Gender and Development Forum at UNCTAD XV

The inaugural Gender & Development Forum hosted by the University of the West Indies and Government of Barbados held from 26-28 September 2021, prior to the Fifteenth Session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD 15) held in Bridgetown, Barbados from 3-7 October 2021, involved keynotes, panels, roundtables, documentaries, and more centering feminist perspectives on gender, trade, and development and considering development approaches that will move us closer to achieving gender justice, environmental sustainability, and economic equity.

The GTC's successful organizing and advocacy in and around UNCTAD 15 included:

a. Engaging in negotiations around the UNCTAD mandate, the Bridgetown Covenant, by undertaking a thorough analysis of the 17 September draft and producing a collective statement entitled 'Gender Justice Requires a Broad Mandate for UNCTAD', which was delivered directly to 600 negotiators during the negotiations process to finalize the Covenant.

b. Shaping and participating in the Gender & Development Forum with three GTC members– Regions Refocus, Third World Network-Africa, and Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era– serving on the Planning and Consultative Committee thereby:

• Shaping the Forum’s concept note and agenda to amplify critiques of the macroeconomic, trade, and development orthodoxy, and contributing to the drafting of the Forum’s Bridgetown Declaration; and
• Facilitating the engagement of allies across the global South including their inputs into the Forum agenda and as speakers across the three days of Forum activities.

c. Serving on the International Civil Society Facilitation Group for the Civil Society Forum, hosted by the Caribbean Policy Development Centre thereby:

• Facilitating the Group’s selection process, ensuring it was 67% South-based and 67% women; contributed to the program to ensure feminist voices across each of the substantive sessions; and
• Securing a section on ‘building a feminist economy and the social value of care’ in the Civil Society Declaration, which was presented to the incoming Secretary General and to member states at the closing plenary of UNCTAD 15.