Advancing inclusive trade in a shifting global landscape

In today’s rapidly shifting global trade landscape, the stakes for women could not be higher. As trade barriers rise and supply chains shift, existing gender inequalities shape who bears the heaviest costs.  

These pressures threaten to roll back hard-won gains in gender equality, ultimately undermining the very objectives of inclusive trade as articulated in the commitments of governments and international organizations over recent decades, particularly since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals agenda.  

Since rising inequalities came into sharp focus after the 2008 financial crisis, inclusive trade has become a rallying point for governments seeking fairer, more resilient economies. That momentum must not be lost. Gender equality and social justice must anchor trade negotiations and policy decisions, especially in an increasingly volatile world.  

After all, what matters is not just any trade, but trade that delivers shared prosperity and fairer distributions of its benefits.  

Evidence from IDRC-supported research shows that when women-led enterprises gain access to regional markets and value chains, their productivity, incomes, and resilience increase significantly. 

Inclusive trade has the potential to support more just and caring economies. It can create quality employment for women and men on an equal basis, improve household access to essential goods such as food and medicines and support the development of infrastructure that strengthens societal resilience to shocks.  

However, these outcomes are not automatic. The gains from trade must be reinforced by complementary domestic policies that deliberately promote inclusion. Achieving inclusive trade requires deliberate policy choices—outlined below—that align trade rules with social and economic rights.  

Unequal distribution of the impacts of trade

Trade affects people differently depending on their roles as workers, producers, consumers and caregivers, and these differences are shaped by gender and other factors. 

As countries integrate into global markets, trade expansion is typically accompanied by policy reforms that influence how benefits and adjustment costs are distributed.  

A growing body of research—including emerging work supported by IDRC—shows that differences in access to resources, basic needs such as nutrition and healthcare, and gender-intensified barriers to earning a livelihood and accessing public services all matter. 

The gender impacts of trade spans both employment and access to essential care-related goods—especially food and medicines— and both are central to gender and social justice. 

While export growth once expanded women’s employment in labour-intensive manufacturing, these gains are increasingly fragile. Recent tariff shocks in female-intensive sectors, such as garments, have led to job loss and increased unpaid care work, deepening household stress in countries like Lesotho and Cambodia. 

These stressors are compounded when trade disruptions affect not only jobs, but also the prices of essential goods. 

When prices rise, families must adjust in ways that often increase unpaid care work and reduce well-being. In East Africa, for example, spikes in the prices of imported maize, rice and cooking oil have led households to switch to more time-intensive food preparation or less nutritious diets, with consequences for women’s time, nutrition and earning opportunities. What looks like a trade or price issue at the macro level becomes a daily challenge at home. 

These patterns are not isolated. A report  prepared for the 2025 G20 Taskforce on food security links import-price volatility to rising household burdens, with the heaviest effects falling on low-income families. 

Taken together, these examples highlight why trade policy cannot be gender blind. Understanding trade’s distributional impacts requires looking beyond aggregate economic gains to examine who benefits, who loses and why.  

Integrating gender analysis into trade and macroeconomic policymaking is essential—not only for equity, but for designing policies that support resilient households, sustainable care systems and inclusive growth. 

Designing trade policies that work for women

In practice, gender-inclusive trade policies translate into specific interventions—protecting jobs in female-intensive sectors, expanding job opportunities for women workers in higher value-added sectors, reducing barriers for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and stabilizing the supply of essential goods.  

These priorities point to a clear call to action: 

• Adopt people-centred trade: refocus global trade on inclusion, resilience and equity.  
• Make trade policy gender smart: integrate gender analysis into trade negotiations and assessments, and support women’s representation in trade decision‑making.  
• Invest where it matters: prioritize care infrastructure, social protection, support for women-owned SMEs, and labour rights in supply chains.
• Strengthen the evidence for equity: invest in stronger data by integrating gender statistics with trade and value-chain analysis.  

Together, these measures can anchor a more inclusive, resilient model of global trade that delivers for everyone.