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Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Achieve Gender Equality and Empower All Women and Girls

September 2018 | Gender Lens

According to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) and Sustainable Development Goal #5, providing women and girls with equal access to education, health care, decent work, and representation in political and economic decision-making processes will fuel sustainable economies and benefit societies and humanity at large.

Gender Lens InsertLooking closer at content published on the United Nations (UN) website, gender equality matters because women and girls represent half of the world’s population and therefore also half of its potential.  But, today gender inequality persists everywhere and stagnates social progress.[1]  There are strategies available in gender lens investing to help combat this problem and earlier this week, we published a new report covering gender lens investing and the opportunities available in fixed income. While gender lens investing is becoming increasingly popular amongst investors, many still think it is limited to avoiding exposure to companies with poor gender diversity records or seeking companies in which women are represented at the executive and board levels.

It is wonderful to see one of the 17 SDGs focused exclusively on gender equality with many targets including ending all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere to undertaking reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources.[2]It is equally exciting to know that opportunities in gender lens investing continue to increase.  From 2014 to 2017, total assets in gender lens investing strategies in public market securities went from $100 million to $910 million.[3]  We see this number continuing to grow exponentially with more opportunities available to investors in each coming year. 

Gender lens investing is part of the foundation of CCM’s impact practice and we look forward to continuing to provide capital to an increasing number of gender lens investment opportunities that directly benefit women and girls in a positive way.

 

To read the full research report “Gender Lens Investing – Opportunities in Fixed Income”, please click here.

 

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[1] https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Goal-5.pdf

[2] https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/

[3] https://www.veriswp.com/research/gli-investment-options-2017/

 

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