New fund launched to support women in global value chains

The Fund will raise the amount in pooled funding over three years to support locally driven solutions to the systemic problems that make women more vulnerable to crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Resilience Fund is a joint initiative of BSR, the United Nations Foundation’s Universal Access Project, and Women Win/Win-Win Strategies in close collaboration with founding corporate partners and investors Gap Foundation, PVH Foundation, H&M Foundation, and The VF Foundation. In addition, the Ralph Lauren Corporate Foundation has announced it will also join the Fund as a founding investor to support women workers in global supply chains.

"This innovative collaboration provides unrestricted funds to organisations in the Global South—trusting local and regional women’s funds, women-led organisations, and feminist leaders to know what their communities need and enabling them to direct resources to yield the strongest outcomes," a media statement said. The Fund is embarking on its first phase in South Asia, with planned expansions to additional regions by early 2022.

A representative advisory board places grassroots and feminist leaders as equal partners with investors in determining how funds should be expended, using real-time feedback and learning to respond flexibly to changing realities on the ground. Global Fund for Women, the Naz Foundation, Prospera International Network of Women’s Funds, and Women’s Fund Asia will serve as representatives of women’s funds and grassroots women’s organisations on the advisory board.

The Fund is open to investors across a wide range of sectors, offering them the opportunity to build new, long-term connections with women’s funds and locally-led organisations that focus on women's safety, security, and sexual and reproductive health as long-term drivers of economic resilience.

"Women are uniquely and disproportionately harmed by the consequences of the pandemic. No company or organisation will be able to drive this agenda on their own; partnerships that combine different perspectives, sectors, and kinds of knowledge is crucial. We are therefore proud to be part of this new initiative and collaboration, focusing on both systemic change and innovative solutions with a clear bottom-up approach," said H&M Foundation global manager Diana Amini.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RKS)