Who We Are
PHOTO : ETHIOPIAN HORTICULTURE PRODUCER EXPORTERS ASSOCIATION (EHPEA)
About Us
The Fund’s origin story was shaped by a group of forward-looking organizations and companies searching for a long-term and systemic response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on women and women workers.
This unique group of foundations, women’s funds, civil society organizations, and companies came together to explore innovative solutions for women’s health and well-being and thus economic resilience in that unprecedented time.
The group decided to focus on long-term systemic change and the economic resilience of women and supply chain communities. And it decided that a new pooled fund could do so best by investing in women leaders and women-led organizations and addressing women’s safety and health as essential to d economic resilience.
Women’s participation in the economy and public life is dependent on their ability to make their own decisions for their life and future. Health and safety are essential to their agency and wellbeing.
Like the pandemic, climate risks are now deepening systemic inequities. They are having disproportionate impacts on women and women workers, which are the backbone of supply chain communities. Environmental changes have increased gender-based violence, harmed reproductive and family health, increased unpaid care work for women, and reduced economic opportunities.
The Fund is providing a model for new and more effective ways to support resilience in global value chains. Through its emphasis on pooled funding, learning by doing and cross-sectoral dialogue, it has provided a roadmap for the new approaches to corporate philanthropy and community engagement. These approaches shift power in grantmaking, reimagine ways to measure impact, and funnel resources to those on the front line of building community resilience.
This trust-based, democratized model to giving and engagement builds on the work of women’s funds that have blazed this trail for many years. The Fund has listened and learned from them and is a leader in further developing this model for the corporate and private philanthropy space.