30 June - 2 July, 2021
About GEF
Convened by UN Women and co-hosted by the governments of Mexico and France, the Generation Equality Forum (“GEF”) is a critical global gathering for gender equality that aims to accelerate the realisation of gender equality and empowerment of women and girls globally. Transformative and lasting progress for gender equality will require the active participation of business leaders and the collective expertise of the private sector, which has much to gain from a more equal world and abundant expertise and leadership to lend to that goal. The Generation Equality year will feature the most important global moments for gender equality in more than two decades. Its success, and the realisation of a better and fairer world for all, will depend on the private sector playing a key role. The Forum will kick-off in Mexico City and culminate in Paris, France in June 2021.
Why GenderSmart?
GenderSmart has been asked to help maximise the involvement of finance and investment leaders who are able to leverage the forum as a platform to advance their work and share related commitments.
The GenderSmart community stands to benefit by leveraging the GEF’s structured approach and global ambitions, which provide clear opportunities for collaboration, field-expanding commitments to action, and gender-smart investing. Private sector-led efforts in impact investing that are aligned with the GEF’s objectives will be highlighted throughout the Global Summit to help you imagine pathways to participation, and sample efforts from our community are showcased below.
Action Coalitions
The programmatic focal point of the GEF, the ‘ACs’ essentially serve as working groups and commitment vehicles to advance the collective GEF agenda— see below for relevant examples from the GenderSmart community. The ACs aim to deliver concrete and transformative change for women and girls around the world in the coming five years. More information is here and here, and the six AC themes include:
Gender-Based Violence
Economic Justice and Rights
Bodily Autonomy and Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR)
Feminist Action for Climate Justice
Technology and Innovation for Gender Equality
Feminist Movements and Leadership
Sample Efforts from the GenderSmart Community
Here are some representative examples of efforts led by Global Summit delegates that provide useful private sector case studies of existing or potential members of the GEF and ACs:
+ 1. GBV
- Criterion Institute committed to moving US$10B to GBV strategies over 5 years to re-imagine possibilities for using finance as a tool to effect change. They are developing tools for investors and asset managers and have produced a series of roadmaps on GBV and investment, as well as a due diligence guide for investors, with the support of UNICEF.
- EBRD, CDC, IFC, and others have also produced helpful resources on GBV and investment.
+ 2. Economic Justice and Rights
- There are a number of private capital impact funds with a gender lens that have a focus on economic justice. See Project Sage 3.0 for a partial list. One of the most recent to launch is from Care/SheTrades/Bamboo, but one can also look at Ilu Women’s Empowerment Fund, NesST, and others for inspiration.
- The newly launched Equality Fund has this as a primary investment focus.
- There are a number of investors who have prioritised economic justice in their investments, mostly including foundations and philanthropic mission-aligned investors in our community.
+ 3. Bodily Autonomy and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR)
- Tara Health Foundation has invested in RHIA Ventures, a women-led social impact investment firm focused on connecting capital with entrepreneurs to accelerate innovative solutions in reproductive health. While it is US-focused, some of the funded companies will have global reach and the fund itself is a model that could be replicated in emerging markets.
- Linked Foundation is catalysing women’s health access in Latin America and is focused on investing in women’s health.
- KASHA – Rwanda is a mobile e-commerce company built specifically for and by women, where women and girls can confidently order products and receive direct delivery. Also relevant to AC#5.
- The Case for Her is an initiative out of Sweden with a focus on this area.
+ 4. Feminist Action for Climate Justice
- The GenderSmart Gender & Climate Investment Working Group is working towards a just climate transition, mobilising 85+ investors to back gender-inclusive, greener investments and to address related investment process shifts.
- WEDO is focused on demanding climate justice for all individuals, especially women and girls. They launched [The Women’s Global Call for Climate Justice14and developed the Women's Global Call for Action Toolkit.
- WOCAN is a women-led international membership network of women and men professionals and women's associations, whose purpose is to advance women’s empowerment and collective action to tackle climate change, poverty, and food insecurity.
+ 5. Technology and Innovation for Gender Equality
- UNICEF, GenderSmart, and Volta collaborated to produce a report on investing in pathways to employment to highlight investment opportunities that support how girls and young women make the transition from school to working in emerging markets, advocating for an increased role by private capital investments for gender equality.
- NESsT Empowers Program is focused on investing in social enterprises where women are transforming the tech workplace in Poland.
- Pivotal Ventures and many other investors have prioritised backing tech funds led by women and focused with a gender lens, tech entrepreneurs, accelerators, and companies improving the landscape for tech-enabled solutions. Most of the funds in Project Sage 3.0 have a strong tech and innovation focus.
+ 6. Feminist Movements and Leadership
- Equality Fund, referenced in AC #4, is primary focused on supporting women’s rights organizations and feminist movements by providing financial resources and strengthening organizations working at the grassroots and on the global stage.
- Women Of The World Endowment (WoWE) are on a mission to make the gender landscape more equitable through the power of action-oriented feedback loops and access to the right capital at the right time.
- Impact ETFs - WOMN and the YWCA enables everyone to empower women by tracking the Morningstar Women’s Empowerment Index, backed by Equileap data. This provides helpful exposure to companies with strong policies and practices in support of women’s empowerment and gender equality.
Calls to Action
We invite all capital allocators and investment influencers to consider how the GEF’s goals and platform connect to your work and can advance your efforts, including as a key forum to mobilise capital and develop partnerships and collaborations for action.
We encourage those of you interested in participating in the GEF and its working groups to contact us so our team can facilitate your engagement and registration, and loop you into relevant opportunities for collaboration, in addition to sharing updates on on-site programming.
We invite those of you with relevant commitments to share those via our online commitment tracker and/or the GEF, as appropriate.
Draft Actions
To facilitate transparency and encourage other stakeholders to join this effort.