WTO-ITC initiative for women receives record-high pledge from FIFA World Cup Legacy Fund

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said: "This initiative builds on important lines of collaboration already established between the WTO and FIFA. Through our Women Exporters in the Digital Economy (WEIDE) Fund, this ground-breaking collaboration will help scale up capacity for women entrepreneurs seeking to use digital tools and platforms to access new opportunities and global value chains. This grant is the first of its kind at the WTO in scale and the team is excited to get to work."

ITC Executive Director Pamela Coke-Hamilton said: "This is a win for women entrepreneurs. FIFA's pledge to our WEIDE Fund will go a long way to ensuring more women have the capital and the capacity they need to grow their businesses through trade, so they can earn more, create jobs, and invest in the socioeconomic development of their countries. That's the goal."

FIFA President Gianni Infantino said: "The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Legacy Fund is a landmark project that builds on the unprecedented impact of the tournament from a sustainability point of view."

The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ Legacy Fund is investing US$ 50 million in a series of social programmes in collaboration with Qatar and three global organizations, namely the WTO, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the World Health Organization (WHO). The Legacy Fund will be implemented in close cooperation with the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC), based in Doha, Qatar.

The groundbreaking initiative was presented at an online meeting attended by Mr Infantino, DG Okonjo-Iweala, Ms Coke-Hamilton, and leaders from other organizations.

Last September, the United Arab Emirates government also signed a grant agreement to the WEIDE Fund for US$ 5 million and a call was launched for business support organizations (BSOs) to partner with the WEIDE Fund in the pilot phase. The selected BSOs in four developing countries will be announced in January 2025.

These business support organizations will then help launch competitions in each country, targeting hundreds of women to benefit from the fund through grants of up to US$ 30,000 along with technical assistance.

Unveiled by the WTO and the ITC in February 2024 at the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi, the WEIDE Fund aims to empower women entrepreneurs by helping them grow their businesses through international trade and digitalization. Specifically, the targeted beneficiaries are women-led micro and small enterprises in the formal sector which are already exporting or have export potential.

The WEIDE Fund will unlock opportunities in international trade and digital trade for women entrepreneurs by improving their access to: grants and support from financial institutions to reduce the finance gap; technical assistance and training related to digital skills and improving export competitiveness; export markets, with the aim of connecting more women to digital market platforms; and networks and support services, with the objective of creating more inclusive and effective business ecosystems including by leveraging partnerships with the private and public sectors.

The WTO and ITC aim to raise US$ 50 million for the Fund, with an initial target of US$ 25 million, from public and private sector partners. The Fund will actively seek partnerships with various stakeholders, including governments, international organizations, development banks, philanthropic foundations and the private sector to implement initiatives aimed at maximizing the impact of the Fund's activities. Collaboration and knowledge-sharing will be crucial to achieving sustainable and scalable solutions.

The Fund's activities will be implemented through projects in specific countries in cooperation with business support organizations selected through a competitive call for proposals. At the country level, the Fund will implement a two-track system tailored to meet the needs of the targeted micro and small enterprises. Both tracks will include a grant and complementary technical assistance.

More information on the WEIDE Fund can be accessed here.