From FP Analytics. A sustainable, equitable, and just recovery from COVID-19 requires purposeful policy action to mitigate the worsening of structural inequalities and to address their root causes. This report synthesizes existing evidence of how women have been impacted by the pandemic, how governments have responded to date, and what is at stake if policymakers fail to enact more inclusive recovery measures. It also provides recommendations for rights-based policies, interventions, and investments underpinned by rigorous gender analysis. Finally, this report recognizes that “the women and girls who are furthest behind often experience multiple inequalities and intersecting forms of discrimination, including based on their sex, age, class, ability, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and migration status” and calls for an intersectional and nuanced approach to evidence-based policymaking that benefits everyone.

From CDC. Over the past year, CDC worked with a team at the London School of Economics Trade Policy Hub to better understand the impact of their trade and supply chain finance investments. This report highlights the main insights from the evidence review and outlines key opportunities for investors who are looking to deliver impact through trade and supply chain finance.

From Baker McKenzie. A comparison of the current UK and US positions regarding Board Diversity and DEI targets.

From The Work and Opportunities for Women (WOW) Programme in partnership with Primark. Women have been central to the Bangladesh garment workforce over recent decades, using the opportunity to financially support their families. However, many women are still expected to undertake most household chores and childcare. They often struggle to shoulder both long hours at work and unpaid work and care responsibilities. Unpaid work and care refers to unpaid time spent on activities within a household for its members including care of persons, housework and voluntary community work.

The WOW programme, in partnership with Primark, visited garment workers in communities and factories in Bangladesh in 2019. WOW’s research found that the women they interviewed are working a “double day”, spending an average of 7 hours on unpaid work, including child care and domestic work, in addition to their shift in the garment factory. The men interviewed spent considerably less time, with up to 2.5 hours spent on unpaid work and care activities. WOW also found that where men do help their wives, they often face backlash from their community.

From Arabella Advisors. This report, updated in August 2021, explores how foundations, philanthropists, and impact investors can begin to address the biases they face, unlock access to capital, and build a more equitable economy for all through inclusive investing.

From Deloitte. The venture capital (VC) industry appears to be making progress in achieving greater gender, racial, and ethnic diversity. Some progress has been made in expanding the representation of women in leadership positions, particularly for investing professionals. In addition, of the VC firms surveyed, more are adopting diversity and inclusion strategies than before, and firms with these strategies report having more diverse workforces than other VC firms. However, the pace of progress has been uneven across diversity demographics—there has been little increase in the representation of Black and Hispanic employees in the overall industry and in leadership positions. At the talent management level, few of the firms surveyed conduct employee surveys to assess their progress in creating a more inclusive workplace. While the improvements indicate a positive trend, the data indicates the industry has work to do to achieve a long-term diverse workforce.

These are some of the key findings of the third edition of the VC Human Capital Survey, powered by the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), Venture Forward, and Deloitte to assess the state of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the VC industry. The survey provides a source of information that allows firms to benchmark themselves against industry practices and helps them identify innovative approaches to promote DEI.

From Harvard Business Review. Women who venture into entrepreneurship are not poised to get a fair deal. Kamal Hassan, Monisha Varadan, and Claudia Zeisberger argue that bias within the VC industry is preventing funds from being allocated to the best investment opportunities, so if we want both better VC outcomes and more gender balance in entrepreneurship, we need to root out the bias hampering ventures at their earliest stages. The research suggests that the pitching process is the best place to start.

From The Holding Co. and Pivotal Ventures. The Investor’s Guide to the Care Economy is the first study of its kind to quantify the market opportunity in care. For the first half of 2021, The Holding Co., in partnership with Pivotal Ventures, launched this initiative to investigate areas of care that show the most promise for investors, entrepreneurs, and corporations as the COVID-19 pandemic revealed just how inadequate our current care economy really is.

The report leverages data from 25+ market reports, 6 government data sources, 30+ expert interviews, 2 original national data collection surveys with 5000+ participants spread across both, and guidance from 40 stewardship and advisory council members who are leaders in care today. The report focuses on household and families willingness to pay, the role of government in igniting the private sector, and the role of insurance and employers to support care innovation.

This resource is designed to serve you in multiple ways. You can dive deep into a segment that resonates with you, pluck a data point for a pitch deck, or share the site more broadly to encourage others to look seriously at the care economy. We hope that this report inspires you to dedicate your investments, entrepreneurial energy, and collaboration to being part of this historic moment in care.

From McKinsey & Company. Diversity Wins is the third report in a McKinsey series investigating the business case for diversity, following Why diversity matters (2015) and Delivering through diversity (2018). This latest report shows not only that the business case remains robust but also that the relationship between diversity on executive teams and the likelihood of financial outperformance has strengthened over time. These findings emerge from their largest data set so far, encompassing 15 countries and more than 1,000 large companies. By incorporating a “social listening” analysis of employee sentiment in online reviews, the report also provides new insights into how inclusion matters. It shows that companies should pay much greater attention to inclusion, even when they are relatively diverse.

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 USAID. Countries around the world are in the midst of a historic digital transition. The rapid development and adoption of digital technology is transforming industries, governments, economies, and societies. Digital ecosystems—the stakeholders, systems, and enabling environment that together empower people and communities to use digital technology to access services, engage with each other, or pursue economic opportunities—hold immense potential to help people live more free and prosperous lives. At the same time, digital transformation comes with the risk of increasing inequality. Despite the global prevalence of mobile phones and the Internet, the reality in many communities does not yet reflect the potential of a digital ecosystem that drives sustainable and equitable growth, often excluding vulnerable and marginalized groups. The USAID Digital Strategy aims to strengthen open, inclusive, and secure digital ecosystems in each country where they work. Through the Digital Strategy, the Agency is further demonstrating its commitment to closing the gender digital divide, by building awareness and capacity of USAID staff, partners, and partner countries to overcome the barriers to women’s access and meaningful use of digital technology. No country will be self-reliant if all members of its citizenry cannot benefit equally from the gains of a global digital ecosystem.

From the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Today the digital transformation provides new avenues for the economic empowerment of women and can contribute to greater gender equality. The Internet, digital platforms, mobile phones and digital financial services offer “leapfrog” opportunities for all and can help bridge the divide by giving women the possibility to earn additional income, increase their employment opportunities, and access knowledge and general information. We need to seize this opportunity to foster greater gender equality in the labour market, boost economic growth and build a more inclusive, digital world.

This report explores a range of factors that underpin the digital gender divide, bolsters the evidence base for policy making and provides policy directions for consideration by all G20 governments. The report finds that hurdles to access, affordability, lack of education as well as inherent biases and sociocultural norms curtail women and girls’ ability to benefit from the opportunities offered by the digital transformation. In addition, girls’ relatively lower educational enrolment in disciplines that would allow them to perform well in a digital world – such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics, as well as information and communication technologies – coupled with women’s and girls’ more limited use of digital tools could lead to widening gaps and greater inequality.

By Alina Sorgner, Gloria Mayne, Judith Mariscal, and Urvashi Aneja. Despite the headway the world has experienced over the years in terms of a substantial increase in digital access, there are still significant challenges to overcome in ensuring women are included in the transformation to a digital society and leapfrogging productivity and social development. Efforts to increase internet adoption access through broadband plans and legislative reforms have yielded improvements in use and adoption. However, a stark gender inequality is pervasive in terms of access, ownership of digital devices, digital fluency as well as the capacity to make meaningful use of the access to technology. Even though affordability is a key source of exclusion, there are also significant socio-cultural norms that restrict access for women. This policy brief brings forward the argument that access alone is not enough, women need agency and capacity to leverage access. We thus highlight the need to make an assessment of the global gender gap and develop meaningful indicators that contribute to the design and implementation of effective policies that drive adoption. We need effective promotion of women´s digital adoption not only from the government but from the private sector and civil society to lead the digital adoption for women of best practices around the world.

From Root Capital. This report documents Root Capital’s GLI journey, capturing the organization’s goals and motivations, path toward realizing those goals, challenges faced, results of the work, factors behind success, and key learning. It describes Root Capital’s entry points to GLI, and how the organization gradually proceeded to embed gender across its programs and operations.

Key audiences for this report include those who aspire to increase their exposure to GLI practices and potentially adopt approaches in their own organizations, as well as the organizations they support and partner with. Insights will be most relevant for:

• Impact investors, especially those with an agricultural focus;

• Organizations promoting gender equity in rural communities; and

• Development donors and investors.

The report highlights best practice examples, tools, and strategies from Root Capital’s experience that investors and donors can tailor to their specific contexts and priorities.

From the Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and global protests against racial injustice have shed light on the deep and widening nature of structural racism in the European Union (EU). The EU’s increased attention and political commitments in response to BLM protests, including the adoption of the EU Anti-Racism Action Plan, are welcome developments after a decade of limited action in the field of racial justice.

This heightened grassroots, political and institutional attention to structural racism in Europe presents an opportunity for the EU to change course and provide a meaningful route toward equality and justice.

However, the actions undertaken will only be effective in achieving racial justice and meaningful progress if they address structural and institutional racism and include racialised communities in such efforts. This requires a significant shift in EU policy, to better reflect the needs and reality of the situation of racialised communities in Europe today.

To achieve this, Equinox proposes a new policy approach to addressing structural racism and inequality in the EU. This report focuses on specific recommendations for change within EU institutions. Equinox will soon release recommendations on the major “racial justice focal points” for EU policy: climate and environmental justice, gender, law enforcement, and migration.

This paper outlines the main institutional changes that need to take place for the EU to implement structural change for racialised communities in the EU.

From Commonfund. A U.S. capitalist system where approximately one percent of all capital is managed by women and people of color, who make up 70 percent of the population, perpetuates and increases inequality and drags down our whole economy. Recently, Ford Foundation and Commonfund Institute hosted a discussion with peers who are at the forefront of the investing in diverse managers effort. During this virtual session, panelists shared the experiences of their own institutions allocating capital to diverse managers, the benefits of investing in diverse managers, challenges they've encountered and resources they've found helpful.