe, learn more about the work ITC is doing, tools that we can use in our own hubs, and ways that we can partner to deliver impact for women entrepreneurs. The format of the sessions allowed for lively discussions and positive interactions, as well as opportunities to share lessons and learn from each other,' said Alana Reilly, representative of Caribbean Development Bank, host institution of SheTrades Caribbean Regional Hub.
A new gender mainstreaming training for trade promotion organizations
The meeting also offered training on export competitiveness, ITC Trade Market Intelligence tools, sustainable trade, and a new gender responsive training for trade promotion organizations, developed by ITC SheTrades.
Participants also joined ITC Executive Director Pamela Coke-Hamilton at the World Trade Organization (WTO) Informal Working Group on Trade and Gender.
Ten Hub representatives shared with Members how SheTrades Hubs are supporting women with access to finance and markets, sustainability, e-commerce, partnerships, and export-competitiveness skills trainings.
At the closing remarks of the annual meeting, United Kingdom Ambassador to the WTO and UN in Geneva, Simon Manley CMG, spoke on the achievements of the Hubs.
The SheTrades Hubs Annual Meeting fostered greater interconnectedness and new ideas for collaboration among the global SheTrades Hubs network. The next event for SheTrades Hubs is the SheTrades Summit in Abu Dhabi next February.
The ITC SheTrades Hubs Annual Meeting last week is part of the ITC SheTrades Commonwealth+ Programme, financed by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
About ITC SheTrades Hubs
ITC SheTrades Hubs are resource centres dedicated to women entrepreneurs and implemented in partnership with the ITC SheTrades Initiative.
Hosted by leading in-country or regional institutions, SheTrades Hubs offer women entrepreneurs the knowledge, skills and platform to access market and investment opportunities.
We bring together a community of partners to scale up resources and initiatives to support women in trade.
