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Building Inclusion Into the Investment Process: Four Steps for Addressing Bias Against Women Startup Founders
While overall global funding for startups grew in 2020, women founders received 27% less investment than the previous year. The problem is particularly troubling in emerging markets, where only 11% of seed funding went to companies with a woman on their founding team in 2019. Akansha Kasera and Malika Anand at BFA's Catalyst Fund discussed the issue with two female venture capitalists, Lexi Novitske from Acuity Ventures and Lelemba Phiri from Enygma Ventures: They share four steps the investment industry should take to boost gender equity and reduce bias against women startup founders.
- Categories
- Investing
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Analysis: Implementing Gender Responsive Strategies Towards Combatting COVID-19 in Africa
The year 2020 witnessed the full effect of the Covid-19 global pandemic that met a world unprepared to deal with the disruptions it brought on
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- gender lens
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Press Release: DFC Announces Support for Manufacturing of Vaccines During Quad Summit
U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) today announced it will work with Indian manufacturer Biological E Ltd. to finance increased capacity to support Biological E’s effort to produce at least 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of 2022 with Stringent Regulatory Authorization (SRA) and/or World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Use Listing, including Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
- Categories
- Coronavirus
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- gender lens, vaccines
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Press Release: Deetken Impact and Pro Mujer Receive $1.3 Million From USAID to Advance Gender Equality and Promote Gender Smart Practices in SMEs in Latin America
Deetken Impact and Pro Mujer receive US$1.3 million from USAID to augment the Ilu Women’s Empowerment Fund through three main components—incremental capital, technical assistance, and knowledge dissemination and advocacy.
- Categories
- Finance, Social Enterprise
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Embedding Gender Equity Into Companies’ DNA: An Investor Consortium Builds the Evidence Base for Gender Lens Investing
As gender lens investing moves into the mainstream, investors and enterprises need support in getting buy-in for this approach – and in implementing it effectively. To that end, the Gender-Smart Enterprise Assistance Research Coalition is working to build the evidence base for investing with a gender lens, with support from the Performance Measurement and Improvement team at the William Davidson Institute. NextBillion spoke with Lisa Willems at AlphaMundi and Rebecca Fries at Value for Women about the momentum that’s driving gender lens investing, the challenges it faces and the work the new consortium is doing.
- Categories
- Investing
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African Development Bank, European Investment Bank Seal Deal to Enhance Africa’s Development
The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) yesterday signed a joint partnership action plan on how to boost public and private sector investment in Africa.
- Categories
- Environment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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WDI Leads Research in Gender Equity Impact Investment Effort
The project focuses on 29 SMEs across multiple LMICs in Africa, Asia and Latin America. These businesses work in a variety of sectors, including microfinance and financial inclusion, food and agriculture, and renewable energy and climate. WDI will investigate the outcomes of gender-smart TA provided to SMEs supported by their investors.
- Categories
- Investing
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Press Release: IIX Accelerates Gender Bond Issuances With Pricing of Women’s Livelihood Bond 3
Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) has successfully priced the US$27.7 million Women’s Livelihood BondTM 3 (WLB3), the third bond in the award-winning Women’s Livelihood BondTM Series (WLB Series). Advancing a total of 13 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the WLB3 complies with the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) Social Bond Principles and will support 180,000 underserved women and women entrepreneurs in the Asia Pacific region to respond, to recover from, and to build resilience in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The WLB3 is also the maiden investment of IIX’s Women’s Catalyst Fund, a next generation gender lens vehicle designed to accelerate innovative financial instruments for women.
- Categories
- Investing