A gender-responsive trade policy can lift obstacles faced by women in trade through, for instance, financial and non-financial incentives, or by providing access to trade-related infrastructure, especially in rural areas. Trade policies can create new opportunities for women entrepreneurs and female farmers, and for women to enter the workforce, in export sectors. In light of these opportunities, the chapter seeks to explore how capabilities for women can be expanded and enforced in global trade. Among other things, the research will delve into the ability of trade agreements to contribute to gender equality. Specifically, the chapter analyses these issues from the institutional aspect of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its role in designing gender-inclusive trade policies and monitoring such policies through the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM).

The preceding chapters captured the activities of the WTO that generate headlines – the biennial meetings of trade ministers. Those events are graded by whether the ministers are able to reach agreement or fail to do so. There is much more to the WTO – much that is important but not well-known other than to officials from member countries. The chapter is designed to show what the WTO does on a regular basis, by putting the reader into WTO meetings, vicariously.

Inadequate consideration was given by the founders of the WTO to the institutions that would be needed to govern the rules-based trading system that they were seeking to create. This chapter introduces a WTO Reform Quartet, proposals for WTO reform to make the rule-making, adjudication, and executive functions of the WTO more effective, including providing for the gathering of trade intelligence.