17 Nov Expression of Interest for Gender Equality Scorecard© Academic Partnership
November 17th, 2020 — SEAF is pleased to invite leading academic and research institutions to respond to this Expression of Interest: “Mainstreaming SEAF Gender Equality Scorecard© Across Private Funds Industry” to partner with the organization and its collaborators. This is an opportunity to form a unique partnership that will position the academic partner as a go-to institution for global data, research, and learning across dimensions of gender diversity and inclusion, within the private funds space, that drive better outcomes for women and girls.
SEAF developed GES© as a tool to assess women’s economic empowerment and gender equality and diversity within individual investment opportunities and portfolio companies for SEAF funds. The tool has been adopted across all SEAF funds and promoted to the broader development finance institutions and the private equity community to be incorporated in their investment processes.
The goal for implementing GES© across private funds industry is to form a leading global resource and database available for international gender lens research and practice, particularly where gender equality plays a role in improving business and investment performance, whether financial or social. In the interests of building a broader ecosystem of knowledgeable GES© supporters, EOI submissions from a consortium or partnership would be welcomed. The partnership will proactively promote the GES© as a tool, leveraging the data derived from the database for wider adoption within the impact investment and private funds industry.
SEAF has been working on developing the GES© further by collaborating closely with a range of partners at the forefront of Gender Lens Investing (“GLI”). These include UN ESCAP, Investing in Women (“IW”), Catalyst at Large, Criterion Institute, US International Development Finance Corporation (“DFC”), IFU, DEG, CDC, FinDev Canada, Women of the World Endowment (“WoWE”), Global Impact Investing Network (“GIIN”), Danish Family Planning Association (“DFPA”), Glenmede, Global Impact Initiative and People Management Association of the Philippines (“PMAP”). This collaboration culminated in the publication of a gender lens investment practitioner’s guide, the GES© Manual in July this year.
“I am excited to bring GES© to its next phase of development and this would not be possible without the help of our collaborating partners who have been with us in this journey since the start,” commented SEAF Senior Managing Director Jennifer Buckley. “This is an important milestone for us to institutionalize the insights and learnings that we already see in SEAF’s portfolio companies, demonstrating the financial returns as well as gender interventions resulting in impressive outcomes for women and girls. By developing a body of evidence, we are articulating the business case for women’s economic empowerment.”
Jessica Espinoza Trujano, Global Gender Finance Lead at DEG, the German development finance institution (DFI) and Chair of the 2X Challenge, stated, “This innovative partnership between private sector practitioners and academia represents a key milestone to build the field of gender lens investing. This global longitudinal database capturing a spectrum of highly relevant gender equality metrics of SMEs is an essential basis for more rigorous academic research and will significantly advance our understanding of women’s entrepreneurship and gender-smart businesses across geographies and sectors. I look forward to this exciting partnership and its important contributions to investment practice and the academic field of entrepreneurship.”
The call for EOI will be open from today, 17th November 2020, and will close 13 January 2021 (5PM EST). Please click here to access the EOI and here for the EOI submission template.