The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) yesterday launched the SheTrades Caribbean Hub at an inaugural regional symposium event held at its Barbados head office.

She Trades, a global initiative and a flagship programme of the United Nations and World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) International Trade Centre (ITC) seeks to connect women entrepreneurs to international markets as it also builds a stronger trade network for them across the region. The initiative first launched in 2015 aimed to connect three million women entrepreneurs to international markets by 2021.

The ICT and CDB through their latest collaboration, which came as a result of discussions between both entities during the AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum in 2022, has moved to strengthen the focus on creating new market opportunities for women entrepreneurs as they build upon the region’s strong track record regarding women’s participation in the economy.

SheTrades which targets all stakeholders across the trade and business ecosystem, will create the right conditions and capacities for every woman, everywhere, to realise their full economic potential. According to the CDB the latest iteration will provide women entrepreneurs in the region with access to key knowledge, resources, and networks as it supports policymakers on inclusive reforms and leverages public and private partnerships to amplify the impact and work of both the CDB and ITC.

President of the CDB Dr Gene Leon speaking at the launch event on Tuesday shared among the main objectives of the hub, a plan to target and provide support to approximately 2000 women owned/ women-led MSMEs through the She Trades platform by 2025.

‘The bank has engaged a project team that has been working since February of this year on the operationalisation of the hub, therefore the plan is to immediately after the signing begin to share the agenda we are developing to support women through the hub. CDB is committed to and continues to create and support the development of innovative, dynamic and accessible products and programmes to enhance MSME competitiveness through the lens of social and gender equity. Together let us forge a path towards social justice characters used by the empowerment of women entrepreneurs and a future where opportunities abound for all,” Leon said, while championing the partnership as a new exciting and exceedingly important initiative geared towards transforming of lives of people across the region.

Expressing similar sentiments ICT executive director Pamela Coke-Hamilton welcomed the partnership lauding the initiative as a paradigm shift for female empowerment.

Highlighting the fact that women regionally tends to mainly occupy the roles of managers than owners, she said the launch of the hub will help to change this while fast tracking the realisation of the United Nation’s sustainable development goal (SDG) 5 which seeks to achieve gender equality and to empower all women and girls.

“We’re really happy about this launch and are looking forward to moving it the next level. The CDB’s effort to put women entrepreneurs in the spotlight is exactly the kind of change we need and its clear that trade and gender which was once a topic most would consider a lesser area of focus has now become central in Caribbean discourse. I’m optimistic as I believe that She Trades Hub is a central part of this and we need to use it as one of the mechanisms to drive the SDG agenda to hopefully get much further than we previously did. The CDB in providing funding and serving as a host for the She Trades regional hub in the Caribbean over the next two years will help to make this a reality,” Coke-Hamilton said.

“This hub will be a catalyst for greater participation of women led businesses in the Caribbean region in international trade. It will help them to grow their businesses, connect to market and become more competitive in an often precarious and shifting landscape. The hub is not only made up of one institution but instead revolves around a devoted community of partners which includes government, private sector and financial institutions. The She Trades regional hub in the Caribbean will surely create nee networks, provide new lessons and open new doors for women in trade in the region and beyond. We’re looking at having a She Trades Global, hopefully early next year. We will be having a huge She Trades global on the margins of the WTO’s 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in February and we hope to have representation from the She Trades Caribbean hub and all the others across the world,” she added.

Other speakers who addressed participants at the launch event were CDB’S newly installed director of projects Therese Turner-Jones, Dr Didacus Jules, director general of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Commission; Dr Michelle Kristy, ITC Global SheTrades co-ordinator; Lizra Fabien, Caribbean project manager for the Organization of American States (OAS) Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Project; Deodat Maharaj, executive director of the Caribbean Export Development Agency and Ambassador Gail Mathurin, retired trade diplomat.

At the inaugural meeting, the bank commenced its direct engagement of Caribbean women who lead or own businesses, creating for them new avenues for global networking and trade opportunities through the platform.

The roll-out and support of this initiative by the CDB comes in the wake of similar female driven products being developed and launched by other financial institutions for women across the Caribbean.

Locally, Scotia through its Scotiabank Women’s Initiative (SWI), has since a formal launch last year, said it has sought to break down barriers to increase economic and professional opportunities for women, providing equal access to capital and tailored solutions for women-owned and women-led businesses.

Similarly, regional financial conglomerate, the JMMB Group through its resource centre recently launched a six-month programme titled ‘PowHerful Women in Business’, to support women-led and female-owned businesses operating in Jamaica and Trinidad.

The She Trades Caribbean Hub now operational will in a similar fashion move to unlock business and investment opportunities for women-led businesses as it strengthens the region’s business support ecosystem to promote greater female participation in intra-regional trade.

“We are excited to operationalise the SheTrades Caribbean Hub! CDB looks forward to facilitating increased access to training, coaching, mentoring, networking, investment, and export opportunities for women-owned MSMEs in the Bank’s 19 Borrowing Member Countries. The SheTrades Symposium is indicative of our commitment to bolster the economic capacity of women entrepreneurs,” CDB Private Sector Division Acting Head Lisa Harding had said ahead of the launch.