Investing in Women Activity Completion Report
Summary
IW has been an important initiative, seeking to identify evidence-based approaches to improve women’s economic opportunities in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Myanmar, to drive inclusive economic growth. The original design emphasised innovation and risk-taking to help drive change for women. Along the way, IW developed new approaches. A significant investment in monitoring, evaluation, and learning was made to guide implementation and enable the dissemination of results to a wider audience.
Phases 1 and 2 of IW sought to catalyse inclusive economic growth through women’s economic empowerment in Southeast Asia between April 2016 to July 2023, with a focus on Workplace Gender Equality, Gender Lens Investing, and Influencing Gender Norms. The next phase of Investing in Women provides an opportunity to scale these initiatives and create lasting economic change.
Highlights
- IW established and supported business coalitions (BCs) to shift workplace culture, practices and policy barriers to advance WGE in society. The BCs collectively represent 128 member companies with over one million employees. A number of these firms have demonstrated clear improvements in WGE policies within their organisations.
- In partnership with investors and ecosystem players, IW worked to normalize GLI within the wider ecosystem and increase the flow of capital toward women entrepreneurs in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. These activities have driven a seven-fold increase in GLI investment within the region.
- Ten (10) investing partners invested in 82 women-owned or led small and medium enterprises, using AUD 15.4 million from IW and AUD 290 million leveraged from other capital sources.
- To positively shift gender norms on care and economic roles, IW supported 20 locally-led campaigns which reached over 350 million young urban millennials and led to positive shifts in gender attitudes and behaviour.
