Section 2 - Strategies
Our toolkit navigator includes the following guiding symbols to guide audiences in prioritizing resources
ToolKit Navigator
⧫ Beginner: Entry-level tools and step-by-step guides for investors and financial institutions to get started on their gender mainstreaming journeys.
⧫⧫ Intermediate: Intermediate-level tools, strategies, guidelines, and manuals for investors and financial institutions already working with impact-investing frameworks and with a solid understanding of the concepts of gender, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
⧫⧫⧫ Advanced: Advanced-level intersectional frameworks and analytical gender lenses for investors and financial institutions with established GDE&I practices and a strong conceptual understanding of applying a gender lens across institutional activities.
☆Must read
*** Key resource for diversifying the gender perspective
Does your institution have a strategy that includes a gender lens?
Choose your answer
Being aware or conscious of gender dynamics is often not enough to truly create an impact in terms of gender equality.
In addition to generating programs and policies that promote diversity and inclusion, it is necessary to create institutional strategies that engage in a long-term vision of gender equity and consist of concrete actions to implement change.
This Section 2 will help you with institutional strategic planning and guide you on how to create a gender and diversity strategy and how to complement it with long-term corporate sustainability objectives and concrete implementation plan from a top-down perspective.
Select the challenges you identify with and explore the resources
Challenge:
There is consistent research that shows gender-diverse teams perform better than less diverse ones. Eliminating discrimination against female workers can boost productivity by up to 40%. Read through the Gender Sector Brief by CDC to identify existing and future opportunities for gender-smart investing.
You can test the power of a community by signing the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) to see if your competitors have signed into empowering women in the workplace and whether that has created a positive effect on their business performance.
⧫⧫ Intermediate, English
Not sure where to start? Section 2 Gender Strategies in the SDC Gender in Practice guide tells you how to make gender a cross-cutting theme in your strategy from key questions and simple outlines.
⧫⧫⧫ Advanced, English
Do you need an outline for your gender implementation strategy? Section 2.4 “Designing a strategy and implementation plan” of the Gender Diversity Journey (pages 10-12) teaches you how to design and implement a gender equity strategy for your institution. Also, case study no. 9 (pages 44 - 45) of the same document will help you understand how to set up a strategy in practice.
⧫⧫ Intermediate, English, ☆Must read
Are you an investor who wants to learn how capital with a gender lens can create sustainable and long-term change? For a holistic approach on how to mainstream gender throughout the investment process you can read through pages 17-20 of the How to Invest with a Gender Lens? guide.
⧫ Beginner, English
Want to diversify your institution's strategy? Check out the Gender Equity Resource kit. This tool connects different workplace areas with objectives and highlights some examples of gender-focused strategies that are innovative and diverse.
⧫ Beginner, English, ☆Must read, *** Key resource for diversifying the gender perspective
Challenge:
Look through the Step 7 of the Institutional Change Toolkit to plan for both internal and external communication in terms of gender mainstreaming. At the end of the page you’ll find some examples on how others have done it.
⧫ Beginner, English
Section 3 of this toolkit navigator emphasizes different public communication strategies that can be useful to publicize your GDE&I strategy and catalyze change in your sector.
Just beginning to understand these concepts? Don't worry, the CDC ESG Toolkit gives you an overview of environmental and social issues: from animal welfare to waste management, specifying for each topic how financial institutions can be involved based on risks and various business opportunities.
⧫⧫ Intermediate, English ☆Must read
Do you work at a financial institution or are you a part of an investment committee? Check out the Total Portfolio Activation Framework. This framework provides a detailed account of the specific activities that can increase your potential for social and environmental impact both within and across asset classes (cash and cash equivalents; fixed income; public equities; private equity; and real property). Go directly to pages 5-14, or read the entire report to read exciting case studies from other institutional investors!
⧫⧫⧫ Advanced, English
Integrating a gender perspective across operations is not only a question of external activities but requires looking inwards. Mainstreaming gender is a holistic, intentional and long-term process. We recommend reading through Section 1 for institutional policies or jumping straight to Section 6 for investing and impact.
Are you an institutional investor? To learn more about ESG/Gender indicators and to expand their incorporation in the development and management of the portfolio (or even in the institution as a whole!), we recommend you to review the CDC ESG Toolkit’s Gender-smart investing for FIs document.
⧫⧫ Intermediate, English
Challenge:
To get started you may want to familiarize yourself with various gender-related concepts, we recommend the following tools:
- Gender equality lexicon
- LGTB+ Glossary (focus on concepts to change your institutional language)
⧫ Beginner, English
Section 1 Definitions of the Gender in practice guide is a good place to start. This tool introduces some key concepts to understand gender in detail and in context. Likewise, section 5 "Gender in household and community analysis" of this same tool offers a gender analysis at the micro level, specifically of the social dynamics generated in households and the community
⧫⧫⧫ Advanced, English, ☆Must read.
The document Gender equity: Unconscious bias and interview panels toolkit refers to biases, their behavior and how to avoid them when hiring personnel. In addition, it provides the reader with other tools to deepen knowledge on the subject (self-assessment, toolkits, documents, videos, etc. related to gender bias).
⧫ Beginner, English
Do you know the concept of "organizational culture"? It could be a good starting point for the structural change you want to have in your institution. The "Culture" section of the GLIA Toolkit outlines some aspects of organizational culture and how to include a gender perspective.
⧫ Beginner, English
Ever wonder what an anti-racist institutional strategy looks like? This guide outlines six principles to help organizations develop an action strategy to help end systemic racism and address racial inequalities at work.
Conducting a gender audit could be an option to detect and change some of these behaviors. Go to Section 9.3 of this Toolkit to find more resources on how to create an effective gender audit in your workplace.
Challenge:
The section Gender stakeholder consultation refers precisely to the participation of experts, organizations, men and women in the policy-making process. It also explains why it is important to involve stakeholders in this process and a step-by-step outline of how to do it.
⧫ Beginner, English
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