From Asian Development Bank - The paper highlights the need and demand for mitigation measures that tap women’s potential to contribute to emissions reductions and sustainable development.

From The International Labour Organisation (ILO)- “The report provides a global overview of national laws and practices regarding care policies, namely maternity protection, paternity, parental and other care-related leave policies, as well as childcare and long-term care services.”

From the US Department of State- This report details the first National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality from the USA and presents a comprehensive overview of the government approach.

From Women Win. The Gender-Responsive Due Diligence (GRDD) Platform describes the process of adding a gender lens to human rights due diligence and offers practical resources and advice to help implement each step of the due diligence process. This platform consists of two core components:

1. Understanding GRDD

2. Implementing GRDD

The GRDD platform has primarily been designed and developed for multi-national enterprises and brands with global supply chains, in both products and services sectors. The platform is intended for any company that has started, or is going to start, implementing human rights due diligence and is keen to ensure this is done in a gender-responsive manner.

From the Bank of England. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Bank of England are seeking views on regulatory plans to improve diversity and inclusion in financial services.

In a discussion paper, the Bank of England has set out policy options including, among others, the use of targets for representation, measures to make senior leaders directly accountable for diversity and inclusion in their firms, linking remuneration to diversity and inclusion metrics and the regulators’ approach to considering diversity and inclusion in non-financial misconduct. The discussion paper also focuses on the importance of data and disclosure in order to enable firms, regulators and other stakeholders to monitor progress.

From the Government of Canada. We, the Gender Equality Advisory Council, know that everyone benefits when girls and women are safe, healthy, educated, heard, and empowered to make decisions about their own lives. But gender inequality persists in every society, and progress for girls and women remains too slow, uneven, and subject to reversal. Today, G7 leaders have a unique opportunity to respond to the growing movements of girls and women raising their voices around the world with concrete commitments, new investments and measurable targets to advance gender equality. We call on G7 leaders to adopt and implement the recommendations in our full report.

From UNDP. UNDP presents updated versions of 12 training modules and issue briefs on gender dimensions of climate change covering a range of themes and sectors. These resources include a general overview and discussions on adaptation and disaster risk reduction, agriculture and food security, sustainable energy, climate finance, and REDD+ under the new development and climate change frameworks, such as the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement. These knowledge products are designed to build capacity in member countries with respect to gender and climate change within the context of sustainable development.

From SJF Ventures. SJF Ventures has curated a list of actionable steps and resources to consider in working towards improving Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) practices.

From the Thompson Reuters Foundation. ESG investing is plagued by many challenges and misperceptions about why social issues – such as a company’s labour practices or community relations – matter and how or whether they can be integrated into investment analysis.

For all investors, it is important to proactively address these questions because, as the The Thomson Reuters Foundation’s ESG Working Group highlights, social issues can create key risks; they are salient and will be increasingly relevant. Debunking myths around the availability of data on “S” issues and their importance can also help identify more resilient and profitable investment opportunities.

Together, the Group produced a white paper: “Amplifying the “S” in the ESG: Investor Myth Buster”, to help further the momentum for both improving an understanding of the “S” issues and a wider adoption of social criteria in investment strategies.

From the Government of Canada. In 2013, the Government of Canada announced the Venture Capital Action Plan (VCAP). It is a market oriented approach to put Canada's VC industry on the path to sustainability, make it more globally competitive, and increase the availability of financing for innovative Canadian firms.

Under VCAP, the Government is deploying $390 million in new capital. In particular, VCAP has made available:

• $340 million to establish and recapitalize four large scale private sector-led funds of funds in partnership with institutional and corporate strategic investors, as well as interested provinces; and

• $50 million in four existing high-performing VC funds in Canada.

The four VCAP funds-of-funds attracted significant investments from a diverse set of investors that included pension funds, high-net-worth individuals, corporations, banks, and the governments of Ontario and Quebec. Including the federal government investment, the four funds-of-funds raised $1.356 billion. Of that, $904 million came from private sector investors.

From the Diverse Asset Managers Initiative (DAMI). This guide is designed for institutional investors (trustees and staff), primarily of public, corporate, faith, and labor union pension funds, as well as foundation and university endowments, who are interested in exploring the possibilities of investing institutional assets with diverse-owned asset management firms.

By Erin L. Thomas, PhD, VP, Head of Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging at Upwork. “At Upwork, we stand firmly against racial injustice and are working to create a safe environment for honest conversations about race, including how we can effectively upend the chronic racism that many of our team members experience every day. We recognize that we also have much progress to make within Upwork, and we have committed to take action toward building a more diverse and inclusive workplace.“

From CDP. This toolkit originates from a yearlong initiative of CDP through its Matchmaker Program. Matchmaker aims to bridge the divides among infrastructure ideas, interdepartmental communication and funding. By working directly with cities, CDP highlights sustainable urban infrastructure projects to the investment community.

The intention of this document is not to serve as a template, but to ignite ideas on how to ideate, pilot, implement, and facilitate projects that equitably benefit people and respond responsibly to the causes and impacts of anthropogenic climate change. This toolkit is developed, written, and designed within a North American context, using a lexicon and concepts most familiar in the North American region. Moreover, the target audience for this toolkit is individuals working with a government (whether city, municipal, or state), regional consortia, academic institutions, or other organizations to develop climate interventions in their communities. The concepts, however, just as easily apply to organizers, community leaders, or other individuals with an interest in developing community-centered solutions to mitigate or adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Cooperation Canada recognizes the importance of strategic collaboration in efforts to dismantle systemic racism in Canada and abroad. The organization is undergoing its own internal process of anti-racist institutional change and collaborating with the rest of the sector to ensure collective and inclusive approaches.

Cooperation Canada has convened an advisory group to articulate avenues of collective action towards a more anti-racist sector. Systemic racism exists everywhere, including in the international cooperation sector, which aims to contribute to building a better and fairer world. To do that, our organizations must address the sector’s legacy of racial bias (particularly anti-Black and anti-Indigenous bias). We must also work to redress global interventions that have denied peoples and institutions from historically disadvantaged countries their agency and right to self-determination in the name of economic and social progress. As a signatory to human rights treaties (including those addressing reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and protecting all persons from bias based on race, ethnicity, or other identity factors), we are committed to upholding values of equality, dignity and inclusion and advocating for their application across all areas of Canada’s global engagement.

To support a collective sector approach, Cooperation Canada has convened a diverse advisory group that developed a comprehensive framework for anti-racist efforts. The Framework outlines key commitments ranging from efforts to shift institutional structures and processes, to addressing racial bias in the work of sector organizations, particularly relating to partnerships, program design and implementation, advocacy, storytelling, and communications more broadly. After an inclusive consultation process, the Framework was launched on 20 January for organizational sign on.

To ensure accountability and a forward-looking approach, the Framework will be facilitated by a Hub, consisting of a Task Force for Accountability and a Working Group for strengthening sector capacity. The Task Force will produce annual reports and inform the priorities of the Working Group, whose activities will aim at strengthening the institutional and collective capacity of signatory organizations to make progress against the commitments outlined in the Framework.

This Framework is not perfect or final, nor is it our destination. This Framework, however, will provide a common ground, guiding instruments, and a momentum for a more anti-racist international cooperation sector. We invite you to sign on to the Framework (available below in English and French), reach out to others to do the same, and engage with us moving forward. This is just the beginning, and we can’t wait to begin this work with you.

From 2X Challenge. Gender lens investing (“GLI”) has gained significant traction globally and a compelling business case combined with a strong impact case makes GLI attractive to impact-driven and purely commercial investors alike. Despite this and the emergence of key tools, training and resources during 2020, the funding gap to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal #5 (Gender Equality) remains a significant challenge. To truly mainstream GLI, investors have called for concrete guidance on how to structure a gender lens into the legal documentation of a transaction. Responding to this growing demand, Hogan Lovells and 2X Challenge have launched Aurora: The Gender Lens Project.

By Caroline Criado-Perez. This book exposes the gender data gap - a gap in our knowledge that is at the root of perpetual, systemic discrimination against women, and that has created a pervasive but invisible bias with a profound effect on women's lives. Criado-Perez brings together an impressive range of case studies, stories and new research from across the world that illustrate the hidden ways in which women are forgotten, and the impact this has on their health and well-being. From government policy and medical research, to technology, workplaces, urban planning and the media, Invisible Women reveals the biased data that excludes women.

From Harvard Business Review. Iceland’s equal pay for equal work system is still in the early stages, but initial signs suggest that requiring organizations prove they compensate employees fairly may be very effective. Much more effective, in any case, than the alternatives currently in place elsewhere. Introduced in 2018, the policy requires companies and institutions with more than 25 employees to prove that they pay men and women equally for a job of equal value. If companies show they pay equally for the same positions, they receive certification. Beginning in 2020, certification became a requirement and companies without certification incur a daily fine. The few issues that have thus far emerged, such as the burdensomeness of the process for managers, are start-up problems, moreover, not long-term consequences. And what’s more: the system has stimulated both-in-firm and societal discussions about how jobs are valued, based on what criteria, and whether these criteria are still relevant in the current society and labor market.

By Valerie M. Hudson, Donna Lee Bowen, and Perpetua Lynne Nielsen. This book is a groundbreaking demonstration that the persistent and systematic subordination of women underlies all other institutions, with wide-ranging implications for global security and development. Incorporating research findings spanning a variety of social science disciplines and comprehensive empirical data detailing the status of women around the globe, the book shows that female subordination functions almost as a curse upon nations. A society’s choice to subjugate women has significant negative consequences: worse governance, worse conflict, worse stability, worse economic performance, worse food security, worse health, worse demographic problems, worse environmental protection, and worse social progress. Yet despite the pervasive power of social and political structures that subordinate women, history—and the data—reveal possibilities for progress. The First Political Order shows that when steps are taken to reduce the hold of inequitable laws, customs, and practices, outcomes for all improve. It offers a new paradigm for understanding insecurity, instability, autocracy, and violence, explaining what the international community can do now to promote more equitable relations between men and women and, thereby, security and peace. With comprehensive empirical evidence of the wide-ranging harm of subjugating women, it is an important book for security scholars, social scientists, policy makers, historians, and advocates for women worldwide.