Through its Trade and Market Intelligence team, the International Trade Center held workshops in Gambia and Senegal on 16 and 17 June 2022. The workshop sought to understand challenges and gather feedback from women entrepreneurs in their export operations using the Trade Obstacle Alert Mechanism (TOAM).
The workshops were organized in collaboration with the countries respective Ministries of Trade and Chambers of Commerce and Industry. The workshops sought to further collaborative efforts with focal institutions, provide
training on the tool and empower women-led businesses to report obstacles on the platform.
CEO of The Gambia Women’s Chamber of Commerce, Beatrice Mboge, highlighted the importance of training members to report obstacles using the TOAM as members experience insignificant delays with customs and immigration officials, therefore the platform can help address the challenges faced by women traders when trading with neighbouring countries.
During the workshops, participants learned about the mobile application soon to be introduced, special focus was placed on its offline mode which will give users with poor connectivity the chance to report obstacles to trade as
well.
The workshops in Senegal and Gambia followed a training delivered for representatives from the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) on 22 April 2022. The training presented nine representatives from across the region with updates made to the TOAM platform in 2021.
National focal points of the tool were encouraged to pay keen attention to obstacles reported and swiſtly respond with solutions.
Use of the TOAM in the region continues to increase public and private sector interaction by creating a link between public institutions and business through the exchange of information on trade barriers.
