Day 1 | September 2 | Morning sessions

The opening sessions of the Summit set the tone for grounded and practical conversations around gender, capital and systems transformation. Here are some highlights from the morning:

• Bridging the Data Gap: How Gender Insights Drive Inclusion
  Data is no longer just about access; it’s about nuance, quality, and application. The session highlighted two key frontiers: the persistent absence of sex-disaggregated data (SDD) across financial services, and the emerging role of alternative and proxy data to close that gap. Without SDD, inclusion is stunted, accountability is weakened, and opportunity is missed. The challenge ahead is not just collecting better data, but embedding it meaningfully into models, tools, and decision-making.
  

• Creating Pathways to 1.2 Million Climate-Smart Jobs: Women and the Green Economy
  The session addressed the mismatch between the scale of global climate finance and the lack of gender integration. Despite rising climate funding, only 2% is currently deployed with a gender lens. Meanwhile, development funding is decreasing, with reduced attention to diversity and inclusion.

  Drawing on recent research, this session offered a compelling case for why climate-smart sectors represent one of the most promising pathways for women’s economic participation. An estimated 1.2 million climate-smart jobs could be created for women in low-income segments, including: 175,000 in off-grid solar, 125,000 in clean cooking, 175,000 in e-mobility, 220,000 in mini-grids, 250,000 in food and agri-processing

  • Five key challenges were identified: Weak market linkages and limited buyer engagement, lack of skills and training, limited data on the business case, restricted access to finance, persistent social norms and biases

  • Interventions to unlock opportunity include: Targeted training and talent partnerships, business financing and technical assistance, networking and collaboration platforms, awareness campaigns to shift perceptions

  • Emerging themes from the discussion: The need to strengthen the business case for investing in women, empowerment through agency and choice, meaningful engagement of men in gender initiatives, designing jobs to fit women, rather than fitting women into existing job models, and a focus on long-term, systemic change.
    

• Seeing – and Shifting – Power in Investment Processes
  This session challenged the sector to move beyond checklists and towards intentionality. By interrogating how power shows up in capital flows (who holds it, who defines risk, and who shares in long-term value), participants explored pathways to more accountable and inclusive investment practice.

  Examples from the panel discussion:

  • The Equality Fund shared how unrestricted grants can reveal authentic market signals, for example, a focus on gender-based violence prevention emerging organically when organisations are trusted to allocate funds based on their own priorities.

  • Minderoo Foundation illustrated how strategy driven structures can provide the flexibility needed to achieve intended outcomes, allowing capital to adapt without losing direction.

  • WEAV Capital emphasised the importance of planning exits from the start to ensure that women benefit from long term prosperity. Their use of scorecards to reduce bias was highlighted as a way to align incentives and embed accountability in investment processes.