Jeannette moderated this breakout session during the AVPN 2018 workshop help in Singapore on 5 June 2018.
The speakers were:
Sunmoon Jang, Marketing Director of Root Impact;
Linda Jones, Senior Director – Global Programs of MEDA;
William Muir, Co-Founder of Equal Community Foundation;
Trisha Gray, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)
Discussions focused on impact measurement for gender equality and especially Gender Lens Investments. Linda shared the Gender Equality Mainstreaming Framework developed by MEDA and highlighted that it is an assessment tool, which can be used to develop gender mainstreaming strategies in line with the business growth models. Sun Moon shared her perspective on working women’s career disruptions, and her organization’s experiences connecting women to jobs with social enterprises in Korea. Will added his experiences working with men and boys in India for gender equitable behaviour to end violence and discrimination against women. Sunmoon and William discussed the socio-cultural aspects of gender inequality and need for behavioral and societal change. They expressed that even with policies in place, the implementation may not be effective or contextually appropriate or might even absent in certain areas that may be important for reducing gender inequality. Trisha shared the experience of the Investing in Women Initiative of DFAT, stating that advocating gender equality and communication is still a challenge with impact investors. Jeannette presented the W+ Standard and explained that the matrix for the six domains of empowerment can be used to design projects.
