WTO-ITC initiative for women receives record-high pledge from FIFA World Cup Legacy Fund

(Geneva) – The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Trade Centre (ITC) today welcomed the donation pledge of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Legacy Fund™ for the Women Exporters in the Digital Economy (WEIDE) Fund, the global programme to help women tap into opportunities in international trade and the digital economy through grants and technical assistance. The Legacy Fund has pledged up to $16.6 million to the WEIDE Fund, with an initial deposit of $5 million.

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said: "This initiative builds on important lines of collaboration already established between the WTO and FIFA. Through our Women Exporters in the Digital Economy (WEIDE) Fund, this ground-breaking collaboration will help scale up capacity for women entrepreneurs seeking to use digital tools and platforms to access new opportunities and global value chains. This grant is the first of its kind in scale and the team is excited to get to work.”

ITC Executive Director Pamela Coke-Hamilton said: “This is a win for women entrepreneurs. FIFA’s pledge to our WEIDE Fund will go a long way to ensuring more women have the capital and the capacity they need to grow their businesses through trade, so they can earn more, create jobs and invest in the socioeconomic development of their countries. That’s the goal.”

FIFA President Gianni Infantino said: "The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Legacy Fund is a landmark project that builds on the unprecedented impact of the tournament from a sustainability point of view."

The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ Legacy Fund is investing $50 million in a series of social programmes in collaboration with Qatar and global organizations. The Legacy Fund will be implemented in close cooperation with the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, based in Doha, Qatar.

Strengthening partnerships

Last September, the United Arab Emirates government also signed a grant agreement to the WEIDE Fund for $5 million and a call was launched for business support organizations to partner with the WEIDE Fund in the pilot phase. The selected organizations in four developing countries will be announced in January 2025.

These business support organizations will then help launch competitions in each country, targeting hundreds of women to benefit from the Fund through grants of up to $30,000 along with technical assistance.

Unveiled by the WTO and ITC in February 2024 at the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi, the WEIDE Fund aims to empower women entrepreneurs by helping them grow their businesses through international trade and digitalization. Specifically, the targeted beneficiaries are women-led micro and small enterprises in the formal sector that are already exporting or have export potential.

The WEIDE Fund will unlock opportunities in international trade and digital trade for women entrepreneurs by improving their access to grants and support from financial institutions to reduce the finance gap; technical assistance and training related to digital skills and export competitiveness; export markets to connect more women to digital market platforms; and networks and support services, to create more inclusive and effective business ecosystems including by leveraging partnerships with the private and public sectors.

The fund aims to raise $50 million, with an initial target of $25 million, from public and private sector partners. The Fund will actively seek partnerships with various stakeholders, including governments, international organizations, development banks, philanthropic foundations and the private sector to implement initiatives aimed at maximizing the impact of the Fund's activities. Collaboration and knowledge-sharing will be crucial to achieving sustainable and scalable solutions.

The Fund's activities will be implemented through projects in specific countries in cooperation with business support organizations selected through a competitive call for proposals. At the country level, the Fund will implement a two-track system tailored to meet the needs of the targeted micro and small enterprises. Both tracks will include a grant and complementary technical assistance.

More information on the WEIDE Fund can be accessed here.

Notes for the Editor

About WTO – The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The fundamental goal of the WTO, as set out in the organization's founding agreement, is to use trade as a means to improve people's living standards, create better jobs and promote sustainable development.

About ITC – The International Trade Centre is the joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. ITC assists small and medium-sized enterprises in developing and transition economies to become more competitive in global markets, thereby contributing to sustainable economic development within the frameworks of the Aid-for-Trade agenda and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

For more information, visit www.intracen.org.

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