SheTrades Coffee

SheTrades Global

Overview

The SheTrades initiative at the International Trade Centre (ITC) has changed the economic lives of three million women in 30 countries by connecting them to markets. We have opened 12 regional hubs across Africa, Asia, South America, the Caribbean and Europe, and we continue to grow.

The initiative centres on empowering women engaging in international trade and creating a women-inclusive fairer business ecosystem. We help them overcome barriers and, with them, identify areas that urgently need to be addressed.

Our flagship event, SheTrades Global, brings together women entrepreneurs from all these regions. For women whose businesses are ready to export, they have a unique chance to connect meet potential buyers, investors and partners.

Previous editions of SheTrades Global — held in Ethiopia, the United Kingdom, Türkiye, Brazil, Rwanda, Mexico, and China — included representatives from over 85 countries and generated over $80 million of new business for women entrepreneurs. 

Participation is free.

Unfortunately, after careful consideration of events over the past two years, as well as consultation with beneficiaries and stakeholders, ITC decided to cancel the 8th edition of SheTrades Global.

The SheTrades Initiative, and our partners in this endeavor, remain fully committed to continuing to create opportunities for women to trade across our collective, global portfolio. Please refer to SheTrades.com for information on our numerous opportunities and events, and for updates.

As the African Continental Free Trade Area prepared to begin, the conference heard how the common market needs to deliver for women.

Read about the event

The conference was featured at the 2018 International Business Festival, a major global festival of trade and investment held every two years in Liverpool. The Festival attracted industry leaders, international delegations and companies from across the world looking to expand their trade footprint.
This year will highlight four sectors – beauty and wellness; IT and business-process outsourcing; textiles and apparel; and tourism.

Read remarks by the ITC executive director

See the winners of the SheTrades Investment Challenge

Before becoming SheTrades Global, the conference was known as the Women Vendors Exhibition and Forum (WVEF). This is the premier global event to get inspired, do business and create lifetime opportunities for women entrepreneurs by providing training, improving skills and facilitating meetings with buyers.

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Gambian woman smiling at the camera in front of a wall of colourful fabric bags behind her on shelves
Original URL
https://www.facebook.com/shetradesgambia
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SheTrades Rwanda marks impressive project results 2
SheTrades Rwanda marks impressive project results 2
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Two people discussing products at a trade fair in Morocco
SheTrades Morocco SIAL 2022
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The premier global business event to connect women entrepreneurs with potential buyers, investors and partners to grow their exports

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Cyan
Topic (for relations)
Audience (for relations)
Flagship events (for relations)
Focus area (for relations)
Contact
SheTrades Coffee
Contact
First name
Nicholas
Last name
Watson
Recipients

Sustainable Development Goals

This project contributes to the following Sustainable Development Goals, as defined by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

<p>The SheTrades Coffee project contributes directly to the Empowering Women to Trade (EWT) Programme, which delivers on ITC&rsquo;s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Global Goal 5 (achieving gender equality and empowering women) and Global Goal 8 (inclusive and sustainable economic growth) through delivering results via one of ITC&rsquo;s key initiatives &ndash; SheTrades. The SheTrades initiative is a key initiative under ITC`s Inclusive and Sustainable Trade focus area (5). This project contributes to this key initiative through providing training and market opportunities to women entrepreneurs to help them benefit directly from trade.</p><p>The objective of the SheTrades Coffee project is to to increase the participation in trade of women entrepreneurs in the Ethiopian and Rwandan coffee sectors, continuing on from the 2018 SheTrades Coffee project. Responding directly to the EWT Theory of Change (ToC) and programme outcome of increasing the participation of women entrepreneurs in international trade, the SheTrades Coffee project will increase the skills and capabilities of women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia and Rwanda through improving coffee production, processing, quality, strengthening coffee associations, and establishing long-term relationships with partners and buyers.&nbsp;</p><p>During 2018, the flow of implementation of project activities was significantly impacted because of a change in management personnel with the project partner. The new managers changed the overall approach to the way they worked which meant there were some positive adjustments necessary to the project implementation; the time taken for the necessary discussions with the project partner for the adjustments, meant the full target numbers of farmers could not be reached before the end of the project time frame. The approach agreed upon was to:&nbsp;</p><ol start="1" type="1"><li>Select washing stations and conduct a baseline survey / needs assessment of the stations themselves and supplier / farmers</li><li>Register farmers and create Producer Organisations, with emphasis on empowerment of women</li><li>Build the capacity of the partner washing stations, working with farming families on gender empowerment and put in place internal control systems (ICS) as a pre-cursor to certification.</li></ol><p>Steps 1 and 2 were reached before the end of 2018, however it became necessary to extend the completion milestone for point 3 into 2019. This work complements similar, broader work that will be delivered in Rwanda under the MARKUP project from 2019 onwards.&nbsp;</p>

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Date
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External ID
B637
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