August Arrivals, Announcements, and news from the field (test)

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Subject: August Arrivals, Announcements, and news from the field (test)

2X Global: Unlocking gender-smart capital at scale

Dear Friend,

August has been exciting on a number of levels. Just last week, 2X Global was announced as the grants management partner for USAID Climate Finance for Development Accelerator (USAID CFDA)'s Climate Gender Equity Fund (CGEF). Launched with initial capital of US$6 million from USAID and Amazon, the CGEF seeks to leverage at least US$60 million in capital at the nexus of climate and gender. 2X Global will manage the portfolio of grants with the goal of increasing access to finance for women and girls on the front lines of climate mitigation and adaptation.

This announcement and drive towards unlocking more gender-smart climate finance is timely and needed given the stark climate warnings in the form of devastating wildfires in Maui and Canada, to scorching heat across Europe- all providing stark reminders of how high the stakes are for those on the frontlines of climate change.

In mid-month, we joined with UNESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) at the Feminist Finance Forum in Bangkok, to launch Women Investing for Women, an initiative to unlock gender-smart capital at scale in Asia-Pacific. We also announced our collaboration to run two capacity-building accelerator programmes for managers of female-led or gender balanced funds across Asia and the Pacific. These will run from September 2023 to March 2024.

We also welcomed Robert Meloche to our team as Director of Partnerships and Impact. Rob is no stranger to 2X Global, having worked alongside us in his previous role as Head of Programs at the Visa Foundation, where he deployed more than $200 million in gender-smart grants and investments. We are delighted to have him as a part of our team which now spans fourteen countries and eight time zones.

In other news, the recently launched 2X Forum elected its first two co-chairs – Zubaida Bai, President and CEO of the Grameen Foundation and Lelemba Phiri, Principal and Founder of the Africa Trust Group. The 2X Forum serves as a long-term strategic engagement pillar to bring the voices and insights of 2X Global’s broader and more diverse stakeholders to 2X leadership. The co-chairs, democratically elected by their peers in the Forum, will host meetings and steer the direction of the grouping over the next 12 months.

Keep reading for a round up of the latest and most insightful GLI news and knowledge.

In Community,

2X Global team

News from the field

Mainstreaming gender lens investing. The data on the investment opportunity to fund women-led businesses is ironclad, yet 85% of venture capital still goes to startups with only male founders¹. Village Capital, with support from the Visa Foundation, outlines three steps that when applied to enhance the evaluation framework, improves scoring five-fold for women-led startups. The Asia Gender Network has outlined some principles to improve gender lens investing in philanthropy. Bridgespan Africa has released research - a series of interviews with 25 stakeholders, including African GPs, to understand the challenges that African impact fund managers face in raising and deploying capital and to elevate the solutions they believe are most needed. Our member, micro lender Pro Mujer issued their first gender bond earlier this year - read about their experience and what they’re going for next. Prosper Africa, a U.S. trade and investment initiative, announces four new partnerships with African asset fund managers under their facility which will mobilise more than US$200 million in private capital. 2X Ignite GP Sprint alumni EG-Economic Empowerment Fund L.P., is one of the firms.

_{1 Based on 2021 Pitchbook data.}

Gender and Climate Investing. In an era of increased climate change and increased migration, how best to keep women and girls safe and ensure regular migration? This policy brief from UN Women makes recommendations on how. Celebrated environmental scientist David Suzuki urges energy in the fight against climate change, saying “hope without action” is something the world cannot afford. Sobering statistics from our Annual Member Meeting host, the European Investment Bank - just 3% of the nature-based solutions projects across the EU have received significant private sector funding. What are the stumbling blocks? They’re not what you might expect. As COP28 approaches, Emirati women are among those at the forefront of setting the agenda with regards to the energy transition and climate action.

Leadership, Culture and Policy. Creative ways in which women LPs are stepping up and finding ways to expand the pipeline of women entering the asset management industry.

A new policy brief from the British Asian Trust examines the gap in female labour force participation worldwide and makes recommendations on what policymakers can do to reduce this gap. Sonya Sawtell-Rickson, Chief Investment Officer of one of Australia’s largest pension funds, HESTA, issues a call for more women fund managers, saying progress has been too slow. Australia’s new Development Finance Review sets a target that 80 per cent of new development finance investments address gender equality in implementation.

Resilience (GBV, Financial Inclusion, Security). Recent reports on the prevalence of GBVH in the garment and footwear industry should raise alarms as they may indicate that GBVH could be a foreseeable risk in this sector as well. FIFA has suspended the President of the Spanish football federation, Luis Rubiales and players and coaches have resigned en masse after he kissed national player Jenni Hermoso on the lips, following the Spanish women’s team’s victory at the Women’s World Cup. Hermoso described the kiss as unwanted and out of place, saying it made her feel vulnerable. Rubiales has refused calls to resign.

Policymakers, practitioners and activists working to combat violence against women and girls (VAWG) need to innovate in ways that “stretch beyond the comfort of best practice" UN Women advises in a new brief focused on the VAWG targets set under the SDGs. A rise in youth and people with disabilities successfully accessing municipal loans from a town council in Tanzania, was sparked by a project piloted by the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and the International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD). The newest tool for female farmers in Ethiopia could be a mobile phone as a project aims to leverage interactive voice response technology to provide agricultural extension advisory services, building on a study conducted by 2X Global member 60 Decibels.

Data and Tools. Impact investing has stayed steady even as PE fundraising slows. One of the factors behind this? LPs pushing for GPs to connect their fund fees to impact metrics. Men and women are far apart in their views about whether female political leadership makes a positive difference to a country’s climate action, reports the EIB in its latest Climate Survey. ESG book is partnering with the Sustainable Finance Institute Asia to pilot an initiative on ESG data disclosure in ASEAN markets. Our members ALIVE and Value for Women have collaborated on these first of their kind studies which explore gender dynamics in EdTech and HRTech value chains in Latin America and provide actionable strategies for companies to improve gender outcomes across their operations. Meanwhile, Oxfam has a new gender toolkit out which shows firms how they can push for women leaders in their supply chains. The Gender ROI practitioners manual is now available in Spanish, Vietnamese and Portuguese editions,

Care Economy. In this op-ed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the authors make the economic and moral case for high quality, universal childcare. A report from CoreWoman and the Canadian government’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), puts a spotlight on how the private sector in Latin America can transform the care economy - through internal policies, value chains and actions in the wider community. Show us your childcare - this is the call from TheSkimm founders and Moms First, in a new campaign urging companies to publicly disclose the childcare benefits they provide.

JEDI, Power, and New Economic Systems. A co-op in Ecuador - the Cooperativa de Ahorro y Crédito Jardín Azuayo has launched the world’s first diversity and inclusion social bond. Grim news out of the USA, where the conservative activist group behind the Supreme Court’s overturning of affirmative action, has set their sights on a venture capital fund supporting Black women small business owners. In a lawsuit, affirmative action opponent Edward Blum’s American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER), has accused Fearless Fund of unlawful racial discrimination. The suit has been decried by leading voices in the impact investing sector, including our own Suzanne Biegel and Fearless Fund responded to the suit, calling it “an attack to dismantle and address our economic freedom as people of colour.”

Community Calendar

12-14 September, 2023

ANDE Annual Conference hosts this year's event in Accra, Ghana with the theme Accelerating Action: Small Business Solutions and the SDGs. The West Africa Regional Conference is scheduled on the second day of the conference. Register here.

28-29 September 2023

The 2X Annual Members’ Meeting 2023, hosted by 2X Global in partnership with the European Investment Bank (EIB), will be held in Luxembourg this year. 2X Global members can RSVP here.

18-19 September, 2023

UN SDG Summit 2023, New York. At the mid-point implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable development, the summit will follow-up and review the progress made towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more.

16-20 October, 2023

The 8th World Investment Forum will be held in Abu Dhabi this year. The Empretec Women in Business Awards will also be held during the Forum, acknowledging the contributions of inspiring women entrepreneurs to the implementation of the Global Goals. Learn more.

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Subject: August Arrivals, Announcements, and news from the field (test)