Gender equality and women's empowerment are recognized as prerequisites to realizing sustainable development and are integrated across the various goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda. The reaffirmation of the central role of gender equality in the achievement of sustainable development for all makes it a cross-cutting principle. Therefore, going beyond traditional areas of gender concern and applying a gender lens to the production, analysis dissemination, and utilization of all official statistics, across the diverse SDGs thematic areas, become vital for gender-responsive programming. The session will bring together national ongoing efforts to include a gender lens into trade statistics.

The session on Gender and Trade Statistics will bring useful insights from pilots completed by UNCTAD, UNECA and UNECE on compiling sets of indicators on gender-in-trade statistics building on the conceptual framework developed by UNCTAD. Understanding unique constraints faced by the National Statistics Offices (NSOs) in developing countries, this session will discuss practical application of the methodology, focusing on what has worked and lessons learned from Georgia and Kenya, with a view to updating and sharing a framework that is useful for other countries. This discussion will expand the boundaries understanding the participation of women in trade using existing statistics. It will be useful for countries and national agencies exploring ways to collaborate in order to compile and collect gender-in-trade indicators that can support more evidence-based policy design.