The world’s first pioneering Gender Smart Investing Summit has launched in London. As latest figures reveal, the movement of gender smart capital has grown exponentially since 2017, global thought leaders are uniting to tip the scales in the fight for equality.

Thursday 1st November 2018 marks the first ever Gender Smart Investing Summit, where venture capitalists, asset managers, institutional investors, NGOs and entrepreneurs from around the world came together to examine how more capital can be channelled to accelerate positive change towards one of the most critical social issues of our time: achieving gender equality, globally.

The Gender Smart Investing Summit is taking place during the week when 2018 data will be released from the US Social Investment Forum, Veris Wealth Partners, Wharton Social Impact Initiative (WSII), and Catalyst at Large, each of which give a landscape analysis of investments being made in public and private markets globally.

The programme for the Gender-Smart Investing Summit has been designed to catapult the movement of capital to the next level globally. 300 invite-only participants from 43 countries, who have been carefully selected to ensure maximum impact, took part in interactive sessions structured to maximize collaboration and develop new approaches to applying a gender lens to their investment efforts.

The Gender Smart Investing Summit was co-founded by pioneering gender lens investor and market builder Suzanne Biegel, and UN advisor, impact investor, and best-selling author Darian Rodriguez Heyman, and is presented by Founding Partner, UBS.

The joint UNCDF, UNDP and UN Women global programme, Inclusive and Equitable Local Development (IELD) is a co-sponsor of the event. IELD team will discuss good practices and learning on gender lens investing from on-going projects under the joint programme. “The summit provides a unique opportunity to connect with gender lens investing pioneers as well as to position our ongoing initiatives that aim to increase investments for women’s economic empowerment in some of the least developed regions around the world.” Samina Anwar, IELD Programme Manager, UNCDF.