From WEDO - Summary: A gender just transition must further take into account the role of women’s unpaid care work, particularly in developing countries, as well as women’s informal work, both of which in essence subsidize our current economic systems and are financially unrecognized or undervalued. The precariousness of women’s work is compounded by current trends such as seasonal and forced migration, the feminization of agricultural labor, the lack of formal recognition for women as farmers, the lack of health protections in the informal sector, the transportation of women in Qatar and the Arab peninsula, among others. Women entrepreneurs are also disproportionately represented in small enterprises, which have less access to credit and loans, and in the micro and small informal sector. As feminists in the labor movement denounce, while working conditions in general are poor in many industries, they are often worse for women.

From Asian Development Bank - This publication confirms the shared commitment of ADB and the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) to mainstreaming gender equality in climate change and showcases how this priority is being integrated into the design of ADB’s CIF projects.

From EQUALS. ​​​ITU and UNU-CS have been conducting research since May 2016 to map projects that address the gender digital divide. The first output of this project is the Gender Digital Inclusion Map, an interactive visualisation tool which can be consulted to discover initiatives that are working towards bridging the gender digital divide around the world. The aim has been to identify key organizations working in this domain, and to eventually understand what constitutes best practice among such projects. This research is part of EQUALS, the Global Partnership for Gender Equality in the Digital Age.

Equileap is an independent, specialized data provider with a broad scope of gender metrics. It enables investors to make better investment decisions with data on equality in the workplace. Equileap is assessing over 3,500 companies globally on 19 criteria including gender balance, the gender pay gap, paid parental leave and anti-sexual harassment policies. Equileap data is used for ESG integration, portfolio analysis, stewardship and managing reputational risks.

Several indices have also been designed with Solactive and Morningstar, to track companies leading in gender equality. These indices are used both as benchmarks and underlyings of financial products.

From Morgan Stanley. Gender diversity, as a financial consideration for investors, is accelerating. This is driven by a growing body of research that shows increased diversity and a more inclusive workforce can be attributes of strong performance, as well as by a desire from asset managers to use their financial resources as a tool to drive social change and greater gender equality. Regardless of the original motivation for considering gender diversity, this primer seeks to clarify the range of approaches and opportunities available for investors to successfully integrate gender diversity criteria into an investment portfolio.

From Adam Smith International. Private sector development (PSD) practitioners are increasingly pursuing strategies aimed at increasing income and economically empowering poor women. For programmes to credibly prove that these strategies impact poor women – and to improve this impact through adaptive design and delivery – monitoring and results management (MRM) systems must be capable of understanding differentiated gendered impact. Where MRM systems are truly gender-responsive, they serve a function beyond accurate sex-disaggregated results reporting, and are crucial in influencing programme design, for example, the effective identification and profiling of female target beneficiaries during scoping for sector selection (who tend conventionally to be ‘missed’ or misunderstood, particularly within male-headed households).

Nonetheless, a number of measurement challenges remain. Most pressing among these, is the lack of clarity on who to count as a beneficiary when measuring changes to income. Crucially, the different ways in which this is approached tell very different stories as to the gendered impact of a PSD programme.

From the US Small Business Administration. This report addresses key questions comparing the diversity and performance of Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs) with the broader VC and PE community, and asks whether diverse SBICs are more likely to invest in diverse portfolio companies or in low- and moderate-income communities.

From Preqin. Covering areas such as first-time fund performance and fundraising, and with examples of LPs that have had success investing in these new managers, LPs reading this report can expect a data-driven overview of first-time fund investing.

First-time funds have traditionally faced challenges securing capital commitments from LPs due to the nature of traditional closedend fund due diligence. Most investment professionals (or their external advisors) with responsibility to vet these private capital funds typically place significant emphasis on the GP’s track record, firm and investment history, and the duration of time for which the investment team has worked together. As closed-end funds are long-term and illiquid investments, many LPs do not feel comfortable committing significant capital to unproven managers, especially as many of these first-time funds focus on diverse and innovative, yet unproven, investment ideas.

Every top performing and “brand name” GP has had to raise a fund for the first time. Whether these first-time funds were teams spun off from a balance sheet at an investment bank or insurance company, or individuals leaving a more established GP to start their own firm, there have always been LPs providing capital commitments to back these investment ideas. Many of the LPs that have supported these first-time GPs’ initial investment strategies and talents have been rewarded with strong (and in some cases, exceptional) fund performance, increased portfolio diversification, experience with niche strategies and other factors beneficial to their overall investment program.

By Jackie VanderBrug, Managing Director and Joseph Quinlan. Women today are an unparalleled force in the global economy as successful entrepreneurs, corporate executives and family breadwinners. Yet gender-based violence, the absence of women's legal rights and the persistent wage gap stubbornly remain. This paradox creates an unprecedented and underexplored opportunity for investors.

Gender Lens Investing, co-authored by Jackie VanderBrug, Managing Director and Joseph Quinlan, Managing Director and Chief Market Strategist, of U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management, is the first book of its kind to examine, in-depth the advantages of integrating gender into investment analysis.