Women inclusion in the context of multilateral trade agreements: The Nigerian experience

Abstract

In 2017, Nigeria, a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), signed the agreement on ‘Gender and Trade’. The main focus of the agreement is ‘inclusive trade and gender equality’. Similarly in July 2019, Nigeria signed the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA). The main objective is to remove tariffs on 90% of goods, thereby encouraging more intra-regional trade across the African continent. In 2020, a World Bank report on women and trade argues for the positive and negative effects of trade, trade agreements, and trade policies on women. Women in developing countries including Nigeria are said to make up 33% of the total workforce of exporting firms. Based on the World Bank report, there are concerns that AfCFTA may facilitate competitive pressures on labor and capital markets which tend to discriminate against women due to lack of capacity. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the direct and indirect effects of exports on women’s social inclusion in the period before and after 2017. Utilizing the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) with a policy shift period of 2017, in the short-run, results reveal that, increases in all exports, majorly, have positive and significant indirect effects on women inclusion that is more prominent in female primary school enrollment rate. In the long run, increases in manufactured and agriculture exports had positive and significant indirect effects on women inclusion through female primary school enrollment. The study recommended among others the targeting of parents or guardians of children in primary schools for some trade incentives or employment in the export sector. Women’s participation in agriculture should be encouraged through access to high quality inputs and provision of gender-focused training in their application. Revamping of the food export sector and improved investment in human capital development; mainly health and education with a special focus on the female folk in order to enhance women inclusion are advocated.