The need for statistics on gender-in-trade is becoming pressing as governments strive to develop gender-responsive trade policies. The Regional Workshop will focus on the importance of collecting and utilising gender-in-trade statistics to support better policymaking across the African continent. In addition, the Regional Workshop also discusses the findings obtained from six pilot countries – Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Senegal, Cameroon, and Zimbabwe – that participated in undertaking exercises in micro-linking trade and non-trade data within their countries and identify ways forward for improved data collection in gender-in-trade statistics.

The objectives of this regional workshop is to:

1. Encourage knowledge sharing amongst statistics officers on best methods and practices to support the collation of data and statistics on gender and trade and to understand how to undertake micro-linking of non-trade and trade data.
2. Drawing on the findings from the African pilot case studies, discuss the long-term goal of collecting sex-disaggregated trade data and identify gaps and proposed solutions for ensuring that national statistics collection includes gender-responsive indicators across the continent.
3. Improve understanding of regularising and implementing long-term data collection on informal cross-border trade (ICBT) to inform evidence-based policymaking that meet the needs of informal and small-scale traders.

This workshop is organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), with contributions from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). Financial support for this project was provided by United Nations Development Account.