Advancing gender equality resilience opportunity and inclusion worldwide (GROW) Facility

The Advancing Gender Equality Resilience Opportunity and Inclusion Worldwide (GROW) Facility aims to improve women’s livelihoods in developing countries by shifting corporate practices and creating economic opportunities for women. It seeks to achieve gender equality results by providing financial support and advisory services to help businesses improve gender equality through their core functions. This includes employing people delivering goods and services and allocating capital. The Facility aims to offer loans and other financial tools to support companies with growth strategies aligned with gender equality goals. This includes promoting women’s leadership or boosting women’s employment in under-represented sectors. Through advisory services the Facility supports companies in adopting and implementing policies and operational practices that improve the lives of women in all their diversity. The GROW Facility aims to support women’s leadership and inclusion in 5 priority areas: (1) accelerating access to finance for women and women-led businesses (2) making supply chains inclusive; (3) removing barriers to employment and leadership; (4) bridging the digital divide; and (5) accelerating inclusive and gender-smart climate action.

The expected outcomes of this project include: (1) improved quality of employment for women particularly low-income and informal workers; (2) improved access to markets and finance for women and women-led businesses; (3) increased representation of women in senior management board positions and the workforce; and (4) improved corporate practices policies and services that intentionally advance gender equality.