A new report on the trade among East African Community members has called for policies that address gender inequality and ensures that women fully benefit from international trade.

It suggested a regional credit mechanism should be established to support women entrepreneurs across the economic bloc, since existing country-level mechanisms have proved insufficient and not uniform.

The report titled: “East African Community Regional Integration: Trade and Gender Implication,” indicated that in East Africa, women are predominantly self-employed or are contributing family workers, which constrains their mobility and limits their access to market resources and information.

It said women in South Sudan, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda also shoulder a higher share of unpaid care work compared to men, and this impact on their employment and quality of life.

It further called for practical solutions to challenges that affect women entrepreneurs who trade across borders in East Africa.

South Sudan officially joined the East African Community economic bloc in 2016.

However, South Sudan exports nothing to the region, with women engaged in minimal income generating activities.

According to reports by various NGOs, South Sudanese women engaged in micro-economic activities such as selling vegetables, and other foodstuffs at stalls within the country.

The UN Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, recommended the establishment of a regional platform to exchange best practices among EAC member countries as well as a uniform monitoring tool to check the implementation of the 2017 EAC Gender Equality and Development Bill.

“This new analysis is another UNCTAD contribution to the debate on how we, together, can make trade policy more gender-sensitive, and pave the way for more inclusive prosperity that leaves no one behind,” UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said.

The bill emphasizes on overall trade openness to women’s employment among the 150 million people of the East African Community.

Some of the recommendations also include facilitating education, employment, and access to resources for women.

It additionally called for special attention to unpaid care and domestic work burden, decision-making, gender policy at the national and regional level, and gender mainstreaming in trade policy.

UNCTAD urged the region to also put in place skill development programs that enable women work in higher-value-added sectors.