The case for gender equality has never been stronger—the ethical case as well as the investment and economic cases. Progress, however, remains slow and somewhat patchy, for the same reasons that efforts to tackle other forms of inequality are measured by the turtle’s pace rather than the gazelle’s: The power elite almost never give up ground without a fight. But that’s turning into a losing, if protracted, battle.

By Julie Gorte, PhD, Investments & Wealth Institute

From the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and CDC Group. More clarity and guidance is needed by fund managers to understand how to put gender-smart investing into practice. To fill this knowledge gap, IFC, in partnership with CDC and support from the Government of Canada, developed Private Equity and Value Creation: A Fund Manager’s Guide to Gender-smart Investing. The Guide is a practical step-by-step road map for fund managers on how to strengthen gender diversity within their own firms and incorporate a gender focus into investment operations. It combines learnings from CDC and IFC’s experience with over 160 fund managers and draws on best practices with a series of case studies from stakeholders across the industry.

ProjectDiane2018 is a biennial demographic study authored by digitalundivided that provides a snapshot of the state of Black Women Founders, and the startups they lead, in the United States

From Green Climate Fund (GCF). This manual addresses GCF’s potential to mainstream gender into climate finance, building on its mandate to support a paradigm shift to low-emission and climate-resilient development. Developed with UN Women, this toolkit guides GCF partners on how to include women, girls, men, and boys from socially excluded and vulnerable communities in all aspects of climate finance.

From Value for Women. This How-To Guide makes an important contribution to our industry work by providing practical tools and resources for an investing community that urgently needs to address its diversity and inclusion deficits. Globally, awareness of gender lens investing continues to gain momentum, but we must convert this awareness to action and movement of capital, especially during this period of COVID-19 response and recovery. Thus, how fund managers invest is just as important as what they invest in. This perspective not only demands a technical approach (gender analysis, tools, and frameworks), but also broader organizational re-alignment (gender mainstreaming). This internal process is an essential part of creating external change and outcomes that advance gender equality.

From Wharton Social Impact Intiative and Catalyst at Large. A follow up to previous reports Project Sage (data through 2017) and Project Sage 2.0 (data through 2018), this latest report is a landscape analysis of structured private equity, venture capital, and private debt funds with a gender lens. Over 138 total funds and structured vehicles were included in this latest analysis, with data collected through December 2019.

Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Catalyst and Large and Sagana partner to map the landscape of gender lens investment vehicles in both public and private markets, across East and Southeast Asia.

From the Bankwest Curtin Economic Centre. Research by the Bankwest Curtin Economic Centre (Australia) puts a figure on the additional worth a company can generate by getting more women into key decision-making roles, by finding a strong and convincing causal relationship between company performance and women holding an increasing share of leadership positions within ASX listed organisations.

From UNICEF and Criterion Institute. The purpose of this tool is to equip investors to understand the risk their investments are exposed to as a result of gender-based violence. This tool enables investors to determine how their existing due diligence process can be used to determine a potential investment’s exposure to the political, regulatory, operational, and reputational risks of gender-based violence. This tool is one component of a broader global effort to ensure the right to live free of violence.

From Cornerstone Capital Group. Wealth inequality among racial and ethnic groups in the United States results from structural racism dating to the beginning of the republic. Investors can contribute to the narrowing of economic disparities through a dedicated emphasis on investing in underserved minority communities.

Household wealth underpins financial security. By transferring wealth from parents and grandparents to children, families fund the foundations of prosperous lives and communities: quality education, business formation, and home ownership. Inequality persists across generations in part because people of color earn (on average) less income and possess a fraction of the household wealth of white communities, hampering their ability to provide these advantages to the next generation.

Investors interested in using their capital to promote racial and ethnic equality should consider how they may help create durable household wealth for people of color. The authors suggest investment approaches that can contribute to solutions to three of the main current components of wealth inequity: 1) income inequality; 2) access to affordable housing; and 3) access to capital.

From Robeco. RobecoSAM researchers measured the contribution of women in the workplace as part of analysis of a dataset of over 20,720 observations collected through the SAM Corporate Sustainability Assessment from 2013-2018.

The SAM CSA is an annual assessment which uses a scoring methodology to assess the environmental, social and governance (ESG) characteristics of the companies taking part. Gender equality is measured using a variety of metrics, beyond counting the number of women who serve on the company’s board.

On the face of it, the results were only mildly encouraging at first. An increase in gender diversity on corporate boards was a positive finding, but the increase at management level was minimal, rising from 24% in 2013 to 26% in 2018. Furthermore, data for the total workforce over the same time period shows little change.

But then drilling down into the data using regression analysis, the research looked at the presence of women at different corporate levels, and the link with firm fundamentals. Dividing the data into quantiles enabled confirmation of the link between financial performance at every level: corporate board, management and total workforce.

From Domini Impact Investments LLC. Join 336 (at time of writing) responsible investors worth $9.2T in signing this Investor Statement to Coronavirus Response.

From Arjuna Capital and Proxy Impact. For Equal Pay Day 2020, Arjuna Capital and Proxy Impact compiled the third quantitative accounting of current pay disclosures, performance, and commitments among corporate leaders and laggards in four industries: finance, technology/communications, consumer, and healthcare.

The Gender Pay Scorecard (GPS) offers a template through which to view corporate best practice, ranking companies on quantitative disclosures (not qualitative assurances), commitments to report numbers annually, global coverage, and goals to close the gender pay gap. The companies in the ranking have all been engaged by investors through the shareholder proposal process and asked to improve their public pay equity disclosures.

The GPS looks at 50 major U.S. companies, only three of which–Starbucks, Mastercard, and Citigroup–receive an “A” grade. A failing grade of “F” is awarded to half—25—of the total group of companies, including Goldman Sachs, Oracle, McDonalds, and Walmart. Ten companies (in order of rank) —Nike, Bank of New York Mellon, Progressive Insurance, Apple, Pfizer, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, American Express, Intel, and Bank of America, Reinsurance Group—garnered a “B” grade for their efforts to disclose and act on their gender and racial pay gaps.

From Illuminate Ventures. Illuminate Ventures surveyed over 1200 Tech founders and VC investors and gained a better than 30% response rate. The founders were asked about their motivations as well as their perceptions regarding key success attributes and barriers to entrepreneurial success. Venture capital investors responded to the same questions and were also asked to rate the likelihood of the success attributes being displayed and the probability of the barriers having an impact, based on the gender of an entrepreneur.

While the survey data showed that men and women startup founders think quite similarly about their entrepreneurial motivations and the personal attributes that impact success, it also revealed some very important differences regarding the barriers they believe they face and how VCs think about each group. The investors, both male and female, had quite different views of how gender impacts entrepreneurship than the founders – rating men more likely to display many of the success attributes and assuming that women are more impacted by the barriers.

From 2X Challenge. This guidance note sets out a suite of indicators, mapped to the 2X Challenge criteria, that can be used by investors to:

• Establish and monitor the gender impact of their investment (irrespective as to whether it is 2X Challenge eligible); and

• Determine eligibility for the 2X Challenge

The guidance also shows how the 2X Challenge indicators map to metrics within the IRIS Catalog of Metrics. The primary purpose of this guidance note is to advise on the application of the 2X Challenge indicators.

From ICMA. The Green Bond market aims to enable and develop the key role that debt markets can play in funding projects that contribute to environmental sustainability. The Green Bond Principles (GBP) promote integrity in the Green Bond market through guidelines that recommend transparency, disclosure and reporting. They are intended for use by market participants and are designed to drive the provision of information needed to increase capital allocation to such projects. With a focus on the use of proceeds, the GBP aim to support issuers in transitioning their business model towards greater environmental sustainability through specific projects.

From ICMA. The Social Bond market aims to enable and develop the key role that debt markets can play in funding projects that address global social challenges. Social Bonds are use of proceeds bonds that raise funds for new and existing projects with positive social outcomes. The Social Bond Principles (SBP) promote integrity in the Social Bond market through guidelines that recommend transparency, disclosure and reporting. They are intended for use by market participants and are designed to drive the provision of information needed to increase capital allocation to social projects without any single arbiter.

The IFC’s Investing for Impact: Operating Principles for Impact Management (the Principles) have been developed by a group of asset owners, managers, and allocators to describe essential features of managing investments into companies or organisations with the intent to contribute to measurable positive social or environmental impact alongside financial returns.

From Criterion Institute. This tool can be used by anyone looking to develop a gender lens investing strategy – from foundations, to women’s funds, to investors across asset classes. Following a standard investment cycle, this tool supports the design of an investment strategy with considerations for how gender dynamics might present risks and opportunities. It provides a framework to consider building a gender lens into new or existing strategies. This tool can be used to inform investment strategy or in diligence. Wherever you find yourself in your gender lens investing journey, we hope this tool helps expand imagination of what is possible in the field.