Hearing women’s voices

As a woman, I am happy to hear that Gina Haspel has been nominated by US President Donald Trump as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Currently the CIA deputy chief, she has been tipped to succeed Mike Pompeo, who is to replace the ousted secretary of state Rex Tillerson. If confirmed by the Senate, Ms Haspel would become the first woman to lead the country’s spy agency.

Her confirmation is not a sure thing, however, given a resume that includes overseeing torture, a black mark on an otherwise distinguished career. Ms Haspel, 61, was responsible for a secret CIA prison in Thailand from 2003-05 where top terror suspects were waterboarded, with little apparent success in terms of obtaining information. That has made a lot of people nervous about Mr Trump’s choice and his vision for the role of the CIA.

But I do think that everyone — male or female — should be given equal opportunity to prove themselves capable of handling important responsibilities.

Women’s voices today are being heard like never before — witness the phenomenon of the #MeToo and #TimeIsUp movement against unwanted sexual advances. International Women’s Day earlier this month gave us another opportunity to reflect on how far we have come — and how far we still have to go to achieve gender equality worldwide.

Here’s a sobering statistic: globally women do 2.6 times the unpaid care and domestic work that men do. The figure is higher at 3 times in central and southern Asia, according to a new report by UN Women, “Turning Promises into Action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”.

In Cambodia, women do as much as 10 times the unpaid care and domestic work as men while the corresponding figure for Bhutan is 1.8. “This highlights the dilemma so many women face of reconciling income with care, for which context-specific policy change and action is so needed,” said Miwa Kato, regional director of the UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.

To move from promise to action, we have to create opportunities for women’s employment and economic advancement, encourage education and skill development, eliminate discriminatory laws and poor working conditions, and other impediments to women’s full participation in society.

Trade certainly has role to play in advancing women’s economic empowerment. Exporting companies in developing countries employ more women than non-exporters do, according to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Women play an active role in services, agriculture and manufacturing as cross-border traders, producers and entrepreneurs.

According to the 2016 Women at Work Trends study by the International Labour Organization (ILO), 62% of employed women worked in the services sector, 25% in agriculture and 13% in industry in 2015. The services sector clearly can be an important contributor to women’s advancement.

But despite significant trade liberalisation and opening of new markets in the past few decades, international trade and trade agreements affect women and men differently.

Many women worldwide still stand on the sidelines of the economy. While they comprise half the global population, they generate only 37% of gross domestic product and run only about a third of small and medium-sized enterprises. In some developing countries, female business ownership is as low as 3-6%. An International Trade Centre survey in 20 countries found that just one in five exporting companies is owned by women.

In more than 155 countries, there is at least one law impeding economic opportunities for women. No country has managed to completely close the gender gap on economic participation and opportunity. At the current rate, experts say it would take 170 years to reach gender equality.

For a start, structural imbalances that contribute to an unequal distribution of the benefits from trade need to be corrected. Getting more women involved in trade is sound economic policy for all countries regardless of their level of development.

As time and mobility constraints are greater for women, particularly those with children, technological developments like e-commerce can have an important impact. Tapping the potential of e-commerce, financial technology and trade facilitation can make it easier for women, including those in rural areas or running fledgling enterprises, to reach overseas markets.

Increasing incentives to attend school is particularly beneficial for women who have traditionally received less education than men. Lowering the barriers facing female entrepreneurs would also bolster growth and make it more socially inclusive.

It has taken women decades to raise their voices. We have to ensure these voices continue to be heard in order to make the world a better place.