From Duke University. This program took place March 11-13, 2019 and September 9-11, 2019 at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. This 3-day intensive course is designed to help you navigate the emerging world of gender smart investing so that you can develop tangible strategies and practice to more easily and quickly integrate gender smart investing as part of an overall investing practice. Two of the top globally recognized pioneers in gender lens and impact investing (Suzanne Biegel, Catalyst at Large and GenderSmart Investing, and Cathy Clark, CASE i3 Initiative on Impact Investing at Duke University) will lead the training, sharing their insights and working with you on the key practices of gender lens investing.

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 the Global Business Certification Standard for Gender Equality. EDGE is the leading global assessment methodology and business certification standard for gender equality. It measures where organizations stand in terms of gender balance across their pipeline, pay equity, effectiveness of policies and practices to ensure equitable career flows as well as inclusiveness of their culture. EDGE stands for Economic Dividends for Gender Equality and is distinguished by its rigor and focus on business impact.

From Bloomberg. Advisers are adding guarantees to certain merger agreements in light of the sexual misconduct scandals that have enveloped the producer Harvey Weinstein and other high-profile businessmen -- ones that legally vouch for the behavior of a company’s leadership.

The development is a concrete example of how business is trying to adapt to the #MeToo era, at least in terms of legal liability. The move is particularly noteworthy given its source: the male-dominated world of M&A advisory where the terms of an offer can make or break a bid.

The 2X Challenge serves as one instrument in the DFI toolkit to direct capital towards women’s development. The 2X Challenge calls the G7 and other DFIs to collectively commit and mobilize $15 billion that provide women in developing country markets with improved access to leadership opportunities, quality employment, finance, enterprise support and products and services that enhance economic participation and access.

DFIs can use the 2X Challenge to direct capital towards women, pre- or post-investment by:

• Encouraging investees to collect data on women employees and consumers

• Measuring the development impact of investing with and in women, over time

• Making a business case for investing with and in women

Fulfilling one of the five criteria makes an investment 2X eligible.

From ICRW. The sector-specific Gender Materiality Maps outline where gender integration is most “material” for businesses, by sector.

Identifying where and how gender may be material in a sector helps companies understand and assess gender-related risks and opportunities that are reasonably likely to impact their financial condition or operating performance.

The Gender Materiality Maps drew inspiration from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Materiality Map, an interactive tool for corporate and investor use that identifies and compares disclosure topics and their financial materiality across different industries.

From Value for Women. This Paper complements Papers #1 (“Gender Inclusion for Climate-Smart Agribusinesses: A practical framework for integrating gender in climate-smart agriculture”) and #2 (“Influencing and Advocacy for Gender-Inclusive Climate-Smart Agriculture: A guide for small and growing agribusinesses”), and aims to provide tangible reference points for businesses interested in taking a gender-inclusive approach to their CSA work. The examples showcased in this Paper are intended to inspire and support SGABs to adopt the gender-inclusive practices outlined in Papers #1 and #2. Recognising that gender, business, and CSA are mutually reinforcing, the examples presented primarily focus on business-level impacts, rather than those at the producer or environmental level (i.e. profit rather than people or planet).

From Calvert Impact Capital. This seminal paper on gender-lens investing shares practical guidance for creating a gender inclusive investment strategy, learned from evolving the authors’ own gender-lens investment approach:

• Set realistic expectations based on the type of capital you are investing. This, more than anything, practically defines the opportunities that are available to you to invest for impact and the approach you can take to incorporate gender

• Understand the tools at your disposal. The tools to incorporate gender into investment decision-making and analysis vary based on the type of capital and the level of influence and ownership that capital affords the investor

• Gender-lens investing is an art, not a science, and context matters. Gender’s role in investing is nuanced and success looks different depending on the context (e.g., market, geography, sector, etc.)

Incorporating gender into investment analysis might be the quickest route to better performing investments and a more equitable and sustainable world. There’s no one, right way to incorporate gender into your investments. It’s not rocket-science, it’s not niche. It has the potential to improve both financial performance and social impact. In short, it’s just good investing, so get started today.

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 the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN). IRIS+ is the generally accepted system for measuring, managing, and optimizing impact. All investors and companies create positive and negative effects on society and the environment. Impact investors seek to maximize the positive and minimize the negative by using the IRIS+ system to integrate social and environmental factors into investment decisions alongside risk and return.

Credible, comparable impact data are needed to inform impact investment decisions and drive greater impact results. IRIS+ solves for this by increasing data clarity and comparability, and it provides streamlined, practical, how-to guidance that impact investors need, all in one easy-to-navigate system. It is a free, publicly available resource that is managed by the GIIN – the global champion of impact investing.

From the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN). The Navigating Impact Project is where the GIIN, together with experts in different investment themes, identify best practices, research, and recommended metrics for each investment theme. This will make sure they are relevant, practical, and set the standard for best practice. Once these resources have gone through the IRIS+ rigorous standards development process, they are uploaded into IRIS+ and made available to a wider audience.

Through the content provided, investors, enterprises, and other stakeholders in the impact investing ecosystem can explore Impact Themes such as Energy Access, Gender, Education, Sustainable Forestry, Sustainable Water Management, and others. Each of these Impact Themes includes a series of Strategic Goals that show common impact intentions that investors and enterprises may have within that space For example, under the Impact Theme on Smallholder Agriculture, Strategic Goals include “Improved Access to Training and Information,” “Improved Farm Profitability,” and “Improved Food Security,” among others.

Each Strategic Goal includes a research-based overview of the problem and how investments can work toward solutions, an evidence map, a starter kit of metrics that are shown to indicate progress toward that strategic goal, and curated resources that can help practitioners measure and manage their impact most effectively.

From the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Gender equality and equity are matters of fundamental human rights and social justice - and prerequisite for fully realizing environmental goals. This Resource Center supports the goals and delivery of numerous projects focused on advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment throughout natural resource management activities. Housing knowledge platforms and information hubs for specific gender and environment partnerships led by IUCN, this site is possible thanks to the generous support of USAID, SIDA and other partners.

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 Forbes. There have been at least six shareholder proposals during this proxy season, according to Parallelle Finance, a research firm that monitors, analyses and advocates for gender lens investing. It appears that shareholder activism is increasingly a successful strategy by investors to enhance companies’ performance and disclosures on environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria, including in diversity and inclusion.

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 Harvard Business Review. In an era where companies are paying more and more attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), inclusion remains the most difficult metric to track. From new research, Gartner developed the Gartner Inclusion Index to measure what true inclusion looks like across an organization. The authors outline how to use the Gartner Inclusion Index to measure employee perceptions of inclusion, what effective action looks like from leaders, and common pitfalls to avoid.

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.

Australians Investing In Women (AIIW)’s recent research report from Equity Economics makes a compelling case for the critical need to invest with a focus on women – not only because of the disproportionate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic but because of the critical role women can play in driving our economic and social recovery.

AIIW commissioned this research to provide funders with analysis and distillation of existing research into the impacts of recent disasters on women. The purpose is to highlight key issues, and identify funding hotspots, where private and corporate giving can be targeted to help accelerate Australia’s economic and social recovery through a focus on women’s economic security, safety and wellbeing. From Australians Investing In Women.

By Dana Kanze, Laura Huang, Mark A. Conley, and E. Tory Higgins. A study of Q&A interactions between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs at the annual startup funding competition TechCrunch Disrupt New York City found that venture capitalists posed different types of questions to male versus female entrepreneurs. They tended to ask men (promotion) questions about the potential for gains, and they tended to ask women (prevention) questions about the potential for losses. The difference in questioning explains much of why female entrepreneurs received five times less funding than their male counterparts.

A second experiment finds that the relationship between Q&A orientation and funding is causal. Entrepreneurs who were asked promotion questions received twice as much funding as those who were asked prevention questions.

Both studies also revealed an actionable silver lining: If entrepreneurs reframe their responses to prevention questions, they may be able to raise more funds.