Just Good Investing: Why gender matters to your portfolio and what you can do about it

There is growing evidence and collective understanding that gender equity is good for investment, good for businesses, good for society. However, this understanding still has not translated into widespread action in the investment world, often because investors are unsure how to incorporate gender into their analyses.

To address this, the report conducts an analysis of Calvert Impact Capital's private debt portfolio over the past eleven years examining the relationship between gender diversity at the board and leadership level and financial performance. It reveals a strong relationship between gender diversity in leadership positions (senior management) and financial performance. It also shares practical guidance and tools for creating a gender inclusive investment strategy. Read the full report

What Have We Learned: Financing Social Businesses in Uganda

Financing and supporting early-stage businesses in Uganda is not an easy task. Social businesses in the early growth stages require patience and support to hone their model and serve more people. In this report with USAID, YUNUS Social Business looks critically at their venture philanthropy fund in order to share their learnings from their portfolio and investment and support strategy. The report describes their investment processes, strategies, and their new criteria moving forward. Learn more.

Financial Inclusion: Technology, Innovation, Progress

From innovative technology to increased engagement by the private sector, several exciting trends are propelling the world’s impressive gains in financial access, according to the newly released annual report from the UNSGSA. The report also details the many ways in which financial inclusion is driving progress on the development goals.

Despite this progress, however, gaps remain—most notably among women and the poor—and account usage lags behind access. The report details the UNSGSA’s ongoing efforts to address these issues through three key areas of work: ensuring usage and development impact, reaching neglected populations, and creating the right environment for technology-enabled financial inclusion. Read the full report.

Too Tough to Scale? Challenges to Scaling Innovation in the Humanitarian Sector

Elrha released the report Too tough to scale? in October 2018. Despite increased investment in the area, scaling humanitarian innovation is still a big and ongoing challenge. The report explores why more innovations aren’t successfully scaling and identify key barriers.

Drawing from Elrha’s own experience in funding over 150 humanitarian organisations to develop, test and scale many highly impactful innovations, and drawing on research and experience from the social and development sectors, Too tough to scale? identifies 13 key barriers across five different challenge areas. The report goes on to provide clear calls to action for different humanitarian actors and encourages those groups to contribute to sector-wide transformative change.

Empowering through Collective Action

This paper is focused on how collective action can contribute to inclusion objectives, with particular respect to the agriculture sector. It was released in October 2018 as part of IFAD's Research Series, which brings together cutting-edge thinking on smallholder agriculture and rural development. Drawing on empirical and theoretical references, the paper posits that collection action could influence the domains of "public goods provision, expanding opportunities and challenging current norms and behaviours."