Women of the World Endowment (WoWE) Launches Global Challenge to Increase Financial Commitments for Gender Equality

Women of the World Endowment (WoWE), an early-stage initiative incubated by GDI, has launched a global challenge with UN Women to increase financial commitments to initiatives focused on financing Sustainable Development Goal 5 — gender equality.

The objective of the 10X Challenge is to catalyze gender-responsive capital that accelerates the achievement of the SDGs by increasing financial commitments 10-fold on a rolling basis throughout 2020. The challenge starts today, with announcements of capital commitments towards the first targets and an invitation for other actors to join.

We need to take bold and audacious steps towards meeting gender equality goals. If action continues at the current pace, it will be the year 2069 before we have gender parity in politics; 2114 before we have gender parity in lower education; and 2169 before we have equal pay for women.

WoWE has a strategy to demonstrate that allocating assets with a Gender Lens Investment (GLI) screen will yield at least the same risk-adjusted returns as a traditional endowment while delivering impact for women, girls and the communities they empower. WoWE’s 10X Challenge is to multiply a US$5 Million contribution from Ruth Shaber who has said, “Building an institutional endowment committed to investing 100% of its capital to benefit women and girls is a once in a generation opportunity whose time is now.”