Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment Through Economic Diplomacy: The Case of the Arab Gulf’s Free Trade Agreements

Abstract

This empirical qualitative research explores the texts of 14 free trade agreements (FTAs) concluded by Arab Gulf countries individually or as block. The objective is to evaluate if these documents are gender-responsive using an internationally recognised framework that qualitatively measures if the agreements are used effectively as a tool to economically empower women. We find that although most of the agreements contain some gender provisions, gender mainstreaming remains limited to encouraging women-owned and women-led small and medium enterprises. This makes them at best limitedly responsive to addressing the gender inequalities that women in export-engaged businesses face. The conclusion outlines the areas for potential improvements in the dozens of agreements currently negotiated by Gulf economic diplomats.

1. Introduction

Over the past two decades, economic diversification and trade liberalisation efforts have taken shape across the Arab Gulf region to reduce these states’ reliance on oil and gas and ensure that their economies remain competitive. To do so, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have adopted long-run national strategies and actively use their economic diplomacy tools to achieve their objectives. Among those tools, concluding free trade agreements (FTAs) is among those most susceptible to promote inclusive and diversified economic growth.

The GCC economies have explored the possibility to sign such preferential agreements as a bloc to boost their non-hydrocarbon economies, attract investments and tourists, and take advantage of their geostrategic location as a middle point between Asia, Africa and Europe. The negotiations have, however, been slow and mostly unsuccessful, prompting individual countries to consider signing bilateral deals instead. Bahrain was the first to sign an individual FTA, concluding an agreement with the United States in 2004, followed by Oman. More recently, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) launched a series of negotiations of Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (CEPAs).

The 2017 Buenos Aires Declaration on Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment indicates that the inclusion of gender provisions in trade agreements promotes women’s empowerment across various economic sectors (World Trade Organisation, 2017). The UAE is the only one to have endorsed this declaration among the GCC states and has also achieved leadership position regionally on several gender equality indicators. However, women remain underrepresented in the private sector and female labour force participation remains lower than the rest of the world both in the UAE and in the remaining GCC members, even though all of them have adopted measures for and have continuously committed to women’s economic empowerment through various initiatives. Thus, trade agreements become an important avenue to further promote women’s economic empowerment. As such, this paper examines whether women economic empowerment also extends to and is reflected in one of the GCC countries’ main economic diplomacy tools—trade agreements.

To achieve this, the empirical paper explores the texts of the first nine CEPAs ratified by the UAE between 2022 and 2025, in addition to the FTAs signed by Bahrain and the USA in 2004 and by Oman and the USA in 2009, the Greater Arab Free Trade Agreement (GAFTA) from 1981, the FTA signed between the GCC bloc and Singapore (GSFTA) in 2008 and the FTA between the GCC and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) signed in 2009. It uses an internationally recognised framework to qualitatively analyse if those agreements are used effectively as a tool to economically empower women.

The paper finds that the first nine UAE CEPAs with India, Israel, Indonesia, Türkiye, Cambodia, Georgia, Mauritius, Costa Rica and Serbia, which have already come into force, and the US–Bahrain FTA contain gender provisions in their texts, signalling a commitment to gender inclusion. Nonetheless, gender mainstreaming in those documents remains limited to encouraging women-owned and women-led small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and, except for the UAE–Cambodia CEPAs, have limited responsiveness when it comes to addressing the gender imbalances and inequalities that women in business face. There is an opportunity available to address this situation positively. With CEPAs negotiated currently with over 15 countries and country groups, the UAE can still ensure its commitment to gender equality and women’s economic empowerment both at the domestic and global levels is included across all its bilateral economic deals.

When it comes to the GCC-wide FTAs and the US–Oman FTA, their responsiveness to gender issues is severely limited, indicating that the topic of women’s economic empowerment has not been placed high on the GCC trade agenda so far. Hence, there is place for the UAE and Bahrain to take the lead within the bloc in this domain, making sure that any future GCC-wide FTAs incorporate gender-responsive provisions. This is of a particular relevance given the revived discussions geared towards completing the long-awaited GCC-United Kingdom (UK) and GCC-European Union (EU) FTAs.

The first section of this paper provides the background on FTAs as tools of economic diplomacy in the GCC and looks at the academic literature on the general nexus between trade and gender equality. The second section explores the best practices in gender provisions in FTAs internationally. The third section zooms in on the GCC states and analyses the texts and supporting documents of the first UAE CEPAs and of the agreements concluded by the GCC as a bloc and by Bahrain and Oman with the United States. The paper then measures the gender responsiveness of each deal across 10 key metrics to try and gauge each agreement’s level of responsiveness towards gender issues. The paper concludes by policy recommendations which could ensure that women as employees and entrepreneurs remain an important cornerstone of Gulf countries’ economic diplomacy and economic diversification efforts.

2. Literature Review and Background

This section starts by exploring the trade policy–gender nexus broadly before moving on to consider the specific economic diplomacy and gender-related developments of the GCC economies.

2.1. The Trade Policy and Gender Nexus

Gender inequality is recognised as a significant challenge to economic development, and achieving economic empowerment for women has become a cornerstone of sustainable development, as recognised by Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 on Gender Equality (see Alesina & Rodrick, 1994; Hausmann et al., 2010). Women’s participation in trade provides openness and sustainability for economic growth. Economies with better opportunities for women are more competitive (International Trade Centre (ITC), 2015) and women’s economic empowerment has a positive spillover effect on society, leading to better female literacy rates, lower maternal mortality and increased well-being of women and children.

Despite the positive correlations between women’s economic empowerment and economic growth, women globally still face a variety of barriers in trade and commerce that prevent female entrepreneurs from internationalising. Around the world, there exist cultural and regulatory biases, such as the legal limitations on women’s right to work, to own assets or to inherit them. Further, there are the maternity-related obstacles (lack of paid maternity leave), employment restrictions, lack of access to capital and productive resources, skills mismatch and inadequate market information and business networks (International Trade Centre (ITC), 2015).

Trade liberalisation can thus be a powerful force towards closing gender gaps by providing new opportunities for women’s empowerment through opening new markets for their products and through providing formal employment to many women (UNCTAD, 2017). Nevertheless, Karam and Zaki (2024) underscore the possibility for trade openness to have a double-edged effect with gains for women as consumers, employees or entrepreneurs in export-oriented sectors, but also possibly with losses for women whose businesses are not able to compete internationally because of lack of finance or networks.

As such, it is important for governments to include gender-related provisions in FTAs to ensure that trade policy would be a strategy that increases women’s economic participation and in which positive spillovers dominate. Countries that have endorsed the Buenos Aires Declaration (World Trade Organisation, 2017)—like the UAE—are bound to ensure, when negotiating and signing a trade agreement, that participation of women in trade increases. The Declaration aims to remove barriers faced by women in entering the global marketplace and trade agreements are a key avenue for ensuring that women are not left behind.

Seen in this light, FTAs and CEPAs can be a catalyst by ensuring the inclusion of women across all the economic sectors that the deals cover. Indeed, Karam and Zaki (2024) find that the number of FTAs signed by a given country and the number of gender-related provisions in them are positively associated with women’s economic and leadership empowerment.

The gender-responsiveness of any FTA depends on a multitude of factors, including the explicit or implicit mention of gender issues within the texts of the agreements, the frequency and place of those references, the type of gender provisions and their designated areas, the creation of institutions to monitor the implementation of such provisions, the funding of such institutions, and the mechanisms for dispute settlements around gender issues, among others.

FTAs have a rather long tradition of including ‘non-trade concerns’ in the text of the agreements, such as labour non-discrimination, fair trade, corporate social responsibility, human rights, rights of vulnerable people, and environmental protection. Gender equality and women’s economic empowerment are included in most FTAs implicitly as reference to some of those non-trade concerns mentioned above (Chi & Yin, 2024). However, explicit text in trade agreements addressing the issue of gender equality can increase government commitments and provide an avenue for civil society and citizens to hold the government responsible for gender-equality in their implementation (Luke, 2019). The 1957 Treaty of Rome that established the European Economic Community included the very first explicit gender-related article in a free trade agreement and it required all member states to guarantee equal pay for women and men. References to women and gender can be made either directly in the FTA document (such as in the preamble, in a non-specific article, or in a specific article or chapter), in a side document (side letter, joint statement, memorandum, or protocol) or in a post-FTA document (a joint declaration, directive, resolution or another agreement).

After analysing 560 FTAs, of which 298 had entered into force and were notified to the WTO, Monteiro (2018) made two important observations. First, the inclusion of gender-related provisions is not a recent phenomenon, with some provisions dating to pre-1990. Implicit gender provisions are way more common than explicit ones, with 243 agreements incorporating them and only 78 FTAs having explicit provisions as of 2019. Second, while most agreements have between 1 and 10 gender-related provisions, some recent (post-2016) particularly North–North agreements have more than 30 provisions, significantly expanding the scope of gender issues covered.

As displayed in Figure 1, gender-related provisions do not follow a specific and unique template, but most share at least one common type—the one related to cooperation, more specifically on gender-based labour non-discrimination which is found in approximately 55% of trade agreements. Access to education and skills are the second most common area of cooperation found in 35% of trade agreements while the cultural, economic, political, and social development provisions are found in approximately 25% of trade agreements.

In addition, a comparative international study identified notable variations in the incidence of gender-responsiveness in agreements across various continents (Bahri, 2021). As illustrated in

Table 1. Gender Mainstreaming in Trade Agreements Across Continents.

Region/Continent	# of Mentions	Scope	Coverage	Format
European Union	160	Commitments to act, acknowledgements and reaffirmations	Equality, non-discrimination, education, skill development, health and safety, maternal care	Mix of binding and non-binding commitments; in main text and annex
North America	148	Reaffirmations and cooperation-based provisions	Labour concerns, resource access, market and technology, participation in economic growth	Mostly non-binding commitments, in main text and annex, side agreements and preamble
Africa	101	Commitments to act, reaffirmations	Access to resources, entrepreneurship, representation in decision-making positions	Mix of binding and non-binding commitments, in main text, annex, complementary instruments
South America	87	Reaffirmations and cooperation-based provisions	Labour, market access, resource access, women’s role in growth and development, childcare	Mostly non-binding commitments, in main text and annex
Asia–Pacific	66	Right to regulate provisions; reservations	Healthcare, nutrition, child care, maternity and women’s safety	Mostly binding commitments, in main text and annex

Source: Adapted from Bahri (2021).

, the European Union is leading in the field, with 78% of its trade agreements being gender-responsive, while for North America the share is 38%, 32% for Africa, 20% for South America and only 14% for Asia Pacific. These regional differences can be considered when GCC countries are pursuing FTAs individually or as a block with countries from different parts of the world, and they can seek the leadership role in mainstreaming gender in trade agreements in the Asia–Pacific region at large, which seems to be lagging.

A recent example of a commitment to address gender equality in a free trade agreement can be found in the Canada–Chile Free Trade Agreement. While adopted in 1997, the agreement was amended during the 2017–2019 period to create a more open, inclusive, and progressive rules-based trading environment that includes women. The modernisation included the creation of a new Trade and Gender Chapter, a first for Canada’s free trade agreements and a blueprint for mainstreaming gender issues in FTAs.

2.2. GCC Economic Diplomacy and Economic Gender Empowerment Efforts

Saner and Yiu (2002) define economic diplomacy as the use of economic resources—incentives, soft power or sanctions—to achieve specific foreign policy goals. Hence, they define the mission of the postmodern economic diplomats as encompassing the negotiation of the global economic governance architecture (within the International Monetary Fund or the Bank for International Settlements, for example), the setting of standards at multilateral organisations (at the World Trade Organisation or the World Bank, for example), the management of multi-stakeholder economic coalitions and alliances (like the BRICS, the ASEAN free trade area or bilateral and plurilateral FTAs), and the shaping of socio-economic and ecological development policies.

A free trade agreement is a commitment by signatory members to remove tariffs across member states while continuing to maintain independent tariff regimes on imports from countries that are not part of the agreement. While FTAs can have both positive and negative effects making them a “second-best” option, when the “first-best” option of multilateral liberalisation within the framework of the WTO is stalled, they provide an alternative vehicle for open trade policy and positive economic diplomacy (Plummer et al., 2010).

This research explores the interaction between two of the objectives of economic diplomacy, namely the management of FTAs and the achievement of one of the socio-economic objectives: women’s economic empowerment.

Since its creation in 1981, the Gulf Cooperation Council has made significant efforts in the economic integration of its six member states. Furthermore, it has sought trade integration with its neighbouring Arab countries and with many other advanced and emerging partners (

Table 2. List of GCC FTA Negotiations.

Country/Group	Date	Status of Negotiations
European Union	1991	Suspended in 2008
Arab countries	March 2001	GAFTA signed in 2005
EFTA	February 2006	Agreement signed in June 2009
Mercosur	October 2006	Meetings held, pending
Japan	1987	Six rounds completed, pending
Lebanon	n/a	Agreement signed in 2004
Syria	n/a	Initial agreement signed, final form pending
Pakistan	August 2004	Preliminary signature in September 2023
India	August 2004	Two rounds completed, pending
China	April 2005	Last round held in 2009, negotiations September 2024
Türkiye	May 2005	Four rounds completed, negotiations resumed in 2024
New Zealand	December 2006	Several rounds completed, initial agreement signed in October 2009, final form pending with negotiations concluded in October 2024
Singapore	January 2007	Agreement signed in December 2008
South Korea	May 2007	Two rounds completed, negotiations concluded in December 2023
Australia	May 2007	Several rounds completed, pending
Malaysia	February 2011	Preliminary discussions, negotiations resumed in May 2025
UK	June 2022	Signature expected in 2025
Indonesia	September 2024	Negotiations started

Source: Authors’ compilation based on General Secretariat of the Gulf Cooperation Council (2024), United Kingdom Department for Business and Trade (2024) and Vanhee (2024). Arab countries here include the GCC member states, Sudan, Algeria, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunis, Libya, Iraq, Morocco, Jordan and Yemen. The EFTA members are Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. The Mercosur members are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Suriname are associated members.

). Unfortunately, most of those agreements have been suspended after several rounds of negotiations because of disagreements on various issues. The only agreements in effect as of 2025 are the Greater Arab Free Trade Agreement, and the free trade areas with the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) and Singapore. The agreement signed with Lebanon in 2004 was superseded by the GAFTA a year later.

Given the very low success rate of FTA negotiations at the GCC bloc level and given the very limited trade liberalisation progress within the WTO framework in the past decade, individual GCC countries have considered negotiating bilateral deals instead. Bahrain and Oman were the first to sign bilateral free trade agreements with the United States, in 2004 and 2009, respectively.

More recently, the UAE launched a series of negotiations for Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements. Since 2022, it has concluded, signed and ratified ten of them (

Table 3. List of UAE Signed and Ratified CEPAs (as of July 2025).

Country	Date Signed	Date Entered into Force
India	18 February 2022	1 May 2022
Israel	31 May 2022	1 April 2023
Indonesia	1 July 2022	1 September 2023
Türkiye	3 March 2023	1 September 2023
Cambodia	8 June 2023	25 January 2024
Georgia	10 October 2023	27 June 2024
Costa Rica	17 April 2024	1 April 2025
Mauritius	22 July 2024	1 April 2025
Jordan	6 October 2024	15 May 2025
Serbia	5 October 2024	1 June 2025

Source: UAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism (2025).

). While not labelled free trade agreements, CEPAs have come to encompass similar goals such as removing or lowering barriers to trade, enhancing market access, and simplifying customs procedures to boost the UAE’s economy and solidify its position as the Gulf region’s leading trade hub. In addition to the ten CEPAs that were already ratified, as illustrated in Figure 2, the UAE is currently negotiating CEPAs with over fifteen other countries and country groups.

CEPAs, much like FTAs, have the potential to boost a country’s economy significantly. For instance, trade between the UAE and India grew by 10% in the first year after signing a CEPA with the volume of non-oil trade increasing as well (The National, 2023). In addition, the UAE expects that the agreements it signed with India, Indonesia, and Israel would expand its economy by 2.6% by 2030 (The National, 2022). Taken together, all CEPAs are projected to increase UAE exports by 33% and add $42 billion to the country’s GDP by 2031 (Gulf Time, 2023). As such, CEPAs constitute a core element of the UAE’s economic diplomacy strategy and play a vital role in the country’s economic development efforts geared towards doubling the GDP by 2031 through enhanced non-oil exports and tourism, among other sectors (Arab News, 2022).

When we try to relate the Gulf region’s economic development with its women’s economic empowerment efforts, we find that it has made solid strides to empower women in the private sector and to ensure their equal participation and treatment in the workforce. For instance, in the UAE, a 2021 law requires that every listed company in the country appoints at least one woman to its board of directors to ensure that gender equality is reflected at the highest echelons (Reuters, 2021). The UAE also prides itself on having the highest number of women on the 2023 Forbes Middle East list of the “100 Most Powerful Arab Businesswomen”, with a total of 15 women in the ranking and two Emirati women in the top five (Forbes Middle East, 2023). However, when it comes to ownership, women in the UAE constitute approximately only 10% of business owners in the private sector (United Arab Emirates Embassy (Washington, D.C.), n.d.). There was a noticeable increase in the number of women working in the private sector in 2023 (Arabian Business, 2024), yet progress is slow. The inclusion of women-specific provisions in the CEPAs that are currently being negotiated could help tilt the balance and ensure greater representation.

At the national level, the UAE recognises the importance of incorporating a gender perspective in its development policies, programmes, and practices. The National Strategy for Empowerment of Emirati Women provides a framework for the government, private sector, and civil society organisations to work on the following priorities: maintaining the sustainability of Emirati women’s achievements and continue achieving further gains; maintaining the social fabric and cohesion through integrating the roles between men and women to build a strong and cohesive society that could cope with emerging changes; providing a decent and safe social welfare based on high quality foundations for women; and developing the spirit of responsibility and strengthening the position of the UAE’s women in regional and international for a (UAE Government Portal, 2024a).

In 2018, the UAE adopted a Law on Equal Wages and Salaries for Men and Women, which is part of the Strategy for the Empowerment of Emirati Women and complements Article 4 of the UAE Labour Law that already provides female workers with equal wage to that of male workers (Emirates News Agency (WAM), 2018). Maternity leave is guaranteed under Article 30 of the Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations in the Private Sector of the ‘UAE Labour Law’.

Furthermore, the UAE has a National Platform for Gender Balance and a Gender Balance Council (GBC), whose 2026 Strategy incorporates four strategic pillars, the first of which relates to the economic participation, entrepreneurship, and financial inclusion of women to close the economic gender gap, increase women’s participation, retention, and leadership in the UAE economy, as well as enhance women’s literacy and presence in entrepreneurial sectors (UAE Government Portal, 2024c). That goal positions the GBC as a strategic partner that could advise on streamlining gender provisions within the texts and applications of CEPAs.

In a similar vein, Bahrain also established the Supreme Council for Women (SCW) in 2001 and the Gender Balance Centre (a subsidiary of the SCW) to promote equal opportunities for women in the public and private sectors (Supreme Council for Women, n.d.). In addition, Saudi Arabia has also made solid advancements to empower women. Vision 2030 prioritises gender equality and explicitly makes references to boosting women’s presence in the labour force, by increasing women’s participation rate to 30% by 2030 (Saudi Vision 2030, 2023).

Kuwait’s Vision 2035, Bahrain’s Economic Vision 2030, Oman’s Vision 2040, and Qatar’s Vision 2030 echo similar commitments and recognise the importance of having a balanced workforce where women take on leadership roles (Gulf Research Center, 2023). While the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region scores the lowest on the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Gender Gap Report, GCC countries have ranked higher than other Arab states and spearheaded reforms to improve women’s economic opportunities, political participation and educational attainment. The UAE takes the lead (ranked 74th), followed by Bahrain (116th position), Saudi Arabia (126th), Qatar (130th), Bahrain (131st) and Oman (136th) (World Economic Forum, 2024).

With these reforms, the GCC managed to increase the number of women in the labour force although the rates remain lower than the rest of world. According to World Bank statistics, in 2023, female labour force participation in Kuwait reached 25%, 22.6% in Saudi Arabia, 21.8% in Bahrain, 18.5% in the UAE, 17.1% in Qatar, and 16.7% in Oman. As such, integrating provisions related to women’s economic empowerment in trade agreements would enable women’s increased participation in both national output and exports.

3. Methodology

Our research aims to address the following question: Is Gulf economic diplomacy used to promote women’s economic empowerment? To that effect, it explores the following two sub-questions:

Are Arab Gulf FTAs gender-responsive?

What are the main gaps and how can they be addressed to strengthen this gender-responsiveness?

From a methodological perspective, we proceeded in two steps. First, we explored the core, the annexes, the side documents and the handbooks published for each agreement (excluding the customs’ product schedules1) for gender-related terms and provisions. We conducted a search for any of the following terms: gender, woman/women, female, girl, sex, mother, maternity and refer to them as gender-related terms. The full texts of all bloc-level and individual FTAs and CEPAs signed and ratified are available online for analysis. Their references are provided in the annex.

The relevant excerpts are presented in

Table 4. Gender Provisions in Gulf Countries’ Free Trade Agreements and Their Supporting Documents.

Agreement	Agreement Provisions	Handbook Provisions
UAE-India Signed 18 February 2022 Entered into force 1 May 2022	CHAPTER 13: MICRO, SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES Article 13.2: Cooperation to Increase Trade and Investment Opportunities for SMEs With a view to more robust cooperation between the Parties to enhance commercial opportunities for SMEs, each Party shall seek to increase trade and investment opportunities, and in particular shall: […] (b) strengthen collaboration with the other Party on activities to promote SMEs owned by women and youth, as well as start-ups, and promote partnerships among these SMEs and their participation in international trade; […] ARTICLE 13.4 Committee on SME Issues 1. The Parties shall establish the Committee on SME Issues (SME Committee) comprising representatives of each Party. 2. The SME Committee shall: […] (l) facilitate the exchange of information on entrepreneurship education and awareness programs for youth and women to promote the entrepreneurial environment in the territories of the Parties; […]	n/a
UAE-Israel Signed 31 May 2022 Ratified 1 April 2023	CHAPTER 13: SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES Article 13.2: Cooperation to Increase Trade and Investment Opportunities for SMEs With a view to more robust cooperation between the Parties to enhance commercial opportunities for SMEs, the Parties may: […] (b) collaborate on activities to promote SMEs owned by women and their participation in international trade […]	Strengthens cooperation to enhance commercial opportunities for SMEs by: ▷ Encouraging collaboration on activities to promote women-owned SMEs and their participation in international trade
UAE-Indonesia Signed 1 July 2022 Ratified 1 September 2023	CHAPTER 13: SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES Article 13.2: Cooperation 1. The Parties shall strengthen their cooperation under this Chapter, which may include: […] (b) strengthening their collaboration on activities to promote SMEs owned by women and youth, as well as start-ups, and […]	Strengthens cooperation between dedicated SMEs centres, incubators and accelerators, export assistance centres, SMEs owned by youth and women and start-ups
UAE-Türkiye Signed 3 March 2023 Ratified 1 September 2023	CHAPTER 13: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SECTION 13-B: COOPERATION ARTICLE 13.8: Cooperation Activities and Initiatives The Parties shall endeavour to cooperate on the subject matter covered by this Chapter, such as through appropriate coordination, training and exchange of information between their respective intellectual property offices, or other institutions, as determined by each Party. Cooperation activities and initiatives undertaken under this Chapter shall be subject to the availability of resources, upon request, and on terms and conditions mutually agreed upon between the Parties. Cooperation may cover areas such as: [….] (d) intellectual property issues relevant to: […] and (iv) empowering women and youth; CHAPTER 15: SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES ARTICLE 15.2: Cooperation to Increase Trade and Investment Opportunities for SMEs With a view to more robust cooperation between the Parties to enhance commercial opportunities for SMEs, each Party shall seek to increase trade and investment opportunities, and in particular shall: […] (b) strengthen its collaboration with the other Party on activities to promote SMEs owned by women and youth, as well as start-ups, and promote partnership among these SMEs and their participation in international trade […]	Strengthens cooperation to enhance commercial opportunities for SMEs by: ▷ Encouraging collaboration on activities to promote women-owned SMEs and their participation in international trade
UAE-Cambodia Signed 8 June 2023 Ratified 25 January 2024	CHAPTER 10: INVESTMENT ARTICLE 10.4: Responsible Business Conduct 3: Each Party recognises the importance of Investors and enterprises implementing due diligence in order to identify and address adverse impacts, such as on the environment and labour conditions, in their operations, their supply chains and other business relationships. […] ARTICLE 10.5. Non-derogation of Health, Safety and Environmental Measures 3: The parties reaffirm the right of each Party to regulate within its territory to achieve legitimate policy objectives, such as with respect to the protection of the environment and addressing climate change; social or consumer protection; or the promotion and protection of health, safety, gender equality, and cultural diversity. CHAPTER 11: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SECTION B: COOPERATION ARTICLE 11.11: Cooperation Activities and Initiatives The Parties shall endeavour to cooperate on the subject matter covered by this Chapter, such as through appropriate coordination, training and exchange of information between their respective intellectual property offices, or other institutions, as determined by each Party. Cooperation activities and initiatives undertaken under this Chapter shall be subject to the availability of resources, upon request, and on terms and conditions mutually agreed upon between the Parties. Cooperation may cover areas such as: [….] (d) intellectual property issues relevant to: […] (iv) empowering women and youth. CHAPTER 12: SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES ARTICLE 12.2: Cooperation to Increase Trade and Investment Opportunities for SMEs With a view to more robust cooperation between the Parties to Enhance commercial opportunities for SMEs, each Party shall seek to increase trade and investment opportunities, and in particular shall: […] (b) strengthen its collaboration with the other Party on activities to promote SMEs owned by women and youth, as well as start-ups, and promote partnerships among these SMEs and their participation in international trade. ARTICLE 12.4: Sub-Committee on SME Issues 2. The SME Sub-Committee shall: […] (l) facilitate the exchange of information on entrepreneurship education and awareness programs for youth and women to promote entrepreneurial environment in the territories of the Parties;	n/a
UAE-Georgia Signed 10 October 2023 Ratified 27 June 2024	CHAPTER 11: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SECTION B: COOPERATION ARTICLE 11.11: Cooperation Activities and Initiatives The Parties shall endeavour to cooperate on the subject matter covered by this Chapter, such as through appropriate coordination, training and exchange of information between their respective intellectual property offices, or other institutions, as determined by each Party. Cooperation activities and initiatives undertaken under this Chapter shall be subject to the availability of resources, upon request, and on terms and conditions mutually agreed upon between the Parties. Cooperation may cover areas such as: [….] (d) intellectual property issues relevant to: […] (iv) empowering women and youth. CHAPTER 13: SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES ARTICLE 13.2: Cooperation to Increase Trade and Investment Opportunities for SMEs With a view to more robust cooperation between the Parties to Enhance commercial opportunities for SMEs, each Party shall seek to increase trade and investment opportunities, and in particular shall endeavour to: […] (b) strengthen its collaboration with the other Party on activities to promote SMEs owned by women and youth, as well as start-ups, and promote partnerships among these SMEs and their participation in international trade.	Handbook not published.
UAE-Mauritius Signed 17 April 2024 Ratified 1 April 2025	CHAPTER 10: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SECTION B: COOPERATION ARTICLE 10.11: Cooperation Activities and Initiatives The Parties shall endeavour to cooperate on the subject matter covered by this Chapter, such as through appropriate coordination, training and exchange of information between their respective intellectual property offices, or other institutions, as determined by each Party. Cooperation activities and initiatives undertaken under this Chapter shall be subject to the availability of resources, and on request, and on terms and conditions mutually agreed upon between the Parties. Cooperation may cover areas such as: [….] (d) intellectual property issues relevant to: […] (iv) empowering women and youth. CHAPTER 14: SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES ARTICLE 14.2: Cooperation to Increase Trade and Investment Opportunities for SMEs With a view to more robust cooperation between the Parties to enhance commercial opportunities for SMEs, each Party shall seek to increase trade and investment opportunities, and in particular shall: […] (b) strengthen its collaboration with the other Party on activities to promote SMEs owned by women and youth, as well as start-ups, and promote partnerships among these SMEs and their participation in international trade; and […] ARTICLE 14.4: Sub-Committee on SME Issues 2. The SME Sub-Committee shall: […] (l) facilitate the exchange of information on entrepreneurship education and awareness programs for youth and women to promote entrepreneurial environment in the territories of the Parties;	Handbook not published.
UAE-Costa Rica Signed 22 July 2024 Ratified 1 April 2025	CHAPTER 12: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SECTION B: COOPERATION ARTICLE 12.11: Cooperation Activities and Initiatives The Parties shall endeavour to cooperate on the subject matter covered by this Chapter, such as through appropriate coordination, training and exchange of information between their respective intellectual property offices, or other institutions, as determined by each Party. Cooperation activities and initiatives undertaken under this Chapter shall be subject to the availability of resources, and on request, and on terms and conditions mutually agreed upon between the Parties. Cooperation may cover areas such as: [….] (d) intellectual property issues relevant to: […] (iv) empowering women and youth. CHAPTER 13: SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES ARTICLE 13.2: Cooperation to Increase Trade and Investment Opportunities for SMEs With a view to more robust cooperation between the Parties to enhance commercial opportunities for SMEs, each Party shall seek to increase trade and investment opportunities, and in particular shall: […] (b) strengthen its collaboration with the other Party on activities to promote SMEs owned by women and youth, as well as start-ups, and promote partnerships among these SMEs and their participation in international trade; […] ARTICLE 13.4: Sub-Committee on SME Issues 2. The Sub-Committee may consider any matter arising under this Chapter. The functions of the Subcommittee shall include: […] (l) facilitate the exchange of information on entrepreneurship education and awareness programs for youth and women to promote entrepreneurial environment in the territories of the Parties;	Handbook not published.
UAE-Serbia Signed 5 October 2024 Ratified 1 June 2025	CHAPTER 11: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY SECTION B: COOPERATION ARTICLE 11.11: Cooperation Activities and Initiatives The Parties shall endeavour to cooperate on the subject matter covered by this Chapter, such as through appropriate coordination, training and exchange of information between their respective intellectual property offices, or other institutions, as determined by each Party. Cooperation activities and initiatives undertaken under this Chapter shall be subject to the availability of resources, upon request, and on terms and conditions mutually agreed upon between the Parties. Cooperation may cover areas such as: [….] (e) intellectual property issues relevant to: […] (iv) empowering women and youth. CHAPTER 13: SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES ARTICLE 13.2: Cooperation to Increase Trade and Investment Opportunities for SMEs With a view to more robust cooperation between the Parties to enhance commercial opportunities for SMEs, each Party shall seek to increase trade and investment opportunities, and in particular shall: […] (b) strengthen its collaboration with the other Party on activities to promote SMEs owned by women and youth, as well as start-ups, and promote partnerships among these SMEs and their participation in international trade; […] ARTICLE 13.4: Sub-Committee on SME Issues 2. The Sub-Committee shall: […] (l) facilitate the exchange of information on entrepreneurship education and awareness programs for youth and women to promote entrepreneurial environment in the territories of the Parties;	Handbook not published.
GCC (amended) Adopted on 31 December 2001	CHAPTER FIVE: DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES Article 13: Population Strategy Member States shall implement the “General Framework of Population Strategy of the GCC States”, adopt the policies necessary for the development of human resources and their optimal utilization, provision of health care and social services, enhancement of the role of women in development, and the achievement of balance in the demographic structure and labor force to ensure social harmony in Member States, emphasize their Arab and Islamic identity, and maintain their stability and solidarity.	Handbook not published.
GAFTA	n/a	Handbook not published.
GCC-Singapore	n/a	n/a
GCC-EFTA	n/a (Preamble reaffirms the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)	n/a
Bahrain-USA	ANNEX 15-A: LABOR COOPERATION MECHANISM Cooperative Activities Article 4: The Parties may undertake cooperative activities through the Labor Cooperation Mechanism on any labor matter they consider appropriate, including: […] (f) gender-related issues: elimination of discrimination with respect to employment and occupation and other gender-related issues; (Chapter 15 reaffirms the International Labour Organisation’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its Follow-up)	Handbook not published.
Oman-USA	n/a (Chapter 16 reaffirms the International Labour Organisation’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its Follow-up)	Handbook not published.

Source: Authors’ compilation based on the official texts whose sources are listed in the References section.

. This fills a gap in the literature, because the only database that contains information about gender provisions in FTAs—the WTO Regional Trade Agreements Database—only lists the UAE–India CEPA, the UAE–Türkiye CEPA and the US–Bahrain FTA as containing gender provisions among our sample, which is incomplete.

Our reading of the nine UAE CEPAs and the US–Bahrain FTA finds that all the texts contain at least one explicit gender-related provision in the main documents, as per Table 4. All the provisions are listed in a non-gender-specific article, with most making references to women within the chapter on SMEs and on intellectual property rights. Other provisions are also found in a chapter on cooperation activities. They are all listed within the main document and its annexes. No provision is present in the documents’ preambles.

The GCC-wide agreements and the individual bilateral agreement of Oman with the US contain no explicit text pertaining to women-specific arrangements. It is meaningful to note that the US–Oman FTA was signed after the US–Bahrain one, that it follows a similar template and has a similar annex on labour cooperation but does not mention cooperative activities specifically on gender issues. In the same vein, several CEPAs were signed after the UAE–Cambodia CEPA, but it was not used as their blueprint.

As side documents to the official texts of the agreements, the UAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism has published non-technical handbooks presenting the main provisions and benefits of the CEPAs and the GCC-wide FTAs, addressed to the domestic business community. Even though the UAE–Cambodia CEPA came out as the most gender-responsive of all analysed in this paper (see Table 4), its handbook counter-intuitively does not feature any of the women-related provisions from the original CEPA document. The handbooks for the GCC-wide agreements do not have any gender-related mentions either. No such handbooks are available for the US–Bahrain and US–Oman FTAs, and the handbooks for the UAE CEPAs with Serbia, Costa Rica, Mauritius and Georgia have not been published yet.

While several CEPAs mention entrepreneurship education for women, which is one of the ways to demonstrate specific commitment to removing gender-based barriers to trade and providing access to resources for women, they do not explicitly focus on fields that can translate to high-paid job opportunities, such as STEM and ICT. Nonetheless, entrepreneurship education goes beyond traditional education and skill development in farming fisheries, textiles, teaching, nursing, or handloom, for example.

In addition, the UAE CEPAs with India, Cambodia, Mauritius, Costa Rica and Serbia are the only ones to create a specialised (sub)committee to monitor the implementation or operation of provisions that include gender concerns among other areas—the (sub)committee on SME issues. Besides having clearly defined role and functions, and having scheduled annual meetings, those (sub)committees are directly in charge of one of the gender-based provisions of the agreement, namely facilitating “the exchange of information on entrepreneurship education and awareness programmes for youth and women to promote the entrepreneurial environment in the territories of the Parties”.

As illustrated in Table 4, references to women in our sample are found mostly in the chapters on SMEs, Cooperation Activities and Intellectual Property Rights, which is in contrast with many other international agreements, for which our literature review identified that most provisions are found in gender-based labour non-discrimination sections. In addition, except for the UAE–Israel CEPA and the US–Bahrain FTA, the agreements lump together most gender-related provisions with those relating to youth in the texts of the agreements. As such, references to women-led SMEs appear in the same article and sentence as youth-led SMEs. Gender provisions are, therefore, not exclusive in the texts of most CEPAs.

The UAE–Cambodia CEPA stands out by mentioning gender issues explicitly in three separate chapters, and exclusively for our sample—in the Investment chapter. It is also the only agreement in our sample to contain provisions regarding corporate social responsibility, although they do not explicitly mention gender terms.

Second, to qualitatively measure the gender responsiveness of the GCC FTAs, the Bahrain and Oman FTAs with the US, and the UAE’s CEPAs, we apply the International Trade Centre (ITC) framework which measures each trade agreement using 10 dimensions related to gender equality. The framework yields three possible results with regard to gender-responsiveness of each FTA for each dimension: ‘limited responsiveness’ (for agreements that do not mention or consider a particular element of the framework within the text, displayed in red in

Table 5. Assessment of Gender-Responsiveness of GCC Countries’ FTAs.

Dimension				UAE– India	UAE – Indonesia	UAE–Israel	UAE– Türkiye	UAE– Cambodia	UAE– Georgia	UAE– Mauritius	UAE– Costa Rica	UAE– Serbia	GAFTA	GCC– Singapore	GCC–EFTA	Bahrain–USA	Oman–USA
			1. Frequency of relevant provisions
Does the given FTA (main text, side instruments or annexes) mention the term gender/women/female/girl/sex/mother/maternity (referred to as gender-related term)?
2. How many times is a gender-related term (gender/women/female/girl/sex/mother/maternity) mentioned in the given FTA including side instruments, footnotes and/or annexes (excluding mention of products)?
			2. Location of relevant provisions
3. Is there a mention of gender-related concerns in the given FTA’s preamble?
4. In which part of the given FTA are 50% or more of gender-explicit provisions located?
			3. Affirmations and reaffirmations
5. Does the agreement demonstrate members’ willingness or commitment to incorporate gender perspectives into their economic growth and development, policies, programmes, decision-making, policymaking and practices at the national level?
6. Are there any references or affirmations or re-affirmations to existing international conventions or declarations or other international instruments directly or indirectly related to gender issues?
			4. Cooperation activities
7. Does the given FTA contain provisions that prescribe cooperation activities aimed at the elimination or reduction of barriers to trade for women and enhancement of women’s empowerment (such as cooperation on access to education, to finance, to business networks, etc.)?
8. Does the given FTA among its cooperation activities incorporate women’s access to education or skill development?
			5. Institutional arrangements
9. Is there a committee or any other institution to monitor the implementation or operation of gender-focussed provisions?
10. Does the agreement define duties, functions, meeting frequencies, and other organizational requirements of the committee or any other institution created for the implementation or operation of gender-specific provisions?
			6. Procedural arrangements
11. Does the agreement create procedural tools to address gender issues such as action plans, frameworks, dialogues, information exchange, exchange of best practices and experiences, programmes or legislation?
12. Do the members encourage or seek to collaborate on study, research or publication relating to gender and trade?
			7. Review and funding
13. Does the agreement contain a provision that requires: (i) the review of the implementation of gender provisions and/or (ii) the assessment of gender impact of the agreement?
14. Have members provided funding or identified measures to finance gender-related plans, processes, institutions, activities and other related commitments?
			8. Settlement of disputes
15. Is there any consultation or discussion mechanism to resolve gender-specific conflicts (excluding the ones arising from cooperation activities)?
16. Are a majority of gender provisions (excluding the ones mentioned in cooperation activities) in the given FTA subject to a dispute settlement mechanism?
			9. Waivers, reservations, and exceptions
17. Does the agreement establish an exception referring to gender concerns?
18. Does the agreement allow parties to invoke a reservation or waiver explicitly favouring women or explicitly referring to gender concerns?
			10. Minimum legal standards
19. Does the agreement establish minimum legal standards explicitly related to gender for the countries’ respective domestic law?
20. Does the agreement contain provisions to encourage industries/enterprises to incorporate minimum standards on corporate social responsibility explicitly related to gender?
Limited Responsiveness
Evolving Responsiveness
Advanced Responsiveness

Source: Authors’ compilation based on the (International Trade Centre (ITC), 2020) framework.

), ‘evolving responsiveness’ (for agreements that do take gender into account albeit in a limited capacity, displayed in yellow), and ‘advanced responsiveness’ (for agreements that mainstream gender across the entire text and in specific detail, highlighted in green). The detailed analysis resulting from this second step is presented in the next Section 4.

Our research presents two main limitations. The first is related to the availability of the full texts of some UAE CEPAs. For example, the full text of the UAE–Jordan CEPA is only published in Arabic, so we could not analyse it at this stage. In addition, the full texts of the UAE CEPA with Serbia, Cambodia and Georgia are only available in the public domain in non-searchable PDF format (as scans of the originally signed agreement documents). Given that these agreements contain 654, 1365 and 1068 pages, respectively, we cannot discard the possibility of an omission concerning those three agreements despite providing all due effort.

The second limitation is the lack of appropriate quantitative data to explore if the FTAs with the stronger gender responsiveness have effectively led to women entrepreneurship empowerment. While this was not an immediate objective of this paper, it is a natural avenue for future research. Given that the most responsive agreements are too recent and have barely entered into force, we could not have evaluated their effect even if we had had access to the necessary data. Furthermore, exploring the basic women entrepreneurship data is unlikely to provide significant results, as changes can be due merely to domestic policy changes or to non-trade related factors. Hence, the relevant data should cover primarily the number and performance of exporting women-led businesses (and particularly SMEs) engaged in trade between the specific pairs of countries for which FTAs exist. Collecting such longitudinal primary data would require performing one round of initial data collection for benchmarking, followed by a second round several years later to measure the medium-term impact of gender provisions in FTAs.

4. Results

As illustrated in Table 5, our analysis finds that the nine UAE ratified CEPAs studied here, and the US–Bahrain FTA, fall within the range of evolving to limited responsiveness to gender. The UAE–Cambodia CEPA is the most gender responsive, although on average, it has an evolving level of gender responsiveness too. The Oman-USA FTA has limited levels of gender responsiveness and mainstreaming. The GAFTA and the GCC-Singapore FTA can be qualified as ‘gender-blind’. Overall, not enough gender-sensitivity is registered in any of the 14 studied agreements to assess them as being advanced in their level of gender responsiveness.

To compare those findings with the international standards, we use a 2020 examination performed by the International Trade Centre (ITC) of 73 FTAs across 25 Commonwealth countries using the same methodological framework. That research revealed that only 35% of the FTAs explicitly mentioned gender (International Trade Centre (ITC), 2020). The study also found that 67% of FTAs had a limited level of gender responsiveness, meaning that they failed to mainstream gender concerns, and were therefore ‘gender-blind’. Barely 5% of the reviewed accords had an advanced level of gender responsiveness. The best practices were found in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Economic Community of West African States, the Canada–Israel and Canada–Chile FTAs, and the East African Community.

Back to the GCC region, among the 10 dimensions of the assessment framework, three represent areas for potential improvement even for Bahrain and the UAE, as they register a limited level of gender responsiveness across all agreements and are highlighted nearly entirely in red in Table 5. The first area is review and funding (dimension 7), because none of the FTAs establish mechanisms needed to ensure the implementation of the commitments and understandings related to gender specifically. Assessing the impact of implementing the gender provisions in the FTAs is important to inform future economic diplomacy initiatives and collecting gender-specific trade data is a crucial prerequisite for this.

The second area is settlement of disputes (dimension 8). While all FTAs have outlined dispute settlement mechanisms, those do not apply to areas related to cooperation activities and therefore are mostly not applicable to the gender-specific provisions as those mostly appear under cooperation activities. A solution to this would not entail creating different dispute settlement methods but would rather imply that gender-specific provisions make their way to some of the other areas of the FTAs. Those could include the agreements’ principles, institutional arrangements, domestic gender-relates policies or exemptions measures.

The third area that leaves room for significant improvement is the area of minimum legal standards (dimension 10). The current FTAs do not explicitly mandate standards such as equal pay, reproductive rights, care work, representation, or gender-based anti-discrimination and anti-violence. The Gulf countries’ laws already strive to empower and promote social inclusion for all and already address issues such as equal pay and maternity leave, so it should be relatively straightforward for those engagements to be reaffirmed or streamlined in any future FTAs or revisions of the existing ones.

In addition, at the international level, all GCC states are signatories to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have also signed the International Labour Organisation’s Hours of Work (Industry) Convention (1919), the UAE and Saudi Arabia are also signatories to the Equal Remuneration Convention (1951), Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have signed the Convention concerning Night Work of Women Employed in Industry (1948) and all six are signatories to the Convention on Minimum Age (1973). Yet, our analysis finds that none of those engagements is affirmed or reaffirmed in the FTAs and CEPAs signed so far.

In conclusion, despite solid advances in women’s economic empowerment in the Gulf countries, the current gender provisions found in their individual and bloc-level FTAs are mostly limited to women-owned and women-led SMEs, or to the exchange of information in cooperation activities. The FTAs do not fully echo the countries’ clear commitment to addressing gender issues in their national decision-making and policymaking. This represents a missed opportunity, especially considering the significant economic contributions that women entrepreneurs can make to the GCC economies.

5. Conclusions

The Arab Gulf region has already made solid strides in advancing the economic rights of women. It has also established solid mechanisms and institutions to ensure that progress continues on the legal and political fronts. In parallel, the six Gulf countries have recognised the importance of economic diversification and have placed prosperity as one of the core objectives of their respective foreign policies (UAE Government Portal, 2024b). With the signing of FTAs becoming a key pillar in their economic growth strategy, especially for the UAE, it is important that these accords align with the countries’ gender equality strategies and help promote women’s economic empowerment.

To harness all the economic benefits that FTAs bring to the economies and societies of its signatories, ensuring a higher level of gender mainstreaming in these agreements becomes crucial. To that end, and based on the major gaps identified in the current agreements, we highlight below the areas in which future agreements would need to be specifically tailored to make sure that women’s economic empowerment is promoted and supported by economic diplomacy.

First, we recommend aligning CEPAs and FTAs with domestic gender equality strategy by strengthening gender provisions in future texts and making references to existing international conventions. Adding gender provisions and referrals to existing international conventions on women that the GCC countries have signed will not only ensure that they are more gender responsive but will also ensure that all trade agreements are aligned with domestic objectives on gender equality. The economic and social benefits of gender equality within economic growth are well stablished in the academic literature and should be embedded in the texts of these agreements and in other economic agreements.

Second, CEPAs and FTAs should make explicit mention of gender provisions in different sections. While most trade agreements mention gender equality implicitly, including explicit and clear provisions related to women would go a long way towards enhancing the gender responsiveness of the CEPAs and FTAs. Frontloading gender provisions by including them in the preamble, for instance, would signal GCC states’ clear commitment to women’s economic empowerment. By the same token, adding gender provisions in sections that go beyond SMEs, which is where most current provisions are included, would widen the scope of the type of trade cooperation activities where women could be involved.

Third, it would be important to include provisions related to skills development of women in all CEPAs and FTAs. While the UAE–India and UAE–Cambodia CEPAs clearly include a section on women’s skill development as one area of cooperation between the parties, the other CEPAs and trade agreements do not. Education, training, and continuous professional development of women in business are integral parts of their careers and these should be facilitated through CEPAs and FTAs. Emphasis on STEM education and digital literacy would also be important.

Another relevant improvement would include acknowledging the importance of corporate social responsibility within CEPAs and trade agreements. CEPAs and trade agreements should encourage industries and individual companies to include standards of corporate social responsibility (CSR) that are explicitly related to gender in their internal policies and procedures. Leveraging this corporate self-regulation would allow governments to ensure a consistent and sustainable application of gender-related best practices at least by companies involved in international trade. The only CEPA to incorporate CSR provisions is the UAE–Cambodia CEPA, and even this agreement does not specifically mention gender equality as an element of CSR, referring broadly to labour-related issues.

The fourth dimension in which the Gulf countries’ trade agreements can be enhanced is the setting up of specialised committees that can monitor the gender responsiveness of CEPAs and FTAs during the negotiations process and after the agreement’s implementation. To ensure that effective gender mainstreaming happens at every stage of the negotiation process, setting up a specialised committee that can oversee matters related to women and ensure that the trade agreements are in line with all international conventions and domestic strategies would ensure the full alignment of every trade agreement with the GCC states’ gender equality goals. These committees could also formulate potential enforcement remedies in case some of the gender provisions are not respected by one of the parties, as well as mobilise funds for the implementation of the gender-related commitments.

In order to achieve progress on the above points, the countries could benefit from involving more actively or at least consulting their gender-relevant entities in the process of negotiating future CEPAs. Engaging the national ministries of gender equality or similar government agencies in the formal or informal negotiation process has been identified by Simonetti (2019) as an impactful tool to raise the trade agreements’ gender-responsiveness. The UAE’s Gender Balance Council, for example, has the explicit responsibility to review current legislation and to coordinate with MoFA on gender-related cooperation agreements, and is an entity involved in the country’s international trade negotiations.2 Similarly, Bahrain’s Supreme Council for Women has the responsibility to strengthen the status of Bahraini women and support them towards progress at all levels. Other government entities such as the UAE General Women’s Union and the Women Business Councils operating in several emirates could also be consulted.

As noted in our research limitations, another essential enabler that needs to be enhanced is the collection of gender-specific trade data and information. This could help in identifying gaps and opportunities related to women entrepreneurs, career development and skills. Guidelines for data compilation are provided by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD, 2023). The data shall then be used to carry out periodic impact assessments of the effect of having women-related provisions in trade agreements on women’s participation in international trade and general women empowerment.

Finally, for the gender-related provisions in the FTAs to have a meaningful impact on the ground, women entrepreneurs should be made aware of their existence and practical usefulness. Such awareness can be raised through training courses and publications delivered by different universities and academies through the chambers of commerce.